“I like depicting sexy, strong women – the spirit of a dominatrix. Through my work I explore the part of my personality that enjoys teasing and provocation. In doing this, I’ve seen the change and growth of myself as a person, a woman, a lover, a critical open-minded thinker and, most important, as an artist.” – Alejandra Guerrero.
In the second decade of the twenty-first century we are witnessing an unprecedented exploration of female sexual power, while on the other hand reactionary cultural forces contrive to keep women as defenceless as possible. In this context, the work of photographer Alejandra Guerrero can be understood as a clarion call. Hers is a rarefied visual art that marks a turning point for female sexuality in erotica, her eloquent tableaux revealing the intricate ways in which women exert their erotic power. Here we see a future in which women dictate raw, yet refined desires. Each moment comes from the erotic fever dreams of the participants and the desires of the woman behind the camera. Sometimes, when Guerrero turns the lens upon herself, those moments are one and the same. Contents: We delight in wickedness by Violet Blue; Plates; Biographies; Credits.
Following on from the success of the exhibition Before Time Began, Fondation Opale is taking on a new challenge with a show that juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal art with prominent examples of contemporary art created in a Western and Asian tradition. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes more than eighty works by over 54 artists from two separate collections, both of which are outstanding in their own right: the collection of Aboriginal art belonging to Bérengère Primat and the contemporary art collection amassed by Garance Primat. The works play off each other with powerful effect. Insightful pairings suggest an underlying unity, a merging of mankind, heaven, earth, and the whole cosmos.
The Aboriginal artists represented include: Rover Thomas, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Judy Watson, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and John Mawurndjul. The artists working in the Western and Oriental traditions include: Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Anselm Kiefer, Sol Lewitt, Yayoi Kusama, Giuseppe Penone, and Anish Kapoor.
Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Opale, Lens – Crans Montana, 14 June 2020 – 4 April 4 2021.
Architecture Beyond Experience
is an interdisciplinary work in the service of one goal: the bringing about of a more relational, ‘posthuman’ and yet humanist strain in architecture. It argues against the values that currently guide much architectural production (and the larger economy’s too), which is the making, marketing, and staging of ever more arresting experiences. The result, in architecture, is experientialism: the belief that what gives a building value, aside from fulfilling its shelter functions, is how its views and spaces make us personally feel as we move around it.
This thought provoking essay argues it’s time to find a deeper basis for making and judging architecture, a basis which is not personal-experience-multiplied, but which is dialogical and relational from the start. In this context, the word relationaldescribes an architecture that guides people in search of encounter with (or avoidance of) each other and that manifests and demonstrates those same desires in its own forms, components, and materials. Buildings are beings. When studying architecture, they teach as well as protect; they tell us who we were and who we want to be; they exemplify, they deserve respect, invite investment, and reward affection. These are social-relational values, values that both underlie and go beyond experiential ones (sometimes called ‘phenomenological’). Such relational values have been suppressed, in part because architects have joined the Experience Economy, hardly noticing they have done so. Architecture Beyond Experience provides the argument and the concepts to ultimately re-centre a profession.
Today Santorini is visited by some 2.5 million people a year. But when Robert McCabe and his brother arrived there in 1954, they were the only visitors on the island. In this collection of stunning photographs from the 1950s and 1960s – reproduced as tritones of surpassing quality – McCabe has recorded the hardscrabble, yet often romantic, life of a vanished era. Picturesque whitewashed houses dug into the volcanic pumice; the harvest of the island’s famous cherry tomatoes; the winding road to the ruins of ancient Thera – all this was captured by his lens. McCabe’s photographs are complemented by two essays from the noted Greek journalist Margarita Pournara, one poetically evoking her grandmother’s childhood on Santorini and the other explaining the geological forces that have given this volcanic island its dramatic form. A companion to McCabe’s recent volume on Mykonos, this book will fascinate modern-day visitors to Santorini, as well as those who trace their roots to the Greek islands.
In a fast-paced world with mega upheaval, including climate crises and a global pandemic, the allure of growing your own food, being self-sufficient, and living green is immense. This yearning for not being wholly reliant on the supermarket, and the growing concerns over pesticides and food miles has led to the resurgence in seeking old-world skills. As showcased in Urban Homesteads, the benefits of a productive garden on your doorstep or within arm’s reach, tending to chickens, harvesting your own honey, and using eco-friendly water-harvesting techniques are clear: fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruit on tap, fresh eggs, delicious honey; plus living at a slower pace, better value for money, and a more soothing and mindful existence. Of course, a healthy garden and environment also attracts beneficial insects and birds.
