“Charles Higham – rugby player, talented excavator and one of the great archaeologists of his generation – is an engaging raconteur. His fast-moving autobiography tells of the life well lived, of a world authority on Southeast Asia’s past. This is a fascinating and adventurous journey complete with academic debates, serious archaeology, its triumphs and minor disasters galore. Read this book if you aspire to be an archaeologist. It will inspire you to great deeds.” – Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
“Higham charts an archaeological Odyssey from Roman Britain via the Bronze Age stock-breeders of central Europe to prehistoric Thailand and the origins of Angkor. This complements a personal journey equally eventful, from a double first and rugby blue at Cambridge to building a university department in New Zealand. Here is a life laden with academic honours and the thrill of discovery on a series of digs that have transformed understanding of the human past in a hitherto-under-evaluated part of the ancient world.” – Professor Norman Hammond, Senior Fellow, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University.
“Charles Higham presents a readable and often witty account of a golden age in archaeological excavation in Thailand, Neolithic to Iron Age, from his perspective as a fundamental contributor. A must-read for colleagues, students, and the interested public are like.” – Emeritus Professor Peter Bellwood, Australian National University.
In this unique memoir, Charles Higham, one of the great archaeologists of his generation, describes the inside story of how his many excavations have introduced Southeast Asia’s past to a worldwide audience. For over 50 years, he and his Thai colleagues have explored the arrival of early humans, the impact of the first farmers, the remarkable rise of social elites with the spread of metallurgy and the origins of civilisations. Once seen as a cultural backwater, Southeast Asia now takes centre stage in understanding the human past.
‘”As Paul Moorhouse shows in this thorough and sensitive first biography, which concentrates on [Riley’s] early years up to the age of thirty-four, it was only after many false starts, bracing shocks and firm decisions that Riley found her way as an abstract painter in the early 1960s with her eye-dazzling lines, squares, curves … in ultra-hard-edged black-and-white”. –Times Literary Supplement
“In “Bridget Riley: A Very Very Person – The Early Years,” Paul Moorhouse … homes in on the period between the artist’s childhood and her earliest success, and makes a surprising but compelling case for the influence of landscape on Ms Riley’s distinctive style.” –Wall Street Journal
“An entertaining and informative text that adds greatly to our understanding of a very prominent and still highly intriguing British artist.” –Hyperallergic
In January 1965 the international art world converged on New York to pay homage to a brilliant new star. The glittering opening of The Responsive Eye, a major exhibition of abstract painting at the Museum of Modern Art, signalled the latest phenomenon, op art – and its centre of attention was a young painter named Bridget Riley, whose dazzling painting Current appeared on the cover of the catalogue. Riley’s first solo show in New York sold out, and, following a feature in Vogue magazine, the Riley ‘look’ became a fashion craze. Overnight, she had become a sensation, yet only three years earlier, she was a virtual unknown. How did success arrive so suddenly?
Authored by the acclaimed curator and writer Paul Moorhouse, A Very Very Person is the first biography of Bridget Riley and addresses that tantalising question. Focusing on her early years, it tells the story of a remarkable woman whose art and life were entwined in surprising ways. This intimate narrative explores Riley’s wartime childhood spent in the idyllic Cornish countryside, her subsequent struggles to find her way as an artist, and the personal challenges she faced before finally arriving as one of the world’s most celebrated artists in Swinging Sixties London.
Swiss artist Mirko Baselgia, born in 1982, already made a name for himself internationally in the first decade of his career. Baselgia works within the context in which he lives and with the conditions available to him. His works appear to be calm and soulful, unassuming and endless. They invite the viewer to pause and reflect on their place on planet earth. Philosophical and scientific questions are reflected by means of the local, natural, and recycled materials Baselgia uses.
This book offers a snapshot of Mirko Baselgia’s current creativity and is published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Kunst(Zeug)Haus Rapperswil-Jona. Its subtitle )in(out) till sundown refers to a quote by the Scottish-American author John Muir (1838–1914): “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” Baselgia’s art also stimulates reflection on the meaning of inside and outside, the boundaries that separate us from our surroundings, as well as their permeability.
Text in English and German.
Just as its nickname, ‘cream city’, has nothing to do with beer or dairy, the city of Milwaukee itself is fraught with surprises. While it is undoubtedly the jovial land of beer and cheese (and brats, bowling and The Brewers, for that matter) the city is also a centre for world-class art, architecture, culture and innovation, and has been since the 1800s.
Discover Milwaukee’s most unexpected treasures – visit a 15th century French chapel, or a 425 million-year-old tropical reef. Throw a turkey at the nation’s oldest sanctioned bowling alley. Watch an art museum flap its wings, or tour the city’s only urban cheese factory to find out why cheese curds squeak.
Milwaukee, a city both stunning and charming, also possesses a dry, self-deprecating wit and goofy cleverness. Visit 111 amazing places that reveal this unique character, one that keeps Milwaukee’s locals local, and beckons visitors back again and again.
