This handsomely illustrated book is the first monograph devoted to the work of Joel Perlman (b. 1943), an acclaimed sculptor in steel and bronze, whose works are represented in the permanent collections of America’s top museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Perlman’s best works from the 1970s to the present day — from the austerely abstract Chevy Short (For Jeannie Day), shown at the 1973 Whitney Biennial, to the lyrical Sky Spirit, a monumental commission completed in 2004 — are depicted in here in stunning full-page photographs, most in full color. All readers with an interest in contemporary sculpture will appreciate not only the book’s striking illustrations but also its thoughtfully written text, which relates Perlman’s art to his life.

Author Philip F. Palmedo, drawing on extensive interviews with his subject and his subject’s colleagues, engagingly describes how each chapter of Perlman’s life — from his early days of teaching alongside Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski in the Bennington College art department to his struggle, ultimately very successful, to establish himself in SoHo’s vibrant 1970s art scene — served to strengthen his commitment to his own abstract, Modernist aesthetic. This thoughtful narrative, which seamlessly synthesizes Perlman’s intimate art-world anecdotes and Palmedo’s own keen critical observations, is beautifully complemented by an insightful foreword by renowned art dealer André Emmerich, whose gallery represented Perlman for twenty years.

There are many reasons to plan a visit to The Hague. It is the international city of peace and justice, the only large Dutch city by the sea, one of the greenest cities of the Netherlands, and it boasts a long and rich history.
For this book, Tal Maes listed her 500 favourite places and tips, presenting them in original and interesting lists such as 5 historic houses of famous Dutchmen, 5 fun boat trips, the 5 best spots for Dutch “maatjes” herring, 5 museums around the Binnenhof, the 5 best lifestyle and concept stores, and much more. This guide encourages you to look further than the usual hotspots. Walk to the far end of the beach to find peace and quiet, try a beer from a hidden monastery, discover cutting-edge art in a former power plant. Of the highlights included, lesser-known aspects are revealed.

Climate change poses challenges for human survival and societal development, including frequent urban disasters such as high wave and urban waterlogging, as well as extreme weather events such as sea level rise, floods, tropical storm, wide-range drought, and high temperature in polar regions. Contributed in part by reducing greenhouse gas emission, and also by the means of improving local resilience, the international community have been working on mitigating the uncertain impact of climate change. Against the backdrop of carbon reduction policy such as Carbon Emission Peak and Carbon Neutrality proposed by Chinese government, regional sustainable progress inevitably calls for resilient strategies for human settlements that address local issues upon climate change adaption and resilience theories. Since the impact of climate change on human settlements, risk and resilience assessment methods, and spatial and technological strategies have already broadly studied by international academia, more attention should be taken into research on spatial planning, urban design, landscape design, innovative engineering, emerging technology application, and interdisciplinary perspective to strive to realize the goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality.

To this end, this issue expects to discuss the resilient strategies adaptive to climate change for improve human settlements at varied scales. Introducing international perspectives, LA Frontiers encourages the bridging the latest research outcome with application and practice.

Finn Geipel is the founder of two architecture and urban design firms: LABFAC, based in Paris and operating between 1987 and 2001, and Berlin- and Paris-based LIN, operating since 2001. Geipel focuses on finding adaptable and integrative solutions for architecture and urban development. LABFAC’s and LIN’s designs of varied scale always consider the ever-changing urban and ecological conditions. Both firms did and continue to collaborate with experts from other disciplines, such as climate and circular design, economics, mobility, ecology, as well as philosophy, art, and cultural studies.

This first monograph on Finn Geipel and his work with LABFAC and LIN features their key built and unrealised designs and research projects since 1985. The evolution of their working methods and thematic and research focuses is explained, supported by rich visual material. Contributions by fellow architects and teachers as well as personal friends, such as Hashim Sarkis, Joseph Hanimann, Riken Yamamoto, and Bénédicte Savoy, offer a critical perspective on Finn Geipel’s achievements in the context of current debates on architecture and urban design.

Niels Schabrod’s photographs represent a quest for Europe’s icons, for historical snapshots in our collective memory that make sense of and shed light on our understanding of the past. For his project, Schabrod visited four key locations from two centuries: Waterloo, the Somme, as well as the theatres of the Spanish Civil War and of the D-Day landing in 1944 — places that clearly refer to historical events that, given their relevance to remembrance culture and political history, have informed the development, policies and self-image of the European Union.

Schabrod’s works invite spectators to think about the legacy of those events and our response to them. His photographs show not only the sites themselves, but also the soldiers, politicians, reenactors, and tourists who flock to these battlefields. In conjunction with quotations and textual fragments, they act as a kaleidoscope that continuously shakes up historical details and rearranges them to form ever-new patterns.

Text in English, German and, French.

