The ‘golden age’ of advertising is usually seen to be the last decades of the 20th century, centred on Fitzrovia, vast in quantity, swamping the plethora of magazines and newspapers appearing (and disappearing) at that time, and making optimal use of the novelty of commercial television. But the true ‘golden age’ of British advertising was in the decades immediately after the First World War, when zealous entrepreneurs banded together in local clubs and in national bodies to take the activity from the back room of jobbing printers or from being sketched on the back of envelopes on ego-driven managers’ desks to becoming a valid profession.

It was in the inter-war years that Titans in the field, such as William Crawford and Charles Higham, not only built their own empires and taught the government how to publicise itself, but even morphed the concept of advertising and publicity from something rather shady and disreputable to having a moral status of being a crucial arm of the nation’s economy and an educator of the masses. This book tells the story of some of these early agencies and the contribution they made.

Claire Vasarely, a life in colour is the first retrospective devoted to Claire Vasarely (born Klára Spinner, 1909-1990). Trained in the 1920s at Műhely, the Hungarian Bauhaus, Claire Vasarely led a remarkable and eclectic career, oscillating between advertising graphics, painting, the creation of textile designs, fashion journalism and tapestry.

Completely forgotten in 20th-century art history, this book is the first publication devoted to the artist. It sets out to introduce the reader to her work and to place it at the heart of the artistic modernities of the first half of the 20th century.

Text in English, French and Hungarian. 

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.

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.

Close to one million people are unhoused in the United States today. Millions and millions are ill—housed – people living in shanties or leaky, mouldy trailers. And millions more are mis—housed – in houses that are abusive in their loneliness, forlorn and empty at so many levels. We can do something about it. Actually, it’s low hanging fruit, should we choose to do something; impossible, if we do not. And it’s essential, not only for the wellbeing of the individual, but also for the wellbeing of the State, and the society.

Current studies are overwhelmingly show that it is more cost effective, in terms of tax dollars earmarked for city, county, state, and federal governments, to house people than it is to just leave them outside. About $20k to $40k cheaper for each person per year. In the case of the unhoused, it also taxes our psyches and our emotions to see our neighbours sleeping on the sidewalk. It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain to our children and grandchildren how we Americans leave people outside in the cold — mentally challenged or not. Then, there is the moral issue.

If you are motivated to get a new homeless housing project moving in your town, this book is the best place to start.

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.

Investigations by Sara Penco stem from the insightful finding of the absence of a key figure in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. Prior to this illuminating research, Mary Magdalene was not unequivocally identified within Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Father Pfeiffer, with whom Penco establishes an inescapable dialectic, had already hypothesised the presence of Mary Magdalene in the fresco, but it is the scholar, for the first time in these pages, who convincingly justifies her identification. Mary Magdalene is closely connected to the salient episodes in the life of Jesus. The author rightly wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a figure so central to the biblical narrative and the Christian imagination could have been excluded from the depiction of the Parousia. This observation gives rise to an accurate reflection on the iconography of the saint and the Judgement, in relation to the sacred texts and in relation to Michelangelo’s poetics and production. Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, contributing to characterise the fresco – one of the best known and most appreciated works in the world – with an unprecedented theological message.

Text in English and Italian.

Aerial photography had a special place in the business of the legendary former Swiss airline Swissair. Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937), aviation pioneer and one of Swissair’s founders, trained as a photographer before turning to aviation. The airline had a specialised subsidiary, Swissair Photo AG, producing well over 100,000 pictures between 1931-2001, when Swissair ceased operations, and still exists as an independent enterprise, BSF Swissphoto. The photographs show landscapes, towns and villages, and mountains, but also industrial plants, infrastructures, and individual buildings in Switzerland and abroad. Swissair – Aerial Photography features around 300 striking, beautiful and informative images, revealing changes in landscape and settlements over nearly a century. It is also an inventory of lost elements making a landscape, untamed rivers, orchards, receding glaciers or vanished historical buildings that shows how an idyllic agricultural country turned into one of the most densely inhabited places over a few decades. With an introductory essay that explores the content of the collection now held at ETH Bibliothek and what can be read from these images today, Swissair – Aerial Photography provides an illuminating look at the history of aerial photography in Switzerland. Text in English and German.

