Very few people know what it feels like to drive the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Coupé – aptly nicknamed ‘Gullwing’ – that graces the cover of Iconic Classic Cars. Photographer Kevin van Campenhout has access to some of the rarest classic cars in the world and travels to every corner of the globe to photograph them in carefully selected settings, both natural and urban. Discover a super sleek 1974 Lamborghini Countach Periscope, a Porsche 550 Spyder – the first sports car the brand ever built; a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 – widely believed to be one of the most beautiful cars in the world; and many more. Photographed ‘up close and personal’ in Kevin Van Campenhout’s signature style and expertly described by journalist/car specialist Yan Alexandre Damasiewicz, these rare and classic cars unveil their secrets in this stunning new book.

In 2015, a volume in the Anthologie series was published on the buildings by this Lucerne architect, who is originally from the Upper Valais region. Since then, many further projects and an impressive number of new buildings have followed. They all demonstrate a respectful, gentle further development of the settlements and locations. The Kronengasse building in Sempach is exemplary: in it, the architect seeks a connection between traditional anonymous construction and a sophisticated finesse in designing the building.

Text in English and German.

The 10 principles of good design set out by Dieter Rams in 1995 has influenced and inspired a new generation of designers in search of the perfect balance between practicality, simplicity and aesthetics.

What does good design mean in the 21st century? How have the 10 principles influenced modern design? In this book, established and emerging designers tell us how they understand and put these rules into practice thereby contributing to the definition of what good design in the 21st century means, according to the criteria defined by Rams.

The book showcases contemporary products from around the globe; a host of work by iconic designers, such as NENDO, NERI & HU, LARA BOHINC and so on.

Appreciation of the works by the German artist couple Annelies and Fred Stelzig from Besigheim in the discipline of art made for architecture has been a long time coming. To mark the 100th anniversary of them both, the town of Besigheim has made this its task. For the large retrospective, a publication is launched that focuses on the incredible breadth of their production for the very first time. Waiting to be discovered alongside wall ceramics and carpets are works in wood, glass, and enamel. Numerous contributions by authoritative experts present the personal backgrounds of the couple, trace lines of development, and highlight the material specificities of their works. Over 300 illustrations additionally provide a lively impression of the couple’s ability to be versatile yet at the same time retain continuity during their long creative period, from the 1950s to their last work in 2006.

With contributions by Christian Behrer, Dieter Büchner, Christiane Fülscher, Sabine Gärttling, Inken Gaukel, Regina Ille-Kopp, Andreas Janssen, Cornelia Marinowitz, Martha Pflug-Grunenberg, and Sandy Richter.
Text in German.

The international pioneer of media art Richard Kriesche is dedicated to visual, artistic research. He bases his work on the most diverse of mediums, from painting to video art, in order to explore the revolutions in media, information, and digitisation that have taken place over the last 50 years as well as their influences on our daily lives. He conceives of man, technology, the social, and the political together and in doing so develops an utterly individual perspective on our society. Based on the artist’s works from the last six decades, the publication shows how human life can be permanently shaped and informed. This book focuses on art as an interface between man and a reality that is continually updating itself—shift of time in present times.

Text in English and German.

Hermann Nitsch, born in Vienna in 1938, is a co-founder of Viennese Actionism, and one of the international pioneers of the Performance Art Movement. This Austrian universal artist’s world-famous painting actions have made a major contribution to the development of art post 1945.

More than 90 of these painting actions have been staged thus far, the most recent were held at the Bayreuth Festival in the summer of 2021 to accompany a new production of the opera The Valkyrie. Nitsch’s 20th painting action took place at the Vienna Secession in 1987 and is the only instance in which the artist’s action works have remained fully available. This is probably Nitsch’s most important integrated work of this kind. It symbolises his extraordinary artistic development and constitutes an unrepeatable contemporary document which exudes an international radiance.

Twenty-five years of smart cars. The anniversary is the reason for this beautifully illustrated book. With entertaining and visionary stories, inspiring art, and memories of the brand’s automotive milestones, this book provides surprising insights into the smart world.

