GHAVA {Press}

HAVA{Press} was part of Graphic Havoc, a visual agency (shortened to GHAVA) co foundered by Sadek Bazaraa in the 1990's GHAVA with its core team of four creative minds, provided art and creative direction, graphic design, brand identity development, and moving image direction for live action and animation that spanned multiple technologies and media outlets. Their collective worked across a broad spectrum of industries, including consumer electronics, telecommunications, health care, publishing, music, education, finance, retail, and fashion. GHAVA ended in 2014.

GHAVA Press was their Brooklyn based, independent publishing platform for both emerging and established artists. This was their website for a number of years. This page has been created from the site's archived pages as well as outside sources.

Take a nostalgic visit back to when GHAVA Press was active.

GHAVA Press Releases 2002-2009

After gaining 12 years experience creating printed matter for commercial clients, the agency decided to apply its love and understanding of the medium to the publishing of unique, limited edition books featuring select artists

Sadek Bazaraa is a multi-media artist and designer working in the realms of art direction, commercial design and fine art. As one of the founding partners of the seminal direction and design studio GHAVA, Bazaraa has over 18 years experience working within the overlap of art and design on numerous commercial projects for clients such as IBM, Google, Current TV, Nokia, powerHouse Books, Warp Records, and Mtv. Go to his website to see his most current work: sadekbazaraa.com/.

Bazaraa’s recent visual acuity is deeply rooted in esoteric and symbolic form. Drawing from a variety of traditions both ancient and avant-garde, from physics to occult ideologies, Bazaraa’s work often seeks to crystallize those fleeting moments where the mysterious, sacred,and psychedelic merge seamlessly with the sleek deliberateness of modern design.

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GHAVA{Press} Releases

ISBN: 0 9716702 0 x
The Elizabeth Kent Story
GRAPHIC HAVOC
avisualagency
Free Download
Original cost $30.00
5.625" x 7.0"s
PDF - Original: Paperback 2002
130 color pages
Limited edition run: 1,000

Available for the first time ever! We are offering a free digital download of the first book self published by GH avisualagency, formerly Graphic Havoc. The Elizabeth Kent Story was published in 2002 with a limited and numbered run of 1000: SOLD OUT.

Compiled between 1999 and 2002, The Elizabeth Kent Story is a collection of pages, both individual and collaborative, from the members of GH avisualagency. The original book was printed as a limited and hand numbered edition of 1000. The printing was done by The Thomas and Bohannon Printing Company on their 2 color ryobi press (the original book was printed in 6 colors. phew.) We hope that you enjoy this glimpse into our early publishing endeavor.

BIO: GH avisualagency (formerly known as Graphic Havoc) is an artist collective working in design, direction and strategy, based in Brooklyn, NY. Founded in Atlanta, GA in 1994, the group of five artists works within the overlap of art and commerce to explore the collaborative process and its effects on both fine art and commercial projects. Each member pursues his own individual artistic goals then brings that experience to bear on the collaborative projects within the framework of the group.

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2006

Second Place

First Release
Jody Fausett, with forward by Bret Busch
9.5 x 12 inches
Hardback September 2007
120 color pages
Limited edition run: 3000

"J. Penry's work encompasses sexuality, the media, popular culture, and nostalgia, functioning as a reflection of himself and his generation. His sometime pornographic subject matter is almost satirical and is of vital sociological importance."

- Annie Ok, curator

Penry's bold line drawings are unabashed and distinct, vaguely reminiscent of Pettibon, but with a sly whimsy all their own. His artwork for numerous prominent NYC bands, such as Fiery Furnaces, Blood On The Wall, Panthers, and Love As Laughter, as well as his discriminating taste in sportswear, have made him one of the most renown figures of the current creative vanguard. In a fitting collaboration, GHava{Press} has chosen Penry to be the premier entrant in what will be a quarterly series of limited edition, collectible publications that will take an artist-by-artist approach to covering the best of both established and emerging creative talent. BIO: Stephen J. Penry was born in 1977 the year of our Lord. Was raised in the church in a Southern Baptist family. He drew Garfield the cat when he was six, naked ladies at 14 and naked men at 24. J is sexually attracted to confidence, popularity and arrogance. J considers pornography more important than hanging with friends. J has made some pretty good friends despite his predilection for masturbation. J also believes in God because he feels guilty talking to his mother on the phone. J would like to close on a good note. He got miracle tickets to the protest on Saturday and that's awesome because he has not seen Soundgarden in a long time.