Get inspired with this book’s range of eco-friendly possibilities from around the globe. With beautiful full-colour photos, gathered here are stories of people who have set up their own productive and abundant back yard or patio, as well as examples of great vertical planters, indoor gardens, and those who have reached into the urban community allotment. Use this book to start your own journey with an urban homestead lifestyle, with lots of generous tips, modern green concepts as well as a twist of modern, technically savvy know-how. All the practical guidance you need on how to be the change you want to see.
And there’s much, much more in this book. We live in an era of photographic images, and Mr. Tekulsky has provided the reader with 83 of the best photographs of America that you will ever see. According to Wikipedia, Americana is defined as “any collection of materials and things concerning or characteristic of the United States or of the American people and is representative or even stereotypical of American culture as a whole.” As such, Mathew Tekulsky’s book Americana: A Photographic Journey is a piece of Americana itself.
A new volume in ACC Art Books’ London series, focusing on the capital’s vibrant LGBTQ+ scene. Queer London is a timely and accessible introduction to the city through a LGBTQ+ lens, and will appeal to anyone with an interest in London’s thriving queer landscape.
Celebrating the diversity and innovation of queer individuals in London, both historically and today, Queer London features a range of bars, clubs, shops, Pride events, charities, community organisations, saunas and sex shops that cater to the LGBTQ community.
Along with highlighted features on influential queer Londoners of the moment, this book delves into the cultural history of queerness in the capital, including events, organisations or venues that have sometimes been forgotten or overlooked, but which were of key importance to the community. From the long, illustrious queer history of Soho and the legendary drag balls at Porchester Hall, to the hottest clubs of the moment, Queer London is the go-to guide for anyone looking to engage with rich queer legacy of this nation’s capital.
“Bruce Springsteen in All His Rock Star Glory.” —Janet Macoska, The Daily Beast
“Two careers were born on that cold night in 1974. Macoska would blossom into one of the most notable rock ‘n’ roll photographers of the last 50 years. And Springsteen was on his way to becoming The Boss.” —Jay Crawford and Meg Hambach, wkyc3
“…Live In The Heartland covers almost five decades of touring from The Boss, and also includes set-lists and corresponding editorial content. The majority of the photos are previously unseen.” —Classic Rock Magazine
“There’s only one boss of rock ‘n’ roll.” —Tria Wen, Reader’s Digest
“… an energetic and moving visual tour that records the romance between The Boss and the Cleveland stages.” —GQ Mexico
Five decades of blue-jeans, down-to-earth rock ‘n’ roll. Five decades of poetic, authentic performances, political commentary, global tours and even a Broadway show. Bruce Springsteen hasn’t just left an impact on the surface of modern music, he helped shape its foundations.
From the early beginnings in 1974 to the seminal Born in the USA – one of the best-selling albums of all time – to the 2016 River Tour, the highest grossing tour of the year, Springsteen has a truly timeless appeal, captured here by lauded rock photographer, Janet Macoska. Macoska charts Springsteen through the ages. Through her lens we witness his enduring energy on the stage, from 1974 to 2016. Here is Springsteen at his finest: a down-to-earth superstar, whose powerful performances stand the test of time.
“Bruce would rip his heart out and give it to his audience. He put everything into his performance. He was all over the stage, and the whole rest of the band was in lockstep, complimenting that energy. It was going out to the audience in bundles. We were sending it back , too, and that’s really electric. That energy, those visuals? Photographers love that. It’s perfect to have something like that to photograph.” – Janet Macoska
In Fine Bonsai: Art and Nature, the finest extant achievements in the art of bonsai are seen together for the first time, through the lens of renowned botanical photographer Jonathan Singer. This magnificent deluxe volume is the result of an extensive photographic campaign, in the course of which Singer was granted unprecedented access to the most respected public and private collections in Japan and the United States, including the mecca of bonsai, the Omiya Bonsai Village of Saitama, Japan, where photography is normally prohibited. 300 stunning full-page images and four lavish gatefolds present bonsai of all types, from quiet representations of nature to bold sculptural forms. The horticultural and aesthetic characteristics of each bonsai are concisely and authoritatively described in the narrative captions by William Valavanis, head of the International Bonsai Arboretum in Rochester, New York. And because the container is considered an integral part of any bonsai-indeed, the literal meaning of ‘bonsai’ is ‘tray plant’ – the book also includes some 25 photographs of traditional bonsai containers, with descriptions. A further sequence of 25 photographs is devoted to the related art of suiseki, or miniature stone landscapes displayed in the same manner, and often alongside, bonsai.
