The work of photographer Gérard Uféras (b. 1954, Paris) covers a compelling and charming array of subjects, from glimpses of life behind the scenes at the opera and ballet, to marrying couples and their families on their wedding day, to the spontaneous energy and interaction of crowds at carnivals and sporting events. With the discreet but unerring eye of the seasoned photojournalist (he began a long association with Libération newspaper in the 1980s), Gérard Uféras captures people from all walks of life in moments of contemplation, creation and camaraderie, resulting in a body of work that offers a rich and nuanced picture of humanity.
Published to coincide with a retrospective of his work in 2025, this book presents the photographer’s own choice of some of his finest work from a long and distinguished career. What emerges most strongly from this collection is Gérard Uféras’s great passion for favourite themes such as music, theatre and dance, but, perhaps more resoundingly still, his profound empathy and respect for his human subjects.
Text in French.
First exhibited at the Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1900) Louis XIII has embodied sophistication for over a century. Each bottle is a unique work of art, from the decanter – each of which requires eleven craftsmen to blow the crystal, apply the ornamentation and wrap the 20-K gold collar around its slender neck – to the cognac itself. Composed of up to 1200 eaux-de-vie from the first cru of the Cognac region, Grande Champagne, Louis XIII balances notes of myrrh, honey, dried roses, plum, honeysuckle, cigar boxes, leather, figs and passion fruit in an unmatched, ambrosial blend.
This book is an ode to the cognac, sung by some of its earliest and most vibrant devotees. We delve into the diaries and letters of two passionate travellers aboard the America-bound cruiser Normandie, 1935; the agenda of King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth on their visit to Versailles in 1938; and the first-hand account of a young millionaire who, while on a trip to Constantinople in 1928, requested that the Orient-Express stop so that the surface of his brandy might lie still.
Tracing the history of the iconic decanter from the pewter flask found after the Battle of Jarnac to the inspired glass vessels that captivated the royal courts of Europe, Louis XIII Cognac – The Thesaurus promises an elegant and entertaining glimpse into this prestigious cognac and the characters who drank it.
Of all the world’s great cities, Paris is perhaps the one that marks its visitors and inhabitants the most, both in their discovery of the city, and their memories. With its many monuments, it is also a fabulous theatre where adventure, chance meetings, and the unexpected have fascinated the painters, poets and photographers that we meet in the pages of this book. While its history is ancient, and very long, its present is lively and attractive. This is a history of Paris that invites readers to wander in the city, to discover it. It presents the major events of the city, together with the most charming examples of daily life in its streets, which is always vibrant. It shows its crowds, who are delighted to find all the odours of the world, all the colours of life, and the marvels of everyday that are seen in this city. We also meet those writers who have praised Paris, such as Victor Hugo, Jacques Prevert, Gerard de Nerval and Léon Paul Fargue, and all those who have immortalised the city in their paintings, from the anonymous painters of the Renaissance up to the Impressionists. This is an intelligent history of Paris, but also friendly, entertaining, accessible, to whet your appetite for the city, and to arouse your curiosity. Also Available:
Lebanon: The Phoenician Pearl ISBN:9782867701443 £55.00
Le Sud Marocain ISBN:9782867700569 £55.00
Michael Broadbent, wine critic, writer, auctioneer and much-admired expert revolutionised the wine trade with his first edition of Wine Tasting in 1968 and has continued to capture the magic of wine for over 50 years, bringing it to the page and to the public in compelling detail, always tinged with his uniquely wry sense of humour.
Michael’s original text (from the 1975 edition) updated with the latest vintages and footnotes revealing Michael’s reactions to the changing wine scene.
Personal tributes to Michael from Hugh Johnson OBE, Jancis Robinson OBE MW, Steven Spurrier, the late Gerard Basset OBE MW MS, and international wine auctioneers Paul Bowker and Fritz Hatton.