This book is a passionate, creative and above all unconventional homage to the brand.

The publication Two Lakes is the result of a comparative study of two cultural regions – Lake Lucerne in Switzerland and Lake Biwa in Japan. Based on the results of a five-year cooperation entitled The Culture of Water (2018–2023) between the Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture and the Kyoto Institute of Technology, it engages with the architecture of the future. Addressing the core themes of danger, beauty, commons and eternity – and their according relationships to water – it develops hypotheses on both regions with respect to the interdependence between people and the architecture they produce. The book is rounded off by in-depth articles, two photographic essays and archive documents. 

From 1958 to 1973 the Young Art Circle of Fulda (JUKU) was intensively engaged with post-war modernist art. With its mentor Karlfried Staubach almost a hundred exhibitions were carried out that not only enriched the cultural life of the German city of Fulda but shook it up on many occasions. This volume deals not with the reconstruction of regional art and cultural history but rather with the rediscovery of an episode in German post-war art. By way of example are Franz Erhard Walther and Verena Pfisterer, who continued their artistic genesis in JUKU as contemporaries of Beuys, Richter and others at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. The graphic prints published to finance the JUKU gallery, and the exhibition catalogues, designed too with the group’s own print works, are shown in full for the very first time.

Artists include: Karl-Oskar Aha, Rudolf Benz, Karin Boese, Manfred Buse, Dieter Ebert, Erich Fischer, Gertraut Fuchs, Ellinor Giebel, Pedro Herzig, Erhard Imhof, Egon Knapp, Helmut Kopetzky, Jean-Luc Mercié, Oswald Pejas, Verena Pfisterer, Thomas Rücker, Thomas-Peter Schardt, Gisbert Seng, Karlfried Staubach, Robert Sturm, Franz Erhard Walther and Bärbel Zielke.

Text in German, with full English translations in the appendix.

With her unique artistic installations, Madame Tricot – real name Dominique Kaehler Schweizer – displaces the viewer into an illusory world of knitted delicacies. Her smokehouses, refrigerators, counters of sausage and cheese, and platters of vegetables and desserts are full of wit and irony. The knitted human heads and anthropomorphic specimens, on the other hand, confront the viewer with the breaking of taboos and surreal allusions. The installation-like staging represents a balancing act of fine art and virtuosic craftsmanship, and draws on the Eat Art movement of the 1960s. The work of the Swiss artist thus repeatedly awakens associations with the work of Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Roth and Fischli/Weiss.

Text in English and German.

Vessel | Sculpture refers to the direction studio pottery has taken since the mid-20th century, developing from primarily functional vessels to artistically designed vessels, ceramic sculpture, installation and conceptual art. The aim is to trace the history of how ceramics has evolved and developed into an autonomous art medium, which is continually self-renewing. Focused on the GRASSI Museum’s collection of contemporary ceramic work since 1946 when Germany was divided into East and West after the World War II, this book provides a fascinating and instructive overview of developments and trends in the two Germanys. Moreover, a broad-ranging selection of works by ceramicists now active in both the new and the old Federal German states is supplemented by contemporary pieces from all over the world. The publication is devoted to one-off pieces and limited editions from the past six decades. Reproductions in large formats of approximately four hundred selected objects are accompanied by biographies of as many artists and their signatures. Text in English & German.

Artists include: Gordon Baldwin, Richard Bampi, Hedwig Bollhagen, Jan Bontjes van Beek, Hans Cooper, Dieter Crumbiegel, Anne Currier, Ruth Duckworth, Karl Fulle, Walter Gebauer, Ewen Henderson, Gerd Knäpper, Maria Teresa Kuczynska, Beate Kuhn, Bernard Leach, Heidi Manthey, Sonngard Marcks, Gertraud Möhwald, Colin Pearson, Walter Popp, Gilbert Portanier, Renée Reichenbach, Lucie Rie, Antje Scharfe, Karl Scheid, Ursula Scheid, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, Alev Siesbye, Bärbel Thoelke, Jindra Viková, and many more.