Village in the City investigates an equally specific and spectacular urbanisation process that many regions in China have been undergoing during the past two decades. The massive scale and the unprecedented speed of this process imply an incredible multiplicity of “villages in the city”. As such there are as many counter figures as there are “regular” and “normalised” urban environments that engulf these villages. Village in the City opens a window on recent research on the dynamic transformation processes villages in China are undergoing to become (parts of) cities, and contextualises this specific contemporary Chinese phenomenon in a comparative perspective for all of Asia, i.e. including India, South East Asia, and China. And it situates this development also in the history of urbanisms of inclusion.

Since 2003, the Lausanne architectural couple Alfonso Esposito and Anne-Catherine has been working persistently on a respectable oeuvre of public buildings and housing. With great respect for the relevant location and the functional requirements of the building task, they find fitting figures and inspired materials that ultimately lead to an appropriate, poetic expression.

Text in English and German.

Since 2003, the Lausanne architectural couple Alfonso Esposito and Anne-Catherine has been working persistently on a respectable oeuvre of public buildings and housing. With great respect for the relevant location and the functional requirements of the building task, they find fitting figures and inspired materials that ultimately lead to an appropriate, poetic expression.

Text in German and French.

Myanmar (Burma) exists in a timewarp and since recent political changes is becoming one of the most visited countries in the world. The country is eighty-seven per cent buddhist, studded with monastries, pagodas, dirt-track roads, oxcarts and elegant villages much as they were when the West intruded little more than 100 years ago. The country is still farmed by water buffalo, and its rituals remain true to their old-Asia form. Although tourism has increased significantly in the past 12 months there are many regions still off-limits. This book, in the form of a photo essay, captures an insider’s view of a fragile and mystical aspect of Burmese culture. The curtain is drawn to reveal the backstage of the Burmese theatre; a world populated by animist spirit media (nakadaws), monsters from the Ramayana Buddhist texts, princesses (minthami) and princes (mintha). We go behind the scenes to see the preparations of these performers as they travel around the towns and countryside between temporary bamboo stages constructed for all-night festivals. With contributing essays from Professor Ward Keeler and U Ohn Maung, this book is both a visual and informative testament to Burmese performing arts.

The area centred around the Grand Palace bordered by the Chao Phraya river on the west and Khlong Khu Muang Doem on the east is undoubtedly Bangkok’s cultural centre. Known as Rattanakosin Island, it is home to most of the city’s most important temples – Wat Pho, Wat Rajabhopit, and Wat Mahathat, to mention just a few – as well as Museum Siam and the recently renovated National Museum. To the south of this iconic area is the famous flower market, while to the north is the tourist mecca of Khao San Road. Exploring Old Bangkok takes the visitor around all the most important sights as well as explaining the meaning of lesser-known landmarks such as the Pig memorial or the Monument to the Expeditionary Force. The guide also includes iconic sights on the west bank of the river such as Wat Arun and the royal barge museum. With the opening of the magnificent metro station, Sanam Chai, access to this centre of culture and Thai art has never been easier. Alternatively, visitors can reach the area via the ever-popular tourist boats and maybe take a khlong trip from Tha Chang. Exploring Old Bangkok also features two fascinating walks and a pull-out map with suggestions of where to stay and where to eat.

This book reveals the work of the artist and activist Yto Barrada. Her artistic practice draws upon the roles of activist, educator, architect, botanist and anthropologist to explore expressions of communality and individual being. The exhibition presented at Mathaf focuses on the threads of regeneration and growth moving between architecture, urban transformation, horticulture, experimental education and home economics. Weaving together these interdisciplinary methods of making and discovery, the exhibition articulates desires for equality, self-expression and exploration.

The artist’s personal and collective experiences of Tangier are expressed through a multitude of mediums to investigate the structures and systems of life in that city. These work in parallel with similar investigations by the artist into systems in the US, to compose a critical and poetic reading of overlooked histories and realities. Barrada’s works in this exhibition offer an open dialogue on the possible restitution of basic democratic ideals such as shelter, sustenance and communality.

Barrada’s work offers a mode of associative thinking and making, emphasising the right to exist, learn and shape the world around us. In the galleries, her works live together, presenting starting points for possible collective narratives, which recirculate within the spaces as a composition and as new stories in themselves.

Text in English and Arabic.

In mythology, art history and religious iconography, the apple has been imbued with every imaginable human desire. It has been a symbol of love and beauty, of temptation, of immortality, peace, death and poison, of sin and redemption. From Adam and Eve to the trials of Heracles, to the art of Cézanne and Magritte, to Newton’s theory of gravity, the death of Alan Turing and the growth of Steve Jobs, the apple resonates throughout western culture. It is Snow White, William Tell, it is The Beatles and the Viking gods, it is even the American frontier.