With his groundbreaking first book, Botanica Magnifica, Jonathan Singer established a new style of botanical photography, characterised by an exceptional clarity of detail and richness of colour, as well as a painterly chiaroscuro. These qualities are just as evident in the present volume; Singer photographs each bonsai with an artist’s – one might even say a portraitist’s – eye. Whereas most books on bonsai aim to instruct readers on techniques of care and cultivation, Singer’s book takes the reader on a visual journey. His images encompass many different species, from azalea to red maple, as well as a variety of blossoms and fruits. Alluring and serene, Singer’s photographs make the experience of leafing through Bonsai not unlike entering a real Japanese garden. Fine Bonsai: Art and Nature not only documents the masterpieces of an ancient horticultural art, but is a masterpiece in itself.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will benefit the Japanese Red Cross.
Planting design is, rather obviously, a complex topic, spanning as it does art, science, social need, and morality – especially during these days of increasing planetary environmental threat. Although certainly not denying the importance of scientifically appropriate practices, the symposium “The Aesthetics of [Contemporary] Planting Design” addressed planting design today, proposing a renewed concern for the cultural and aesthetic aspects of the landscapes that result. This book, which has been developed from the original presentations at the symposium, presents the thoughts of a select international group of landscape architects and historians who discuss the subject of planting design through the lens of their own work as well as the work of others, both contemporary and historical. They suggest that, as in real estate, the most important factor in selecting plants is “location, location, location.” Certainly the Californian situation is far more forgiving than the aridity and other restrictive environmental conditions endemic to the Sonoran desert, or the frost and short growing seasons of Nordic lands that direct Scandinavian landscape architects to rely on native birches, pines, rowan, and moss. Most of us would agree that there are plants sensible for each climatic zone. Addressing environmental conditions is but the first step in the equation, however. There are also the issues of combination and composition.
The biblical metaphor of a “Land of Milk and Honey” has denoted for millennia a prophecy and promise for plenitude. This book, published in conjunction with the Israeli Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, examines the reciprocal relations between humans, animals, and the environment within the context of modern Palestine-Israel, and demonstrates how this promise has become an action-plan over the course of the twentieth century.
Through this lens, Land. Milk. Honey investigates how colonialism, settlement, urbanisation, infrastructure, and mechanised agriculture radically reshaped the environment of the contested territory of Palestine-Israel, and altered human-animal relationships. It shows how the celebrated metamorphosis of the region into a prosperous agricultural landscape was entangled with irreparable damage to the local fauna and flora, as well as the disruption of human communities and ways of living. And it highlights the predicaments that both the environment and its inhabitants are facing after the territory has over a century been the test bed of modernist aspirations for plenitude.
The fundamental changes the region has gone through are portrayed through the stories of five local animals: cow, goat, honey-bee, water-buffalo, and bat. These case-studies and a zoo-centric analysis construct a spatial history of a place in five acts: Mechanization Territory, Cohabitation, Extinction and the Post-Human. A rich collection of literary excerpts, historical documents, archival photos, as well as short original vignettes brings about the story of this remarkable transfiguration and redesign.
“This modern, refreshing examination of today’s American cowboys and cowgirls is something people will want to revisit time and time.” — Yahoo
“…captures the pioneering spirit of modern cowboys and cowgirls, turning the camera on high-stakes rodeos, hard-working ranchers and horseback rides across stunning desert landscapes.” – Ailbhe Macmahon, Daily Mail
“Cowboys may be innately photogenic, but French photographer Anouk Krantz has succeeded in capturing their lives and surroundings like no other.” —Graphius Magazine
Having earned wide acclaim for her bestselling Wild Horses of Cumberland Island (2017) and West: The American Cowboy (2019), this new collection of work that is American Cowboys is Anouk’s strongest work yet. Join Anouk Masson Krantz in her solo journey across America where she reveals the intimate lives and families of this private, elusive icon of our American West. Through her lens Anouk showcases an incredible journey from an outsider’s perspective into the private world of the American cowboy. Real people and real stories — a remarkable and inspiring story of people coming together to share their lives and celebrate the nation’s cowboy culture. This book is a must-have title among Anouk’s fine collections of photographs.
Anouk’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across America. She is renowned for her large-scale contemporary photography and her use of white space that defines her elegant, minimalistic style.
