Contemporary And (C&) is a dynamic platform for reflecting and connecting ideas and discourses on contemporary art from Africa and its global diaspora. C& Magazine publishes weekly features, columns, reviews, and interviews in English and French. C& América Latina Magazine (C& AL) focuses on the connections between Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. 2023 marks a special year for C& as the platform has turned ten! All that it holds. Tout ce qu’elle renferme. Tudo o que ela abarca. Todo lo que ella alberga brings together a selection of texts from the two online magazines’ living archives and gives insight into pivotal discussions and issues related to contemporary art in an African context.
Authors: Sandra Benites, Adriana Bustos, Dagara Dakin, Gürsoy Doğtaş, Keyna Eleison, Fairygawdzad, N’Goné Fall, Sheila Feruzi, Will Furtado, Thuli Gamedze, Camila Gonzatto, Mia Harrison, Russel Hlongwane, Mwangi Hutter, Ruth Ige, Kapwani Kiwanga, Yina Jiménez Suriel, Mokia Laisin, Prof. Peju Layiwola, Renée Akitelek Mboya, Jota Mombaça, Sabrina Moura, Angela Muritu, Enos Nyamor, Folakunle Oshun, Heriberto Paredes, Samera Paz, Marie Hélène Pereira, Natalie Perkof, Astarte Posch, Faith Ringgold, Leslie Rose, Theresa Sigmund, Suzana Sousa, Ethel Tawe, Ozolua Uhakheme, Raquel Villar-Pérez.
Text in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Things That Cannot Be Put Into Words is an artist’s book written by Marie-Sophie Beinke and published by M-S B Verlag and HOPPER&FUCHS (originally published in German in 2021 by M-S B Verlag) and five translations of the same book as paperback editions. This publishing project consists of a mainly blank book, open to every possible idea and image. Things, that cannot be put into words: What has disappeared, the snatched away, the absent, the nothingness, the void are made present. Space for the thinkable, where words fail. An artist’s book that openly invites readers to critical thinking, dialogue and debate.
In That’s Brutal, What’s Modern: The Smithsons, Banham, and the Mies-Image, Mark Linder offers a new understanding of New Brutalism as a consequential, generative, and still pertinent episode in the history of imaging practices in architecture. His core thesis is that the most distinct identity and enduring influence of New Brutalism resides in Alison and Peter Smithson’s fitful and evolving fifty-year fascination with the imaging potential they found in the work of Mies van der Rohe.
In four chapters and around 50 image arrays, the book progresses from historical research to theoretical speculations on the legacy and potential of the Smithsons’ New Brutalism and their pursuit of the “Mies-Image.” The chapters situate New Brutalism in the context of emerging theories, practices, and cultures of imaging in postwar Britain, trace the Smithsons’ imaging practices and the appearances of the Mies-Image as it evolves in their projects and publications over five decades, reconsider Reyner Banham’s evaluations of Mies and his role in New Brutalism, and explore imaging theory and its potential to re-evaluate the significance of New Brutalism.
This book will appeal to a broad audience among architects, students of architecture, and those with a serious interest in modernist and contemporary architecture, but also among scholars in multiple academic fields including architectural and art history, visual studies, media studies, and photography.
From the technologically revolutionary to the downright ridiculous, this collection of concise musings documents the varied and often humorous relationships humans have developed with members of the plant kingdom.
These pithy stories span species celebrated as tribal fodder to delicacies elevated as some of our most valued possessions, from the ultimate symbols of devotion and love to campaigns that resulted in genocide, revolt and the shaping of the global political landscape, demonstrating a relationship between humans and the plant kingdom as broad, wonderful, and strange as the plants themselves.
Working from his Urbana practice in Bangladesh, Kashef Chowdhury designs architecture that is rooted in the history and nature of its location – whereby the latter also relates to a spiritual and cultural level. This explains his fascination for Kahn’s parliamentary building in Dhaka, which inspired this volume of photo essays.
Kahn’s design is characterised by an innovative architectural language that combines western and eastern traditions, forms and materials. For instance, in view of the great importance of water in Bengali tradition, he placed the building complex by an artificial lake. Furthermore, although it is defined by strict geometrical forms, the parliamentary building reflects the transcendental nature of the National Assembly, defining the hopeful founding years of the independent state of Bangladesh.
