Pettibon is known for his characteristically youthful aesthetic and sharply satirical critique of American culture. Though drenched in cynicism, his work empathizes with the dizzying madness of our own humanity as it engages both so-called high and low culture. Perhaps most poetic of the many motifs present in Pettibon's oeuvre is the surfer. In 1985 Pettibon began Surfers--a series he continues to work on to this day--popular for its depiction of the lone surfer silently carving "a line of beauty," along an impossibly large wave. This publication traces a selection of one hundred surfers from the series, from smaller monochromatic works on paper to colorful large-scale paintings applied directly to the wall. For Pettibon's protagonist in these works-his countercultural hero-surfing exists apart from all else. Momentarily he achieves sublimity on the wave, distant yet synced with turbulent reality. We are forced to confront our own scale: small and feeble in the face of so much sublime power. Pettibon's lyrical writings on these painted surfaces-both his own and taken from literature-reference his own philosophies and the confusions of reality-he critiques the hypocrisies and vanities of the world he engages. To help navigate, the renowned New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan, perfectly distills the transcendent nature and lack thereof in Pettibon's work.

For their tenth anniversary, the design studio Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors presents projects that blend the spirit of our collective history with a modernist edge. Roman and Williams’s style honors craftsmanship, the use of natural materials, and the overlooked in unexpected ways. Their understated, glamorous sensibility is imparted in Manhattan’s Ace Hotel interiors and restaurant The Breslin, The Standard Hotel, with its iconic Boom Boom Room, and the Royalton lobby. For such popular restaurants as The Dutch, the duo created environments with textured backdrops that reference a rich past with a contemporary sensibility. Their innovative work has captured the attention of firms such as Facebook—they recently completed its campus food hall—and their residences for celebrities such as Ben Stiller and Gwyneth Paltrow are equally imaginative. This book surveys the firm’s prestige projects, presented with Alesch’s architectural hand drawings and sketches and detailed views. Also included is their loft and Montauk home, which serve as design laboratories, and a collection of furnishings and fixtures.