The modifier bb Auto, founded in Frankfurt, 1973 by Rainer Buchmann and his brother Dieter, caused a stir in the European and international car scene of the ’80s. Their technical innovations and spectacular design made them stand out from the crowd.

Initially focused on Porsche cars, bb established themselves as a name to be remembered when they presented their Porsche Turbo Targa with prismatic coloured varnish on the Polaroid stand at Fotokina 1976 Cologne. At IAA Frankfurt 1979 they launched bb CW 311, a contemporary modification of the legendary Mercedes 300 SL. Mercedes-Benz was so enthusiastic about the car that they allowed Buchmann to continue using the Mercedes star as a brand logo. During the 1980s, bb was one of the most successful modifiers of production cars. They transformed off-the-line automobiles into bespoke luxury vehicles for those who could afford it – customers from the Arab world, celebrities from the jet-set, and many more…

However Buchmann’s real passion belonged to the area of electronic innovations. The money he earned with his tuning activities was invested into research in this field. He was the first to think about centralised door locking by means of remote control as well as parking distance control and he invented the first car computers. In 1983 his multi-function steering wheel was protected by patent. This comprehensive book, produced in close co-operation with Merck Group, one of the world’s leading chemical companies for whom Buchmann popularised a new and special kind of bright enamel varnish, presents the complete history of Rainer Buchmann’s technical and entrepreneurial achievements.

Since the practical invention of photography in the 1840s, Scotland has been at the centre of the history and development of the medium. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery – which houses the Scottish National Photography Collection – and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, hold outstanding collections of photographic art spanning three centuries. Included are figures such as D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Annan, Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Capa, Bill Brandt, Annie Leibovitz and Andreas Gursky. This book offers a detailed guide to the collections as well as an accessible and informative introduction to photography. This revised edition includes recently commissioned photography and significant new acquisitions, with works by Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Since the dawn of time, people have been fascinated by the idea of travelling to the stars, which is vividly illustrated by utopian and dystopian works of architecture, the visual arts, and cinematography. In many ways, the designs and symbols associated with space travel also found their way into popular culture in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states. Often spurned as propaganda by the West, they informed the design of mass-produced consumer goods and public art works in the USSR. While in our part of the world space travel largely turned into a political race as a result of the Cold War, its appeal found an aesthetic expression in everyday life in the East.

This book presents the results of in-depth research and extensive travels through a total of seven countries. Its prime focus is the impact of space exploration on everyday life in its pioneering age between the late 1950s and the 1980s and the persistence of related concepts and utopian ideas in today’s society. Told as a visual story, it combines artistic and documentary photography, portraits of contemporary witnesses, landscape snapshots, and historical documents. It is in part an historical investigation since many of the pioneers of the space age are no longer alive and many of the formerly ubiquitous items have disappeared.

Text in English and German.

The Hinder/Reimers Collection – which has been owned by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate since 1993 – is one of the most important collections of modern ceramics in Germany. It was built up from the early 1950s through the combined efforts of Jakob Wilhelm Hinder (1901-1976) and Lotte Reimers (* 1932). The focus of this large collection is on West German ceramics from the 1950s to about 1990. Since the mid-1970s it has been enlarged by Lotte Reimers to include outstanding works from outside Germany. These 1,587 objects provide insights into the crucial trends and stylistic movements in art ceramics after the Second World War as represented by the most distinguished ceramicists of the day.

Featuring explanatory texts and colour illustrations, the present publication presents the entire collection and, therefore, goes beyond the scope of Ceramics in Germany 1955-1990. The Hinder/Reimers Collection, published in 1997, which dealt with only a selection of works from the collection. The new publication, on the other hand, draws on the Hinder/Reimers Collection to survey the broad field of developments in studio ceramics in the latter half of the 20th century in western Germany while looking well beyond the borders of Germany.

Text in English and German.

