The KfW Foundation and the cultural centre Künstlerhaus Bethanien are collaborating on a studio programme offering a twelve-month residency in Berlin to young artists from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Verlag Kettler presents the artistic work of the grant holders in an ongoing book series. Matheus Rocha Pitta (born 1980 in Tiradentes, Brazil, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro) has created a new group of works entitled For the Winners the Potatoes. At the time of publication, this work an be found at the exhibition room of Künstlerhaus Bethanien, as well as in two of Berlin’s underground stations, Hermannplatz and Gesundbrunnen, and in a showcase at SOX in Berlin’s Oranienstraße. Rocha Pitta’s performative installations at Künstlerhaus Bethanien and in the underground stations allow him to interact with the public. He presents trophies that are made of plastic bags or concrete instead of gold, silver or bronze, and invites visitors to take along potatoes as victory trophies. His work deconstructs the concept of victory and the hierarchy of winners and losers, creating a dense network of historical references going back to Ancient Greece and asking fundamental questions about the meaning of gestures, the community and its value. Rocha Pitta portrays his trophies with a mocking sense of humour. By connecting glory with mundane, everyday objects, he aims to subvert the hierarchy of winners and losers and invites the spectator to rethink the meaning of victory and defeat. Text in English and German.

Nevin Aladag was born in Van, Turkey, in 1973. Between 1993 and 2000, she studied sculpture under Olaf Metzel at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Aladag became renowned particularly for her role in the documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2017) and in the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale (2017). This book focuses on two series of works by the artist that explore issues of self-determination, identity, and community in society and culture. For her series Social Fabric (2017-2018), Aladag cut out pieces of different carpets with characteristic patterns representing distinct cultural identities and combined them into new, unifying pictures. Her photo series entitled Best Friends (2012-2018) presents snapshots of friends who Aladag met randomly while walking the streets of Dortmund, Berlin, Basle, Los Angeles, Mons, and Hanover. Remarkably similar in appearance, body language, and manner of dress, the friends portrayed almost seem to merge into one person, contrasting with our desire to set ourselves apart as individuals.

Text in English and German.

In his new book of photographs Tobias Bärmann goes on the search for the hidden sides of Los Angeles, City of Dreams. He traverses the gigantic metropolis, designed to accommodate cars, on a bicycle. By slowing down he discovers the aesthetics of transition and incompletion outside of the city’s glamorous surface. Many of the motifs are evidence of the past acts of unknown protagonists. With a cryptic eye for the poetry of the ephemeral and the supposedly trivial, Bärmann steers our attention to everything that our civilisation seems to evoke accidentally.

Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop: Bioclimatic Ceramic Assemblies IV presents terra cotta design research, conducted under the auspices of the annual Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop (ACAW), between architectural firms and terra cotta manufacturer Boston Valley Terra Cotta. It chronicles the work of architectural firms Kieran Timberlake, Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF), HKS, Payette, Pelli Clarke Pelli, SHoP Architects, Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), Studios Architecture and two academic teams from Alfred University and the University at Buffalo. The book presents a unique model for exploring the state of the art in terra cotta design through the production of experimental prototypes. These include rain screen facade systems, urban sound devices, structures, massive wall systems and furniture. Now in its fifth year, this invitation-only workshop has teams collaborate with the manufacturer to develop a design that engages bioclimatic concerns and pushes material and manufacturing possibilities.

A strong visual identity is hard to miss, instantly catching the eye. In children’s spaces, it is best tailored with their unique outlook in mind as children perceive the world around them differently from the rest of us, responding to specific sets of details.

Design and Visual Identity for Children’s Spaces shares a variety of contemporary creative designs for children’s spaces all over the world; they combine children-friendly visual elements with smart space design to tailor comfortable and conducive environments where they can learn, have fun, flourish, and be themselves.

Over 35 projects that focus on educational institutions, enrichment centres, recreational clubs, play zones, concept stores, and children’s hospitals, among others, share concepts that transform spaces to make them more relatable for children through thoughtfully considered visual identity and interior layouts that resonate specifically with them. Designers dig deep, even consult with children, to create designs that call out to them in fun, inspiring spaces that unleash imaginations, while they foster a sense of connection and belonging.

Discover the rationales and inspirations behind these concepts, which also unify aspects of the business with a cohesive brand identity to promote the desired brand impressions and top-of-the-mind consumer recall. Through the projects in these pages, the reader is offered a host of thoughtful and creative solutions in designing children’s spaces, making this book a handy tool for anyone in the business of managing children’s spaces, or keen on designing children’s spaces.