Now, Barnaby Barford offers a celebration of this fruit, exploring its impact on the history of humankind. Apples have become a recent feature of Barford’s eye-catching installations, whether ripe and healthy or in a state of decay. The Apple is Everything guides the reader through Barford’s work and ideology.

Welcome to the home of Wallace and Gromit, and Blackbeard and Banksy. Bristol is where the world’s first solid chocolate bar was created (Ribena was also invented here) and you can still watch delicious chocolate creations made by modern day Willy Wonkas. The city has a hidden castle (you just need to know where to look) and secret vaults underneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge only rediscovered recently after being hidden for more than 100 years. Climb inside these vaults, or into the cockpit of the final Concorde to fly or ride your skateboard in what used to be a swimming pool. If water is your thing, you can surf guaranteed waves at an inland surfing lake or take a trip in a boat that used to fight fires. Science and art collide at We The Curious, which has the UK’s only 3D planetarium.

If you think you know Bristol, think again. Allow this book to be your guide to Bristol’s best bits for kids.

Catalogue of the exhibition dedicated by La Galleria Nazionale di Roma to Vasco Bendini on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, which opened in March 2022. The volume accompanies the discovery of the career of one of the major artists of the second half of the Italian 20th century, from his early training with Giorgio Morandi, up to the great Roman solo exhibitions and the Biennales of his maturity. The work of Vasco Bendini, dear to critics such as Francesco Arcangeli and Maurizio Calvesi, opens in the immediate postwar period, following an informal language in search of the volto as a universal archetype, to then focus on gesture and matter, under the influence of, among others, Jean Fautrier. The 1960s are characterised by the inclusion in the paintings of heterogeneous objects and materials, in an approach to Arte Povera and then, with actions and installations, to the Neodada way of doing things. The central objective for Bendini remains in fact the involvement of the viewer, in a fruitful dialogue necessary for the development of his poetics. A large selection of archival photos, along with essays and alleri productions of the works, is flanked by a critical anthology and unpublished writings by the Master.

Text in English and Italian.

A photographic narrative that crosses the world’s main cities to witness the shared intentions and feelings that bind the single Pride events in one big wave that envelops and crosses all countries, exalting the uniqueness and variegated compositions of identities and modes. A snapshot of global LGBTQIA+ pride, with a focus on Pride parades marking momentous anniversaries, including New York Pride in 2019, 50 years after the events of Stonewall, and London Pride in 2020, 50 years after the birth of the Gay Liberation Front.

The book also bears witness to the spread of the Wave in the countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia, which since the end of the 1990s, with particular regard to the last decade, has been gaining spaces for listening and rights.

The Pride project recounts, celebrates and enhances LGBTQIA+ pride around the world, through the faces and claims of the protagonists of a struggle that involves us all: that for a fair and inclusive world, in which no person should feel excluded or discriminated against for their way of being, living and loving.

Text in English and Italian.

Over centuries, the transnational Alpine region Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino (Alto Adige) has developed along ancient trade routes between Germany and Austria on one side of the Alps and northern Italy on the other. Similar to the region’s modern and contemporary architecture, its product design is in many cases rooted in a rich local tradition of craftsmanship. Yet since the 1920s, this multi-lingual region has also proven its remarkable openness to European modernism’s most progressive movements and become an unexpected laboratory for technical and formal exploration in the middle of the continent. Design from the Alps, published to coincide with an exhibition at museum Kunst Meran in autumn 2019, tells the story of a century of product design from Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino, highlighting the vast variety of discoveries and innovations that have emerged there. Featured artists include, among others, Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), whose experiments were inspired by the Secondo Futurismo, Gino Pollini (1903-91), a pioneer of the interwar period, as well as the celebrated architects and designers Lois Welzenbacher (1889-1955), Clemens Holzmeister (1886-1983), and Ettore Sottsas (1917-2007). Lavishly illustrated, the book follows the many protagonists of this at the same time heterogenous and collectively strong scene and offers an insightful tour d’horizon of the multifaceted design culture of western Austria and northern Italy. Design from the Alps (Kunst Meran, Merano, Italy, 11 October 2019 to 12 January 2020).

Text in English, German and Italian.

Dreamscapes is a long-term artistic project of Swiss photographer Dominic Büttner, in which he is recording actual performances at night, both in natural and built environments. Bearing a torch, he slowly walks away from his large format view camera. Time exposure captures the scenery illuminated by the moving light, and sometimes his footprints, while the artist’s figure is eradicated again from the image. At the same time familiar and strange, the fascinating pictures of enchanted or haunted landscapes tell us what an eerie place our everyday surroundings can be, depending on the light in which we see it. This first monographic book on Dominic Büttner’s art features some one-hundred of his Dreamscapes alongside essays by literary scholar and critic Elisabeth Bronfen and by publicist and art critic Nadine Olonetzky. Text in English and German.