A visual journey through two centuries of history: this book collects 100 iconic photographs that captured crucial moments in human history. From world wars to space exploration, civil rights movements to climate change, each image is a window into the past, present, and even a possible future. Taken by legendary photographers or anonymous witnesses of their time, these pictures showcase the powerful storytelling ability of photography as a tool of collective memory. A striking, emotional, and visually rich volume—this updated edition of a bestselling classic brings history into sharp focus for today’s readers.
When This You See… is a series of 31 artworks in the medium of embroidery, made between 1996 and 1999, by the American artist Elaine Reichek. All of these beautiful images are reproduced here in full colour and three appear in spectacular gatefolds. traditional samplers dating from the mid- seventeeth to the early-eighteenth century. Created by girls and women as an educational exercise and as a pastime, samplers generally framed truisms, homilies, amd lessons within decorative patterns and motifs. In When This You See…, Reichek replaces these familiar sayings with quotations from mythology, literature, science, art history, and popular culture, to witty and pointed effect. Most of the quotations relate to the arts of weaving, knitting, or embroidery, but the astonishing results range far more widely, operating as social critique, as commentary on the relations between the sexes, and as a challenge. Extending and clarifying that challenge, Reichek punctuates the sequence of the samplers with a number of embroideries derived from works by well-known contemporary artists. Humourous and sophisticated, her art is also visually gorgeous.
Wherever You Find People captures the compelling story of the Integrated Centres of Public Education (CIEP) in the Brazilian city and federal state of Rio de Janeiro. This unique but relatively obscure experimental educational project is a prime example of socially driven public architecture and a testament to ambition and forward thinking. The CIEPs were conceived in 1982 by Rio’s State Governor Leonel Brizola (1922-2004), the anthropologist, author and politician Darcy Ribeiro (1922-97), and the eminent architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). Today a network of 508 CIEPs covers the entire state of Rio wherever you find people, you will find a CIEP. This new book is based on extensive interviews with key protagonists and richly illustrated with original sketches and annotated drawings from the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation archive, alongside visuals by Aberrant Architecture. It also features new essays illustrating how architecture can embrace the constraints and conditions of the modern world and engage creatively with the reality of today’s social, political, legislative and economic boundaries. Wherever You Find People contributes to a wider architectural discourse about the links between education, design and school building.
How can you stay relevant for your customers? The answer is a combination of the following three factors: technology, personal involvement and social commitment. The past ten years have been marked by the arrival of 4G, mobile services, and robotics. These technologies have brought about a revolution in the field of customer experience and in the future, this will evolve even further. As a company, you will have to take a more active part in the personal life journey of your customers. This opens up the opportunity to tackle, together with your customer, concrete social world problems, including climate change, mobility, and health care. Customers increasingly seek out companies that do good for both themselves, and the world.
Architecture is commonplace. We inhabit it and use it; it is constantly present; it serves as foreground and background and usually has a story to tell. Numerous volumes are devoted to its typology, history, construction, and design. But apart from its most illustrious makers, we know almost nothing about the people who conceived it: the architects. What Kind of Architect Are You?, the question most architects encounter when they reveal their profession, is difficult to answer.
What Kind of Architect Are You? showcases a panoply of architectural practices to a reading audience that shares an interest in the profession. Topics range from the theoretical to design build, from installations that challenge our preconceptions to the set of TV shows on home remodelling, from instructing future architects in the US to expanding the reach of the profession worldwide.
The collection offers a glimpse into a vast array of professional possibilities and points out meaningful alternatives to the prevailing myth of the ‘starchitect’. It provides those in search of an architect with insights into how we work and helps them to formulate expectations. It challenges practitioners to think introspectively and examine how they fit into the architectural spectrum. And finally, the collection documents the cross-section of cultural and architectural practice across America.
The reader may find that the ‘voice’ varies throughout the collection. That variation is consistent with the variety of architects included in fact, it underscores the myriad of responses to What Kind of Architect Are You?
“It’s about the underlying impulse that goes into perceiving a photographic moment and the techniques that support both this perception and the process of capturing these instances in a manner that is not just technically adept, but creatively original.” —D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
This book is a visual feast, an offering both for those who love fine art and those who recognise the thought behind its creation. It is in addition, a book for photographers seeking to learn how to make their own photographs more artistic.
The goal of this book is to offer readers a guide for those seeking to take fine, interpretive photographs and a joyful thought-provoking journey that the photographs in this book will inspire.
What are your chances of living through the next 24 hours? This week? This month? This decade? Will your job kill you? Your car kill you? Your spouse kill you? Will your own bad habits kill you? Or will a rogue asteroid just kill us all?