To be a skateboarder today is a much different experience than it was for much of the 1990s. The photographs, quotes, and anecdotal text in ‘93 til captures a time in skateboarding when making a liveable income as a professional skater was a luxury and public understanding of skateboarding was at an all-time low. It was a time when skateboarding was searching for an identity, a time before Instagram and big corporate influences. Street skating was coming of age, testing its limitations and aligning itself with a new and innovative style of hip-hop culture that was emerging. Looking back, many skaters today feel as though the ’90s were the golden years of skateboarding. ‘93 til is a captivating portal into a decade and a culture that is remembered with warmth and nostalgia. Much of the photography that Pete has unearthed for ‘93 til was buried in boxes for close to two decades and has never been seen or published before. The 250-page book also contains several timeless images from his years shooting for SLAP and Transworld Skateboarding Magazine that will be familiar to the initiated. In addition to his stunning action shots are plenty of portraits and unguarded, candid moments that span from the late ’80s up through 2004. The book reveals a raw, unapologetic perspective of a world that no longer exists.

Also included in the book alongside Pete’s imagery are quotes and anecdotes from legends like Tony Hawk, Arto Saari, Jamie Thomas, Guy Mariano, Nyjah Huston, Geoff Rowley, Stevie Williams and others.

Julius Baer, established in Zurich in 1890, is the leading Swiss wealth management group and an icon of Swiss banking tradition. For nearly as long, the founder family has been engaged in supporting visual and performing arts and in 1981, on the initiative of Hans J. Bär (1927-2011), the company began to build its own collection of contemporary art, guided by a firm belief that art in a business environment enhances the culture of discussion and is inspirational to employees and clients alike. Today, the Julius Baer Art Collection comprises more than 5,000 works in a range of media painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video-by Swiss artists, internationally renowned ones as well as emerging talents.

This book offers a survey of the collection that is on rotating display at the bank’s offices around the world and highlights its origins and development over the past four decades. Artistic positions of 35 contemporary Swiss artists, such as John M Armleder, Silvia Bächli, Miriam Cahn, Lutz & Guggisberg, Markus Raetz, Shirana Shahbazi, and Roman Signer, are introduced through brief texts and illustrated with some 300 works from the collection.

This monograph presents a thorough overview of the work of the Danish artist Thomas Bang (b. 1938). Essays by four Danish art historians trace his years as a painter in the early 1960s, his subsequent development as a sculptor in the late 1960s, and his activity on the New York art scene through the 1980s. The primary emphasis of the book is on Bang’s three-dimensional work and the analysis of the range of issues on which his object- and installation-oriented work has been focused for several decades.
Thomas Bang has throughout his career focused on various issues of fragility and vulnerability as physical as well as psychological states. The emphasis of his sculpture is on creating a broad field of operations, where alterations of apparent initial intentions and meaning are gradually established in the development of the work.

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.

Almost, Not: The Architecture of Atelier Nishikata is the story of a remarkable architecture practice in Tokyo. Partners Reiko Nishio and Hirohito Ono have built just four residential works, until now remaining little-known outside of Japan. But the extraordinary, almost-ordinary quality of their work warrants the spotlight. It has much to teach students of architecture and experienced architects alike.

This book is a hybrid between an architectural monograph and a magic instruction book. Author Leslie Van Duzer, a former magician’s assistant and author of four monographs on 20th-century architecture, draws parallels between the effects and methods of architects and magicians.

The introductory essay, “Almost, Not,” presents an overview of Atelier Nishikata’s approach, describing the effects engendered by their architecture and the methods behind the them. The essay is followed by four detailed project descriptions that elaborate on the strategies behind the work. These texts are richly illustrated with process work, diagrams, detailed drawings, and photographs, including before and after views of the renovated spaces, and views post-inhabitation. The volume closes with a lengthy interview with the architects to help flesh out the methods behind their madness.

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the photo exhibition in Cologne, which will take place from September 17, 2020 to January 31, 2021.

Text in English and German.

A dedicated collector and advocate of contemporary art since the late 1940s, Giuseppe Panza has played a fundamental role in the artistic culture of his time, introducing American phenomena such as Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop Art, Environmental Art, and Conceptualism to the museums of Europe. Now, in a brilliant response to everyone’s primary question about Modern Art – ‘What does it mean?’ Panza shares philosophical insights and personal reflections that bridge a half-century of discovering new artists and movements.

Panza was among the first to buy the works of Rothko, Kline, Lichtenstein, and many of the other major figures of post-WWII art, watching as their works skyrocketed in monetary value as well as historic importance. He pursued collecting with undiminished enthusiasm through the 1980s and 1990s, all the while searching for the best venues in which to display his latest acquisitions. Sections of his private collection were exhibited by and acquired into major collections, particularly the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim in New York. 

Among his signature innovations was the juxtaposition of contemporary art with historic settings – Baroque palaces, ancient European public buildings, his own eighteenth-century villa – in order to create unexpected and stimulating dialogues between the architectural context and the work of art.

Complete with 110 full-colour illustrations, spanning decades of transformation in art and world culture, Giuseppe Panza: Memories of a Collector provides a unique glimpse into the movements and trends that have defined modern art. It is also the fascinating life story of a man who helped define the trends themselves, through passion, insight, and prophetic taste.

This volume is dedicated to the phenomenon of staged photography, the trend that has revolutionised the photographic language since the 1980s.