This book offers a review of Matteo Pugliese’s art over the past 20 years. The figures the Milanese sculptor creates are distinguished by their great power, revealing an inner torment that can no longer be disguised. The men depicted in his sculptures are all trying to break free of the wall that holds them, to throw off their limitations and assert their value as individuals in the hopes of escaping from dull uniformity and social and family expectations. These are people who are attempting to achieve a painful rebirth by struggling against materialised restraint — a wall — that seeks to prevent them expressing themselves, growing and therefore existing. The artist chooses to portray the moment of greatest effort, of supreme tension, the instant when a man regains control of his life and struggles against what is holding him trapped so as to restore a sense of purpose in his life. The carefully studied poses of his figures recall ancient models, in the same way as the material from which they are fashioned is also ancient. Luigi Spina’s lens knowingly lingers on these figures’ troubled birth and enables the reader, admirer, and art historian to acquire an intimate understanding of the sculpture and even to feel a part of the travails and manifest vulnerability that grip all of humanity.
Text in English and Italian.
A delightful culinary voyage to discover the wonderful world of Milanese cooking, presented here through a contemporary lens, yet simultaneously highlighting traditional influences as well.
The book is divided into 13 chapters, each dedicated to a particular ingredient or specific dish: brief introductions rich in curious and historical details are followed by tips on recognising the quality and seasonality of products.
The authors share priceless advice with readers. They will lead you to a reconsideration of winter vegetables, through scrumptious dishes like cabbage rolls, cauliflower cream and baked onions. You will also be introduced to the numerous culinary possibilities of cooking with offal, with traditional dishes such as Milanese tripe. Enjoy the lovely flavours of braised meat cooked in wine and broth, the refined experience of goose cassoeula, and the timeless appeal of Milanese classics like ossobuco.
For those who wish to delve into tradition while keeping a finger on the pulse of the present, Contemporary Milanese Cooking will surely not disappoint.
“Robert Doisneau is commonly regarded as one of the pioneers of French street photography, so if you want a masterclass in the genre, this is the book for you.”—Live Preston & Fylde
Robert Doisneau (Gentilly, 1912 – Montrouge, 1994) is regarded as one of the founding fathers of French humanist photography and street photojournalism.
Through his lens he was able to grasp the daily life of the men and women who populate Paris and its suburbs, presenting the city and its inhabitants with an ironic and light touch, but also with deep humanity and participation.
The volume collects 130 black and white silver salt prints from the Atelier Robert Doisneau in Montrouge, which houses his photographic archive. Whether they are photographs made on commission or the result of his wanderings in Paris, the artist’s personal style is outlined through these shots, which mixes charm and imagination, but also a freedom of expression not far from surrealism. These pictures capture moments of daily happiness among ordinary people – such as the famous Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville, or “The kiss” – in which tenderness, sometimes veiled with melancholy, but also ever-present notes of humour are mixed.
Text in English, Italian, and French.
Published to accompany an exhibition at Rovigo, Palazzo Roverella 23 September 2021- 30 January 2022
This beautifully illustrated monograph details the designs and unbuilt works of renowned Korean architect firm BCHO Partners and explores the firm’s focus on architecture with simple structures and a strong regard for the natural environment. Filled with a rewarding collection of unbuilt projects, this richly illustrated monograph provides critical insight from the designers into the context of each development and plan. These projects all feature one consistent interest: a concern for the relationship between the proposed building and the surrounding landscape. The carefully selected collection of projects reflects the breadth of the firm’s past explorations and the diversity of ground conditions they have encountered. The book provides an occasion to revisit the vast collection of the firm’s past unbuilt projects through the common lens of the given site and landscape.
Jörg Rubbert’s series of photos about Paris, taken over a period of 30 years between 1988 and 2019, views the city and its people from different perspectives. His images feature bourgeois neighbourhoods and majestic public squares as well as run-down areas and famous red-light districts. Rubbert focuses both on the city’s unique atmosphere and on its residents. He consistently makes use of analogue photography without digital add-ons, exclusively relying on natural light.
With their dense atmosphere, blurred focus, high contrasts, and in some cases grainy appearance, Rubbert’s photos are “imperfect” in the best sense of the word, taking on an almost painterly quality.
His images approach their subject from two different angles. They show Paris, with its striking architecture and picturesque atmosphere, through the lens of accentuated nostalgia, yet they also shine a light on people’s lives and the city’s current social condition. In a demonstration that the streets still form the real stage of the “theatre of life,” they put a spotlight on the seemingly trivial stories of everyday life.
Text in English, German and French.
The year 2021 was another amazing year for the Wolfpack, the dream cycling team of Patrick Lefevere. Davide Ballerini won the Omloop, Kasper Asgreen took the E3 and the Tour of Flanders, and Sam Bennett, Mark Cavendish, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe all gathered victories, while Michael Morkov took Olympic Gold on the track. In this book you’ll follow the cyclists through the lens of Wout Beel: in an intimate family circle during their few free moments, in total ecstasy after a victory, in decompression on the team bus. See them fall, get up and win again. A group portrait that will stay with you forever.