Over the years, Swiss photographer Tomas Wüthrich has visited Borneo many times to document the daily life of the Penan, a partially nomadic indigenous people living in the rainforest of Borneo. The way of life that these hunter-gatherers lead in the Sarawak state of Malaysia is critically threatened by illegal logging and oil palm plantations.

The Penan people came to the world’s attention thanks to Swiss-born environmental activist Bruno Manser, who disappeared in the jungle without trace in the year 2000 while campaigning for the Penan cause.

In this book, Wüthrich paints a nuanced portrait of this unique culture. A selection of Penan myths, collected by Ian Mackenzie are published for the first time alongside Wüthirch’s photographs. An essay on Bruno Manser and his mission for the Penans’ case completes the book.

Text in English, German and Penan.

At the peak of the 1968/69 students’ riots at American Universities, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, together with Steven Izenour, pursued their Design and Research Studio on the topic of Las Vegas at Yale School of Architecture. The results of this were condensed into the book Learning from Las Vegas that became a classic almost instantly upon its first publication in 1972. The treatise excited the 1970s architecture world and has remained influential to architects, teachers and theoreticians to the present day. Some forty years later, Eyes that Saw: Architecture after Las Vegas offers a richly illustrated collection of essays by renowned scholars of art and architectural history, eminent architects, and artists, investigating Learning from Las Vegas and its heritage from various perspectives. Each chapter builds on the knowledge of the radical influence it had on architecture and urban design, visual art, and even on history more generally. Published alongside are documents from the Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates Archive at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an illustrated chronology of the resonance in international media following the publication of Learning from Las Vegas in 1972. Contributors include: Stan Allen, Eve Blau, Beatriz Colomina, Valéry Didelon, Elizabeth Diller, Peter Fischli, Dan Graham, Neil Levine, Mary McLeod, Rafael Moneo, Stanislaus von Moos, Katherine Smith, Martino Stierli, Karin Theunissen, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown.

“Most photographers have a style and a favourite subject, but few are as synonymous with their chosen field as Anouk Krantz, who is known for her spectacular – and immensely popular – black & white studies of cowboy culture.” — Black & White Photography Magazine

“Incredible photos capture modern-day cowboys throughout the USA and South America and reveal ‘humanity at its best’.” — Daily Mail

“…fascinating and expansive photo project on the many manifestations of cowboy culture, encompassing the North American cowboy that’s forever enshrined in popular culture, the Central American ‘vaquero’ and the South American ‘gaucho.’” — Amateur Photographer Magazine

“…a stunning photographic journey uncovering a hidden world of modern cowboy culture.” — Cultural Union

In Anouk Masson Krantz’s most expansive work to date, she travels tens of thousands of miles across the Americas, broadening her focus from the United States to both American continents. In her exquisite, large-scale photographs – all new for this book – Anouk captures sweeping landscapes and paints an intimate portrait of the enduring cross-boundary legacies of the North American cowboy, Central American vaquero, and South American gaucho. Her time spent at ranches and rodeos across The Americas has culminated in a magnificent book honouring a way of life many around the world dream of but rarely have experienced first-hand. Frontier builds upon Anouk’s renowned body of work with her bestselling Wild Horses of Cumberland Island (2017); West: The American Cowboy (2019); American Cowboys (2021); and Ranchland (2022). Her stunning black and white, large-scale photographs capture a culture deeply rooted in principled, timeless values, sacrifice, strength, and self-reliance. From stunning panoramas to the intimate everyday lives of working cowboys and their families, Frontier is a must-have addition to her impressive body of work.

Bernie Taupin, Oscar winner, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and long-time song-writing collaborator with Elton John, has contributed an exceptional foreword.

“There’s an honesty and integrity in these images that parlays all the elements of what it means to exist outside the boundaries of conformity and confinement. The rebel spirit, the rugged individualism, and the absolute unapologetic rhythm of history. This is stunning work—a true testament to the men and women who are the anvil on which America’s backbone was forged.” —Bernie Taupin

Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985) is far more than just the creator of the iconic fur teacup. In the course of her career she produced a complex, wide-ranging, and enigmatic body of work that has no parallel in modern art. Like an x-ray beam, this book scans Oppenheim’s artistic oeuvre, bringing its variety, playfulness, and poetry to the fore. Instead of simply answering the riddles posed by these intriguing works, it maps out the paths that will lead us to still more clues.

Simon Baur is a leading expert in the life and art of Meret Oppenheim. The nine new essays featured in this volume are at once scholarly and easy to read. In them, Baur shares the many fascinating insights and interpretations that he has gleaned from his decades-long engagement with Oppenheim’s work. The result is an anthology that combines both biographical and thematic aspects and takes us on an exciting journey into the poetic cosmos of a truly great female artist.