Through over 100 works, the catalogue tells how photography was able to reach the heights of fantasy and invention between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st-century, previously almost exclusively entrusted to cinema and painting.

Goldfish invading bedrooms, icefalls in the desert, imaginary cities, Marilyn Monroe and Lady D shopping together: all of this can happen thanks to veritable stages set up in order to build a parallel reality, or thanks to new technologies and, in particular, through the increasingly sophisticated use of Photoshop, released in 1990.

Photography, the realm of documentation and (presumed) objectivity becomes the realm of fantasy, invention and subjectivity, completing the last decisive evolution of its history.

Works by: Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, James Casebere, Sandy Skoglund, Yasumasa Morimura, Laurie Simmons, David Lachapelle, Bernard Faucon, Eileen Cowin, Bruce Charlesworth, David Levinthal, Paolo Ventura, Lori Nix, Miwa Yanagi, Alison Jackson, Julia Fullerton Batten, Jung Yeondoo, Jiang Pengyi.

Text in English and Italian.

“It is a feast for the senses to leaf through this book …” — Lovely Books Germany
Audrey Hepburn once said “I never thought I’d land in pictures with a face like mine.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As one of the 20th century’s most loved icons, her face is instantly recognisable the world over. Here, for the first time, ACC Art Books and Iconic Images proudly present the work of six wonderful photographers – Norman Parkinson, Milton H. Greene, Douglas Kirkland, Lawrence Fried, Terry O’Neill and Eva Sereny – who were fortunate enough to capture the star at different moments of her life. In addition, former Curator of Photographs for the National Portrait Gallery and co-curator of the Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon exhibition, Terence Pepper, opens up his personal archive of vintage press prints, making this ode to Hepburn truly unique. Throughout the book, Douglas Kirkland, Terry O’Neill and Eva Sereny share their memories of working with the icon. They present a wonderful mix of on-set, fashion, portrait and behind-the-scenes photographs, including contact sheets and never-before-seen images. With an introduction by Terence Pepper, Always Audrey is sure to delight any Hepburn fan.

The Eiffel Tower in China? Sebastian Acker: Traces of Other Places unites photos, film stills, and notes from an often surreal-looking journey undertaken by the Berlin-based artist Sebastian Acker (*1981) and his collaborator, Phil Thompson, through China’s copy-laden landscape, where not only have they erected sections of European cities, but also built a replica of an entire Austrian village. Simultaneously contemporary and anachronistic, the pictures in the book resist simple definitions of authenticity and imitation, not only by examining the theme of the reality experienced in the replicas, but also by shedding light on the tourism industry’s performative promotion of the European originals.

Text in English and German.

“If you didn’t manage to travel abroad this year, Homes for Nomads: Interiors of the Well-Travelled is just the ticket.”—Harrods Magazine
For the passionate traveller, a design book that features 20 gorgeous interiors that incorporate objects collected from around the world, bringing a touch of exotic and far away places into the home. The authors showcase unique objects – a Vespa, a tiki bar, a surf board, an African mask – that embody memorable and meaningful travels, and represent the nomadic spirit of the traveller in daily life. They reveal how these elements can be creatively and beautifully displayed, giving the sense of travelling at home without leaving home.

Text in English, French and Dutch. 

An architect without being one, an anomalous designer, a gifted draftsman and collector of objects, Luca Meda (1936-1998) wrote one of the most important chapters in the history of 20th-century Italian design.

The world of domestic interiors was his privileged field of action, and the very close, one-of-a-kind relationship with Molteni&C has provided, since the seventies, an example of perfect symbiosis between creativity and business, art and industry. Among the pieces of furniture that have become iconic are the Piroscafo bookcase designed together with Aldo Rossi, the Zim and Ho chairs, the Vivette armchair, the Primafila sofa and the modular systems 505 and Pass.

This publication offers an exhaustive portrait of Luca Meda, at long last highlighting the importance and extent of his production – which includes furniture, installations, architectural projects and design objects of all sorts – in the context of a still pioneering season of Italian design, but to whom we nevertheless owe the subsequent success on the world stage. The historical-critical essays dedicated to his work are accompanied by a series of interviews with collaborators and friends who shared knowledge and practice in the realisation of his projects, as well as the re-edition of an interview with Meda himself, published on “Gap casa” in 1983. Bio-bibliographical appendix and a list of works complete the fascinating journey of the volume.

Critical essays: Serena Maffioletti, Alberto Ferlenga, Sofia Meda, Nicola Braghieri, Beatrice Lampariello, Rosa Chiesa, Giampiero Bosoni e Chiara Lecce, Dario Scodeller, Mario Piazza.
Interviews: Luca Meda, Romano Barchi, Mario Carrieri, Nicola Gallizia, Eliana Gerotto, Peter Hefti, Felix Humm, Laura Maifreni, Bruno Longoni, Carlo Molteni, Diego Peverelli, Richard Sapper, Filippo Zagni.

Text in English and Italian.