“Who doesn’t know Paul Newman? The man with the beautiful blue eyes, the chiselled face and body, the 50-plus years of memorable acting and directing roles, the awards, the movie-star marriage. Well, it turns out, there is lots more to know.” — Parade Magazine
“Newman’s preternaturally piercing baby blue eyes shine through in every picture, and he was well aware of how his fame rested on the colour of his irises.” — Peter Sheridan, Daily Express
“Hollywood Hunk Paul Newman as you’ve never seen him before.” — Yahoo! News
“Paired with raw and unvarnished commentary from the photographers themselves, Newman’s incomparable authenticity and appealing persona bleed through each page.” — Newsweek
Once, when asked how he’d like to be remembered, Paul Newman replied: “I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried. Tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being.”
As an actor who became a film star, Newman repeatedly tapped into his times and in doing so redefined what movie stardom could be. Newman was a new kind of movie star, bringing a particular authenticity, intensity and sensitivity to his performances.
Throughout his career, Newman was extensively photographed: these images enriched film audiences’ connection to him as a cool and graceful presence both on and off-screen.
Milton Greene, Douglas Kirkland, Lawrence Fried, Terry O’Neill, Al Satterwhite and Eva Sereny are amongst the photographers who worked with Newman on and off-set across his career. From early stage work with his wife, Joanne Woodward, to his love of racing cars, to the essential 1980s drama Absence of Malice to the great success of the new western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the cult favourites, Pocket Money and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Newman’s movies were an essential part of American culture.
With comment and contributions from the photographers, Paul Newman: Blue Eyed Cool, gathers together portraits, stage, racing and on-set photography — including never before seen images — in a celebration of an actor who was always… cool.
Paul Newman: Blue Eyed Cool is a must-have for fans who see in Newman’s work and in his life a true hero.
memymom is the mother‐daughter artistic collaboration of Marilène Coolens and Lisa De Boeck. Their transgenerational project, which first emerged in the 1990s, consists of intimate archives and family photos where Marilène urges her daughter Lisa to express and invent herself by improvising her own theatrical scenes. Since 2004, the protagonists have worked together behind and in front of the lens, simultaneously photographer and model. Over the years, memymom’s dreamlike, partly directed portraits have matured into a conversation about metamorphosis, personal identity, potential, as well as a plea for sensual analysis and tragic romanticism, as irrefutably illustrated in their latest series Somewhere Under the Rainbow.
In this book, which is the culmination and prolongation of their recent work, the two artists disclose the way in which their themes and visual language have remained constant over the past 30 years, while simultaneously evolving fascinatingly in terms of aesthetics and content, through recurring references and reflections. This exhibition also provides an opportunity to see how the inclusion of an assorted group of other people, each playing a different role, has always been part of their artistic process.
Text in English and French.
Transformation processes are the focus of Georg Aerni’s new photographs. The Swiss photographer and artist shows plastic greenhouses that have annexed whole swathes of land for agricultural mass production, residential houses that have been built overnight on the city outskirts without construction machines and literally noiselessly. He points his lens at olive trees that have grown over centuries into figures full of character, at creepers that conquer leftover spaces between high-rises and motorways, and at mighty rock faces that are being gnawed by erosion. With the merging of art and documentation that is typical of Aerni’s work, Georg Aerni—Silent Transition makes the signs of change the object of a contemplative observation and at the same time asks challenging questions: about our handling of natural resources, about the social backgrounds to cities growing out of control, about the regenerative force of nature.
A decade after Aerni’s first monograph, Sites & Signs, this new book showcases the artist’s ongoing continuation of his photographic work through numerous individual images as well as new series. 166 beautiful colour and black-and-white plates are introduced through texts by Peter Pfrunder and Nadine Olonetzky and commented on with an essay by Sabine von Fischer.
Text in English and German.
Suzanis, the exquisite hand-embroidered panels from Central Asia, have captured the hearts and minds of collectors and decorators for many years. Joyful and exuberant, they are a bridge to a past way of life in which textiles permeated every facet of existence. While today they adorn the walls of museums and can be spotted in homes designed by interior designers such as Robert Kime and Beata Heuman, not much is known about their history. This book sets out to change that.
Through the lens of one of the best collections of suzanis in the world, we delve into the history of Central Asia and understand more about the women who painstakingly stitched these works of art. A true delight for all who have experienced the magic of the suzani, this publication pairs beautiful visuals with engaging new research.