Each time you lay your head on the pillow at night or set your feet on the floor come morning, you bet your life. Exactly what odds do you face 24/7?
You Bet Your Life applies to you, the individual, the analytical approach insurance companies use to calculate risk: actuarial science. The result is a comprehensive, encyclopedic, real world assessment of more than 1,000 of the risks we take every day of our all-too-finite lives, from boarding an airplane to tempting a shark attack by dipping a toe in the ocean.
You Bet Your Life is introduced by an authoritative essay explaining how professional actuaries calculate risk and how less objective entities—in government, finance, science, technology, and religion—apply their own competing calculi of risk and reward.
David Remfry MBE RA has long been fascinated by the relationships that develop between dogs and their owners. In this charming new book, his deft portraits in watercolour and gouache reveal the mutual understanding and sympathy of these partnerships. Many of his portraits are accompanied by sketches from the artist’s many notebooks alongside brief accounts by his sitters of how dog and owner came to find each other. Remfry’s lively watercolours and sketches illustrate such celebrities as Ethan Hawke (and Nina), Susan Sarandon (and Penny and Rigby) and Alan Cumming (and Honey). Some of the sitters were Remfry’s neighbours at the iconic Chelsea Hotel in New York.
With lyrical rhymes, this charming board book describes the sleeping habits of over a dozen animals, including species both common and rare, from ducklings to sloths, bats to giraffes. With its gentle rhymes and sweet, soothing pictures Are You Sleeping, Little One? is the perfect way for little ones (and parents!) to end the day.
Little Tim is the central character for this innovative series that speaks both to parents and their little ones. Each of the first four books in the series deals with a fundamental problem that might affect three- to five-year olds: fear, especially of the dark, anger and aggression that are frightening and difficult to manage, jealousy, perhaps due to the arrival of a new family member and the shyness that makes it difficult to face new situations such as the first day of nursery school. The book’s point of view makes it unique. It speaks directly to the reader, describing a problem and providing five small, simple solutions to help face it. All of the points are imaginative and written using language suitable to the targeted age group with examples taken from the child’s daily life that he or she can actually put into practice. At the end of every book, parents will find reflections and behaviours in a section dedicated to them because sometimes, parents find these situations just as hard as their children do and sometimes, even harder. Ages: 3 plus
Little Tim is the central character for this innovative series that speaks both to parents and their little ones. Each of the first four books in the series deals with a fundamental problem that might affect three- to five-year olds: fear, especially of the dark, anger and aggression that are frightening and difficult to manage, jealousy, perhaps due to the arrival of a new family member and the shyness that makes it difficult to face new situations such as the first day of nursery school. The book’s point of view makes it unique. It speaks directly to the reader, describing a problem and providing five small, simple solutions to help face it. All of the points are imaginative and written using language suitable to the targeted age group with examples taken from the child’s daily life that he or she can actually put into practice. At the end of every book, parents will find reflections and behaviours in a section dedicated to them because sometimes, parents find these situations just as hard as their children do and sometimes, even harder. Ages: 3 plus
The story of this book, through its interactive flaps, was inspired by the studies of Paul Ekman, thanks to which we can recognise 6 fundamental activities: Recognising the emotions, Feeling empathy, Trusting, Socialising, Pondering & Identifying. A short story in which the ability developed is Feeling: the protagonists are children aged around 4 years, of various ethnic groups and physical characteristics, which reflect on the different components that emotions have, thus becoming a useful tool for working on emotional education. Ages: 3 to 5
A gem of a book that stays with you long after you have finished it. Edvard Munch wrote continuously; letters, diaries, literary texts and other notes. In Like a Ghost I Leave You you will find striking statements about art versus nature, enemies, money, death and much more. – “Had I been in Possession of the as yet undiscovered little Remote telephone which one carries around in one’s Pocket You would have long ago received Communications from me”- Undated draft of a letter to Jens Willumsen.
Through a selection of Edvard Munch works the Norwegian award-winning author Lene Ask invites children of all ages to draw and be creative together with Munch. The book has texts by Ask accompanied by exercises that are related to Munch’s way of experimenting and encourage children to participate in the wonderful world of Munch’s art. Design by Aslak Gurholt, one of Norway’s most renowned and award-winning book designers.