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) is one the most influential architects of the 20th century. In the Scandinavian countries, his influence is arguably most pronounced in the writings and art of the Danish experimentalist Asger Jorn (1914-1973). Their collaboration on Le Corbusier’s pavilion for the 1937 Paris World Exhibition sparked Jorn’s lifelong fascination with the great architect and with architecture more broadly as an inherently public form of art. At the same time, Le Corbusier began revealing his work in visual art and started to move from a rational, technological approach towards a more poetic, materialist approach to architecture. Published in collaboration with the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, What Moves Us? focuses specifically on the reception of Le Corbusier in Scandinavia, with the relationship between Jorn and Le Corbusier as a thematic thread. The book first highlights the architect’s change of direction and subsequently takes readers through his influence on the young artist. The book’s distinguished contributors explore the relationships that emerged among their artistic theories and practices, including Jorn’s later critique of Le Corbusier. Essays also explore the wider influence of Le Corbusier on Scandinavian architecture and urbanisation and consider Le Corbusier alongside the Danish architect Jørn Oberg Utzon and the Aarhus Brutalism movement.

Roger Eberhard, Swiss-born and American-educated photographer, conceives his works as series, taking-up impulses and inspirations for new projects from any possible source, such as a story he learns about or media reports catching his attention. He is particularly fascinated by people in the landscape, or rather the absence of mankind from a place leaving it again to nature and weather. But he has also done series of portraits of people in their given environment. Some series he has created in collaboration with other artists. In late 2008 Eberhard set out for a campaign searching for the visually lyrical backstage of the United States. His road-trip stared in Reno, Nevada, and led him through the states of Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming to Denver, Colorado. From there he continued his journey to Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and finally across Arizona back to Nevada. The resulting series Wilted Country is published for the first time in this book. The resulting, highly atmospheric photographs show the enduring impact humans have on their landscape and simultaneously offer an evocative tour through the past and present of the American West. The images are accompanied by essays by Anthony Bannon, director of George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY, and by the young German novelist Benedict Wells. Text in English & German.

Tradition and precedent inspire invention, architectural drawing, and media practice. This issue presents a series of encounters with printed drawings, leading to their transformation and re-imagination in a series of new works. Archival media from the John Nichols Printmakers Archive, located at the a83 gallery in New York City, is the foundation for these new inventions by contemporary architects.

International contributors extend the discourse on architectural representation and its evolution through print media, offering critical reflections on specific pieces. The project and exhibition from which this issue stems concerns questions of the archive; modes through which archival materials may become activated; situated approaches to intricate material objects that allow them to be read in non-normative ways; media transformations; and issues of disciplinary indebtedness and influence. The writers have been invited to address and/or extend these concerns in their consideration of specific works.

Georg Baselitz’s collected writings brings together more than 30 texts by, and interviews with, the artist – spanning the period 1961 to the present – including conversations with Michael Auping, Henry Geldzahler and Donald Kuspit. Known for his rebellious approach to Abstract Expressionism, Baselitz here discusses the impression his paintings convey, the act of painting, his biography and much more. The texts shift between these personal pieces – some of which have never before been published in English – to interviews conducted by a variety of respected critics and art historians. These conversations present a different voice as Baselitz responds to careful and critical questions about his work.

Giovanni Bellini, ‘one of the great Italian poets’ in the words of Roberto Longhi, and Andrea Mantegna, he who ‘sculpted [the image] alive and real in his painting’ in the sonnet by Ulisse degli Aleotti, were two giants in the history of Western art – extremely distant in character, certainly, yet connected by deep family ties. Nicolosia – Jacopo Bellini’s daughter and thus half-sister to Giovanni – married Mantegna in 1453. This marriage engendered one of the most fascinating pictorial dialogues of the Quattrocento, as they both developed the motif of The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Now we see this pair of works exhibited side-by-side for the very first time, half a millennium after they were painted. This volume narrates an extraordinary event, down to the last detail, through a riveting analysis of the paintings themselves and of the relationship between the two artists.