“He had added what the wine trade had lacked; a veneer of scholarship, and a dealer of genius.” – Hugh Johnson
“A must read” – Ian Harris, CEO of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust
The New Normal (2017-2019) was a post-graduate program and Speculative Urbanism think-tank within Moscow’s renowned Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture, and Design. Directed by distinguished American social theorist Benjamin H. Bratton, the The New Normal conducted a collaborative research to investigate the impact of planetary-scale computation on the future of cities both in Russia and around the world.
The New Normal book, edited by Benjamin H. Bratton, Nicolay Boyadjiev, and Nick Axel, features twenty-two interlinked projects that were part of the research. Published alongside are 17 lavishly illustrated contributions by international researchers and designers that outline the wider scope of The New Normal program’s output, held together by concise thematic texts contributed by Benjamin H. Bratton. Contributors include many of the most influential contemporary designers, philosophers, architects, and artists, such as Yuk Hui, Liam Young, Anastassia Smirnova, Lydia Kallipoliti, Lev Manovich, Julieta Aranda, Trevor Paglen, Metahaven, Keller Easterling, Robert Gerard Pietrusko, Molly Wright Steenson, Ben Cerveny, Rival Strategy, Geoff Manaugh, Stephanie Sherman, and Patricia Reed. The fields of research include Speculative Megastructures, Human AI Interaction Design, Protocols and Programs, Synthetic Cinema, Alt-Geographies, Platform Econometrics, and Recursive Simulation.
This highly topical volume, the only comprehensive survey of research and work produced by The New Normal program, will appeal to all readers interested in the future of cities and urban design.
Inspired by the reform movements in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, student protests began to form in China in the spring of 1989. They made Tiananmen square their central meeting place. Unsettled by this public display of dissent, on 3 and 4 June the Chinese army violently crushed the protests. There are no official figures for the number of victims. 2600 people are estimated to have been killed, and 7000 injured.
The photographer Xu Yong, aged 35 at the time, was among the survivors. He captured the chaotic scenes on celluloid. In 2014, he published his photos in a book that was banned by the board of censors. This new edition, published by Verlag Kettler, makes the book available to the public.
Xu has not retouched the photographs. He reproduces the negatives with inverted colours, which can only be deciphered once the colour inversion function on mobile phones or tablets is activated. Consequently, his work represents an eerie yet authentic perspective on this watershed moment in Chinese history.
Text in English and Chinese.
This book is the first important monograph dedicated to the work of Pablo Reinoso, a Franco-Argentinian artist and designer, a curious and largely self-taught jack of all trades. Technically a sculptor, but actually an artist through and through, Pablo Reinoso has been exploring multifarious artistic avenues from an early age. Part-French, through his mother, he left his native Argentina in 1978 and settled in Paris, where he worked on his art. He produces his works in series – Articulations (1970-80), Water Landscapes (1981-86), The Discovery of America (1986-89), Breathing Sculptures (1995-2002) – which he chops up and rummages through as he explores new worlds and different materials, translating the permanent work in progress which is his way of thinking. An increasing maturity is evident in Ashes to Ashes (2002), a work in which he twists and splits wooden boards in an attempt to rid them of their function. Continuing in the same vein, but having in the meantime held important positions as an artistic director and designer in large companies, Reinoso began a new series in 2004 highlighting an icon of industrial design, the Thonet chair. He then turned his attention to the seemingly anonymous public benches found in all cultures throughout the world – objects that for this very reason are timeless and beyond fashion. The results are his so-called Spaghetti Benches (begun in 2006), which have multiplied and found their place in the most unlikely corners. In his very latest series, Scribbling Benches (started in 2009), Reinoso no longer takes an anonymous bench, nor an iconic chair, as his point of departure, but a steel girder. The work plays on the unexpectedness of a solid, heavy object, a key structural component in architecture, that is made to twist like a piece of wire and turn into a bench suggesting airy, transparent, contemplative spaces.