With Impulses, the Gold and Silversmith’s Craft Trust in Schwäbisch Gmünd celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. The book documents the Trust’s extensive achievements and shows highlights from publications, workshops and exhibitions. The main focus lies on the detailed presentation of the sixteen goldsmiths in residence. In 1989 the Trust was the very first German institution to appoint a City Goldsmith and continued to do so every two years. Famous artists like Max Fröhlich, Norman Weber and Deganit Stern Shocken are among the award winners. The outstanding setup of the exemplary works allows new perspectives on the diverse artistic expressions in gold and silver. Text in English and German. Contents: Prologue; TimeSignals; Lectures; Competitions; Exhibitions; Black Box; Karfunkelschein; Workshops; Meetings; Hammerclub; die Stadtgoldschmiede; Max Fröhlich; Nikolaus Kirchner; Johann Müllerperth; Klaus Dieter Eichler; Marianne Schliwinski; Walter Storr; Deganit Stern Schocken; Berthold Hoffmann; Bettina Menrad-Maier; Brigitte Moser; Ulrike Knab; Petra Dömling; Norman Weber; Peter Bauhuis; Paul de Vries; Simone ten Hompel.

In five complementary contributions, recognised authors draw a fascinating and complex picture of contemporary jewellery in the twenty-first century. Through a rich palette of themes, works, reports and concepts from current art practices, they illuminate the conditions and interconnections of education, making, presentation, marketing and networking in design and art using the example of the New Zealand Handshake project. This book will enrich and bring pleasure to all who are interested in the visual arts in their broadest sense! Handshake is a unique mentoring programme in the art world, in which established artists spread their knowledge to less experienced protégés. The knowledge accumulated in this exchange, of a relationship based on feedback, is realised in exhibitions and joint projects. Exhibition at The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (NZ), 5.8. to 3.12.2017. www.http://handshakeproject.com/ https://handshake3.com/

Young Rembrandt concentrates on the first ten years of the career of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Born in Leiden, he trained there with Isaac van Swanenburg and in Amsterdam with Pieter Lastman. After a short stay in Amsterdam he returned to Leiden and set up a studio where he began his extraordinary career, painting scenes from the Bible and classical mythology and history, as well as a handful of genre scenes and portraits. His progress is remarkable: from the earliest hesitant paintings of the Five Senses in about 1624 to the wonderfully assured Jeremiah of 1630 it is almost possible to trace his development and his increasing fluency and self-confidence from month to month and certainly from year to year. Published to accompany exhibitions at the Lakenhal, Leiden from November 2019 to February 2020, then at the Ashmolean Museum from February to June 2020.

Ham explores the world-renowned European ham culture; a fascinating journey from the Spanish Pata Negra to the French Jambon de Bayonne and from the Italian Prosciutto di Parma to the German Schwarzwaldschinken and the Flemish Gandaham. Stefaan Daeninck tells the full story from pig to ham, with meticulous attention to the specific production and maturation processes, as well as the differences in smell, texture, appearance and taste. What’s more, he provides the reader with several delicious recipes, specifically tailored to each kind of ham. Includes additional recipes by Massimo Bottura (chef patron of 3 Michelin starred Osteria Francescana and listed in the top 5 of the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards since 2010, winning the award in 2016) and Geert Van Hecke (chef of 3 Michelin starred De Karmeliet in Bruges).

Photographer, stylist and fashion editor Ferry van der Nat has worked for numerous fashion magazine and brands. Under the name Mr Polaroid, Van der Nat began taking strong sculptural polaroids of male models. What started as a personal project evolved into a great collection of images and a celebration of male beauty. Mr Polaroid’s first ever monograph contains over 200 of his best photographs. With contributions by Gert Jonkers (Fantastic Man) and Alan Prada (l’Uomo Vogue).

This inspiring book of 50 fabulous desserts by chef Roger van Damme and his team is the result of 25 years of hard work at the apex of the culinary world. With a passion for innovation that goes beyond the traditional definition of a pastry chef, van Damme transforms seasonal products into new and original confections, and creates inspired combinations. With an international flair, this book takes us from Belgium to Barcelona, Paris, and beyond.