The texts and interview included in this catalogue shed new light on Cybèle Varela’s contribution to Latin American and international artistic discourses, including Pop Art, Narrative Figuration and Video Art. Questions of identity, social and political issues and transnational experiences are central to Varela’s multifaceted production, from the 1960s to the present day. Text in English, German and Portuguese.

Pieter Brugel the Elder – Fall of the Rebel Angels argues that many of the hybrid falling angels are carefully composed of naturalia and artificialia, as they were collected in art and curiosity cabinets of the time. Bruegel’s much noted emulation of Hieronymus Bosch was thus only part of his wider interest in collecting, inspecting, and imitating the artistic and natural world around him. This prompts an examination of the world at the time that Bruegel painted the Fall of the Rebel Angels, locally, in the urban and courtly centres of Antwerp and Brussels on the eve of the Dutch revolt, and globally, as the discovery of the New World irreversibly transformed the European perception of art and nature. Painted as a tale of hubris and pride, Bruegel’s masterpiece becomes a meditation on the potential and danger of man’s pursuit of art, knowledge and politics, a universal theme that has lost nothing of its power today.

Tina Modotti was at the centre of key events of the early 20th Century: the cultural ferment of the Mexican renaissance, the Cuban revolution and the heroic period of the Communist International, during which her political commitment was expressed through bold, daring actions. The book paints a vivid multifaceted portrait of this extraordinary woman and includes around a hundred photographs in which her quest for formal perfection is combined with her talent for resolutely and passionately capturing the pulse of life.

Text in English, Italian and French.

A lone PSG sticker on a North‑London Street sign; the towering Maradona mural that watches over Naples. Europe’s fan‑made canvases tell football’s biggest stories. Timed perfectly for World‑Cup fever, Tifo: The Art of Football Fan Stickers—Revised & Expanded presents 500 plus images from over 100 clubs, printed on premium matte‑art stock and bound in a linen‑wrapped hardback with foil stamping.

Stickerbomb founders Suridh Hassan and Ryo Sanada spent more than two years tracking down these graphics and the tales behind them: the unlikely bond between Boavista and Aberdeen, St Pauli’s anti‑fascist iconography, Sevilla’s surprising love affair with Karl Marx, and how Parma became entangled in Europe’s biggest bankruptcy scandal. Insightful essays by award‑winning journalist James Montague and Design Museum curator Eleanor Watson deepen the cultural and historical context.

Equal parts visual archive and behind‑the‑scenes anecdote, Tifo is the ultimate gift for ground‑hoppers, quiz‑night champions and anyone who bleeds club colours.

Georg Baselitz has been exploring, challenging and redefining contemporary art for over six decades, mainly via the medium of paint. A cornerstone of this task has been his complex exchange with historical and contemporary art. Georg Baselitz: Feet First illuminates the German artist’s relationship to the art of Edvard Munch, which he has been in artistic dialogue with since the 1960s.

This richly illustrated book includes writings by exhi­bition curator Jon-Ove Steihaug, Christian Weikop, Sverre Wyller and Baselitz himself, as well as a longer conversation with the artist.

Dada began on February 5, 1916, when Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, and others launched the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Cabaret Voltaire would eventually become the stuff of legend, joined by the short-lived but no less less significant Gallery Dada. Even as Dada spread throughout Europe and the world, its heart was always in Zurich. This German language book honors the centennial of Dada by telling for the first time the full story of its genesis and the role played by Zurich and its vibrant community of artists in its creation and flourishing. It sets the early years of Dada firmly in the city’s historical and cultural context and reveals the intellectual and social background that were crucial to the fermenting artistic ideas that culminated in Dada. It goes on to trace the explosion of Dada into a worldwide phenomenon that took in such artists and intellectuals as Joan MirÃ, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray. Richly illustrated, this book will stand as the definitive account of the origins of Dada and its little-considered ties to one particular, spectacular city. The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition at Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen (14 February to 10 July 2016).