SBN: 0 9716702 1 8

Castles and Christians

J. Penry, with forward by Jeffrey Jensen
$24.00
6.625" x 8.875"
Paperback, Gatefolded Cover
September 16, 2006 96 color pages
Limited edition run: 1,200

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2007

GHava{Press} Follow

Castles and Christians special event Jan. 25, 2007

GHava{Press}, Iheart, and Wildcat special event celebrating the release of Castles and Christians by J. Penry. DJs Andy MacLeod and Johnny Rad with special guest performance by Cheeseburger. Thursday, January 25th at Iheart (262 Mott Street between Prince and Houston). Drinks generously provided by Dewars.

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2008

MISSPENT YOUTH OR:WHY I SPENT MY SUMMERS INDOORS

David Merten
$20.00
8.5" x 11.0"
Paperback
August 11, 2008
200 B&W pages

It's an epic meditation on intangibility."
- Patrick Bateman

"It stinks on fucking hot ice."
- Cheech

MISSPENT YOUTH OR: WHY I SPENT MY SUMMERS INDOORS is a collection of 200 re-purposed film stills designed to juxtapose the similarities of very different films.

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Darkening

Randall J Lane
$2.00
7.0" x 8.5"
Photocopied zine
2008
28 B&W pages

 

Darkening is an attempt at a return to immediacy.

After many years obsessing about and carefully laying out pages for book projects as well as over thinking client driven work, Randall felt an urge to create something with as little second guessing and editing as possible. To use a beloved old school independent publishing platform, the zine, as the outlet for some random photographs and doodles.

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2009

analogue

Cameron Martin
Texts by Martha Schwendener & Alexander Dumbadze<
$40.00
7.25 x 9.50 inches
Hardback
April 01, 2009
144 pages
Limited edition run: 1,500
ISBN: 978-0-9716702-3-5

BIO: Cameron Martin is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe and Japan and has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including a solo show at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 2006 and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. His work is included in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others. He is represented by Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York. Purposely overlapping the traditional categories of artist book and monograph, analogue is an amalgam of images that forms a visual account of what motivates artist Cameron Martin’s methodology and production. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson has called Martin’s paintings “cultural signifiers, contemporary icons that stand for deep-running collective urges, like the fantasy of an intimate connection with nature.” The book’s non-hierarchical layout positions appropriated advertisements, travel snapshots, found images and studio pictures alongside reproductions of actual paintings and drawings, providing a complex view of the artist’s thinking about representation of the contemporary landscape. Martha Schwendener’s text comparing the process of writing about art to the act of painting, and Alexander Dumbadze’s essay examining extreme relationships between man and nature in the 60s and 70s, add further germane material to this unusual and remarkable volume.

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I remember analogue very well since I took it with me when I went on a vacation in the Hawaiian Islands with the woman who would become my wife the following year. Not only are the images stunning, but some of the accompanying text is truly compelling. I especially loved Martin's observations concerning the meaning of "nothing" as interpreted by the ancient philosophers, who were able to logically argue both the existence of God as well as the opposite in their scholarly writings. But he also points to Rev Sale's treatise "In Search of Nothing" as a great example of modern thought, an examination of both the ancient and contemporary views on existentialism and beyond. Somehow, discussions regarding the meaning of "nothing" make perfect sense when viewed through the lens of his paintings and discourse. Throughout our vacation in paradise I kept a mental note that continued to remind me of Sale's cutting humor combined with revelation of semantic impotence when confronted with ideas that have intrigued us since the birth of civilization. Maui will do that to you. We spent 2 gorgeous weeks enjoying the amazing white and black sand beaches, snorkeling, watching the sun rise atop the Haleakala Crater with its alien landscape, driving the twisting Hana road and hiking to wild coastline and stunning waterfalls. The memorable photographs and artwork found in the pages of analogue were perfectly suited to enjoy during our Maui stay. They inspired me to take some incredible photographs of my own. So thank you Cameron Martin and GHAVA Press for publishing this book.

GHAVAPress.com