Sven Kirsten

Urban islands and bamboo hideaways set the stage for a pop culture phenomenon like no other. In mid-century America, the imaginative appeal of Tiki penetrated fashion, music, eating, drinking, and architecture. In handy Bibliotheca Universalis format, Tiki Pop traces the development of Tiki as romantic vision and cultural appropriation. Follow Tiki from James Cook's first Pacific Island expeditions, through Gauguin's...

Palm Springs Tiki presents a visual exploration of a midcentury tropical paradise in the California desert. From the 1930s through the 1970s, Palm Springs and other desert communities embraced the midcentury fantasy of a home-grown Polynesian paradise. The concept of the oasis and that of the tropical island shared the qualities of exotic escapism for the urban dweller, these would-be...