Latifa Echakhch studied at the art academies of Grenoble, Paris-Cergy, and Lyon. Now based in Switzerland, Eckakhch is concerned with the concept of culture as well as personal and collective memory in between the poles of social and political debate. Her work often features installations that make use of a wide variety of materials, such as brick and raw earth, which she mixes with ink.
This book is part of the new On Words series that presents conversations with contemporary women artists. Through them, readers come to understand the sources from which they draw inspiration, the themes in their work, and their view of the world. Edited by Julie Enckell, Federica Martini, and Sarah Burkhalter and bringing together a wide range of viewpoints, the On Words series adds a new narrative to polyphonic art history as told by those who actively shape it.

Text in English and French.

Julius Baer, established in Zurich in 1890, is the leading Swiss wealth management group and an icon of Swiss banking tradition. For nearly as long, the founder family has been engaged in supporting visual and performing arts and in 1981, on the initiative of Hans J. Bär (1927-2011), the company began to build its own collection of contemporary art, guided by a firm belief that art in a business environment enhances the culture of discussion and is inspirational to employees and clients alike. Today, the Julius Baer Art Collection comprises more than 5,000 works in a range of media painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video-by Swiss artists, internationally renowned ones as well as emerging talents.

This book offers a survey of the collection that is on rotating display at the bank’s offices around the world and highlights its origins and development over the past four decades. Artistic positions of 35 contemporary Swiss artists, such as John M Armleder, Silvia Bächli, Miriam Cahn, Lutz & Guggisberg, Markus Raetz, Shirana Shahbazi, and Roman Signer, are introduced through brief texts and illustrated with some 300 works from the collection.

This book, illustrated with rare and original documents, tells the story of FARM PROD, a Brussels collective of cosmopolitan street artists. About 20 years ago, a few graphic communication students decided to share a working and living space by settling in an isolated farmhouse that would soon become a buzzing hive of creativity. This was the birth of one of the most original formations in urban art in recent years. From squats to artists’ studios, we follow the progress of a close-knit team capable of regularly reinventing itself to meet the challenges of an artistic career that moves from spontaneous art to official commissions, without ever losing its singular aesthetic, its sense of friendship or its taste for celebration.

Text in English and French.

An extensive publication with numerous illustrations titled Healing: Life in Balance is being published to accompany and exhibition at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt. The book presents all the participating international artists in personal conversations on the topic of healing and, based on the museum’s collection, expands the ethnological view to include interdisciplinary perspectives by international scholars and activists. The book opens up a polyphonic dialogue and offers possibilities for designing postcolonial, global coexistence and a healthy life in balance.

Artists: Marina Abramović, La Vaughn Belle, Elena Bernabè, Roberta Carvalho, Magnus Døvigen, Alejandro Durán, Marco del Fiol, Ayrson Heráclito, Feliciano Lana, Naziha Mestaoui, Michael O’Neill, Roldán Pinedo.

JAPAN. Bodies, Memories, Visions brings together over 90 works in photography and videos by 16 contemporary Japanese artists, offering a rich and nuanced view of the current Japanese visual culture. Traversing memory and identity, body, reality, and imagination, this book dwells on the relationship between past and present, intimacy and social space, perception and imagination.

Created by internationally recognised masters and emerging artists, the selected works generate a dialogue between tradition and change, engaging with issues of gender, collective memory, everyday life, and global transformations, in an ongoing exchange between local perspectives and shared horizons.

Artists: Yoko Asakai, Noriko Hayashi, Naoki Ishikawa, Keijiro Kai, Rinko Kawauchi, Futoshi Miyagi, Aya Momose, Yurie Nagashima, Sakiko Nomura, Tokihiro Sato, Susumu Shimonishi, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Risaku Suzuki, Ryoko Suzuki, Daisuke Yokota, Tomoko Yoneda.

Text in English and Italian. 

“It’s very hard for me to accept that Sukita-san has been snapping away at me since 1972, but that really is the case. I suspect that it’s because whenever he’s asked me to do a session, I conjure up in my mind’s eye the sweet, creative and big-hearted man who has always made these potentially tedious affairs so relaxed and painless. May he click into eternity.” – David Bowie

For Sukita, the creative mastermind behind the iconic cover for David Bowie’s album ‘Heroes’, photography is an expression of a ‘fundamental secret’ shared between artists: a spiritual communication that transcends the minutiae of language. Born and raised in Kyushu, Japan, Sukita’s reverence of American and Western counter-culture lured him to New York and London. He immersed himself in the western music scene which he loved, while his relaxed photo sessions endeared him to many celebrity figures, including David Bowie and Iggy Pop (with both of whom Sukita had a 40-year long professional relationship), Marc Bolan, and Japanese musician Hotei, best known for his work on the Kill Bill soundtrack. His work spans the early US and UK seventies rock scene, the London punk-rock era to the present crop of emerging Japanese rock artists.

This photo book is the first time the photographer has collaborated on a major retrospective of his career and includes some of his early documentary work and his rarely-seen travel and street photography. It introduces the artist through two essays that explore his place within the wider context of both Western and Japanese photography, presented alongside the many iconic shots of both Western and Japanese artists that earned him his eternal reputation.