Ages 8+
Shot over three years from 2019 to 2022, Thank You For Playing With Me by Yolanda Y. Liou is an intimate look at two plus-size models, Enam Ewura Adjoa Asiama and Vanessa Russell. Liou first came across Asiama’s Instagram in 2019 and was blown away by her confidence and charisma. It was the type of confidence that Liou struggled to have about her own body due to her upbringing in Taiwan. “Growing up in Taiwan, I was consistently exposed to the relentless beauty standards that prioritised being skinny… This obsession led me to believe that I was never beautiful enough, and consequently, I felt unworthy of love. I constantly sought ways to conform, believing that only then would I be accepted and appreciated.” Liou’s main aim with this photo book is to help people embrace their individuality.
“THANK YOU BYE was born out of a need to put down somewhere what I have experienced over the last five years. Although it gives the impression of a veil being lifted, it is simply a record of my personal experience. The intention, through these hundreds of photos, is to transcribe the absurd, crazy and little-known world of modelling, by means of an unpublished souvenir album of my time spent in fashion. The result is THANK YOU BYE, which owes its name to the phrase uttered by casting directors every time you walk in front of them. It recounts my moments of sadness, my anxieties, my unease, my questions, but also our laughter, our travels, our togetherness, our mutual support. Five years during which I fought not to lose myself. Thrown at the age of 18 at a speed I found hard to manage into a dimension that was not my own, I embrace all the models who ‘pose’ in this book and who, without realising it, helped me to escape. What you hold in your hands is none other than the last chance to prove that I was still worth something. When you turn the last page, you’ll know that I’ve resigned and can finally say that I’m happy.” – Clémentine Balcaen
The stomach is not only the way to the heart. In a humorous way, the cookbook by Gabriele Edlbauer and Julia S. Goodman, two artists living and working in Vienna, addresses complex feelings and hard truths through chicken recipes. Similar to Engagement Chicken, published by US cookbook author Ina Garten, the 18 recipes in If You Can’t Say It with Words, Say It with Chicken are designed to help readers communicate emotionally difficult announcements.
In developing the book, the authors were inspired by their very different cultural backgrounds. Julia Goodman’s ancestors were mostly Eastern European Jews who emigrated to the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. Gabriele Edlbauer on the other hand grew up on an organic farm in the predominantly Catholic Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria. The artists worked together to create not only the recipes, but also the props, sculptures, and tableware. In order to highlight the emotions associated with these dishes, the meals were staged in various culinary locations, some of them very unconventional: for example, in a sterile doctor’s surgery in Vienna or in a friend’s dimly lit bathroom.
The result is a book filled with emotional recipes. Accompanied by creative serving suggestions, it invites you to express yourself through chicken!
This major retrospective catalogue accompanies the first institutional exhibition focusing on the visual works of art by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke. The majority of the paintings, drawings and digital works were specifically made for Yorke’s internationally celebrated band Radiohead, formed in Oxford in 1985. The book is beautifully designed in the same size as a record cover and features iconic artworks from the 1980s until today, relating to Radiohead albums, their covers and promotional band images, as well as sketchbooks and rare materials from their archives that have never before been published. It offers fresh views on the art of album covers, exploring the complex relationship between visual art and music.
Radiohead was formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The collaboration with the artist Stanley Donwood began in 1994 when the band was developing their second album, The Bends, which was released on 13th March, 1995. 2025 is therefore the 40-year anniversary of the band and the 30-year anniversary of the release of The Bends. The catalogue’s focus is upon the art produced by both Stanley Donwood and the band’s lead vocalist, Thom Yorke presented chronologically. Radiohead’s popularity has never waned and they have a strong core following and new fans (many of who are the children of ‘original’ fans).
The high-quality reproductions are complemented by exclusive interviews with the artists, and essays by Alex Farquharson, Nico Kos Earle, Benjamin Myers, James Putnam and Jennifer Ramkalawon.
A major retrospective is held at the Ashmolean Museum from August 2025 to January 2026.
For many years the artist Rachel Lee Hovnanian has been analysing the drifts of our hyper-technological and hyper-connected society. She presented at the 59th Venice Biennale, Angels Listening, an interactive exhibition featuring seven large-scale bronze angels staged around a silver confessional box, each figure rendered in silence with its mouth “taped” shut.
Viewers were invited to participate by relinquishing their innermost thoughts, whether repressed due to fear of judgement or sheer inability, by writing them onto pieces of ribbon, placing these ribbons into The Cathartic Box, and ringing the awakening bell, a symbol of the role of the angels as mute listeners.
At the end of each day all of the new messages were compiled onto prayer-like mats and dispersed throughout the exterior gardens for future visitors to encounter and share as a collective stream-of-consciousness.
This book shares those messages. In listening to these stories, perhaps it is people who become the angels listening.