Sharing this story was not something that Christopher Capozziello ever set out to do, but, over the years, one picture has led to another and a story has emerged. Capozziello says, “The time I have spent with my brother, looking through my camera, has forced me to ask questions about suffering and faith and why anyone is born with disability. Nick has cerebral palsy. Taking pictures has been a way for me to deal with the reality of having a twin brother who struggles through life in ways that I do not.” Capozziello’s photographs take us on a journey through his worries and inquiries, ending his debut book with a different sort of question: what comes next? Part two of the book is a journey he and his brother take across the United States. The work has been shown throughout the United States and has won 33 national and international awards. “The collection, titled The Distance Between Us, is both a brother’s touching tribute and Capozziello’s attempt to come to terms with the reality his brother lives and one from which he happened to be spared”. The Mail
In Mother Tongue, Mika Sperling (*1990) examines how origins and culture influence interpersonal relationships based on her personal family history. Language plays a key role in this. Her young daughter and her Vietnamese stepmother are the focus of the photographic examination. Sperling experiments with perspectives, close-ups, and reflecting surfaces and shows the surroundings and personal objects of the individuals portrayed.
Trained in a documentary tradition, Sperling represents a new generation of photo-essayists that takes up historical references and processes them in various mediums and objects so as to engage more intensively with the audience.
Text in English, with additional texts in German, Russian and Vietnamese.
Serena Ferrario (*1986) is the 7th winner of the renowned Horst Janssen Graphic Prize, which this year will be awarded at the Kunsthalle Hamburg for the first time. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition not only documents the various facets of Ferrario’s work with its large-scale installations, with a focus on her graphic works, collages, and films, but also explicitly takes a look behind the scenes with the title Where the Drawings Live. It is about an open process that not only provides insights into her studio work, but also reveals in particular the connection between the individual mediums in which her figures — whether drawn or real in film — live.
In addition to numerous pictures, including installation views from the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the catalogue also contains an interview with Serena Ferrario.
Text in English and German.
Stripped of their typical narrative and commercial contexts, the fragmented collages of this collection act as visually tantalizing ciphers, reflecting the desires and imaginings of the beholder.’ – Jennie Waldow, Brooklyn Rail
This beautifully illustrated catalogue showcases works by British artist John Stezaker made between 1976 and 2017 and brought together in the 2018 show “Love” at The Approach, London.
Stezaker is celebrated for his distinctive collage works: interruptions of, and interventions into, found images dating mostly from the mid-20th century – products of modernist culture such as film stills, press and publicity photographs, magazines and postcards. His works engage with themes such as psychological archetypes, fragmentation, identity, self and other, desire, inscrutability and enigma, glamour, fantasy, dreams and the gaze.
A sense of romance pervades Stezaker’s imagery. As demonstrated most dramatically by the artist’s ‘Love’ series (2016), his work seduces and ensnares the viewer’s gaze, arresting their perceptual expectations. Disquieting, poetic, compelling, glamorous and strange, the anatomies of love and desire comprising ‘Love’ resemble a visual encyclopaedia of human consciousness. Featuring essays by Michael Bracewell and Craig Burnett.
Multiple Exposures – Allen Jones & Photography explores the numerous ways in which artist Allen Jones has engaged with the possibilities of this medium. Historian Philippe Garner has researched Jones’s extensive archive to develop and present the insightful narratives implicit in this remarkable, often surprising selection of images.
Studying at Hornsey School of Art, then at the Royal College of Art till 1961, Jones achieved swift success within a dynamic roster of artists celebrated as ‘The New Generation: 1964’ at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. Alongside his practice as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, Jones nurtured an ongoing fascination with photography. This volume – an important addition to the literature on Jones’s oeuvre – reveals how he was first drawn as a student to the camera’s potential, making his earliest experiments in black and white.
Through the sixty-plus years of Jones’s career – using camera and, more recently, iPad, and iPhone – photography has become ever-more integrated within his wider practice as an artist. We observe his incorporation of ‘found’ photographs within his early collaged works; we discover the photographs he has taken as a visual ledger of all that intrigues him; we see a telling selection of the imagery that he has collected, mostly drawn from vernacular sources, such as post cards, newspaper cuttings, and magazine tear-sheets; we find his playful images of his studio and its juxtapositions; and we follow his investigation of the ways in which his paintings and sculptures can interact and invite fresh readings when transmuted into photographs.
The images in Multiple Exposures, mostly hitherto unpublished, are supported by an introductory text by Philippe Garner and by revelatory chapter introductions and pertinent pull-quotes by Allen Jones. The dynamic design of the book is by the legendary graphic artist David Hillman.
Interior design in Barcelona, an important Mediterranean metropolis and a city with a rich history, draws influences from many different styles. The interiors featured here — notable for their airy sense of space and tiled floors — are cool in the summer but remain cozy and inviting. This book takes you behind the elegant facades, where timeless charm is created by the use of wood, warm colours and fabrics. Barcelona Interiors focuses on the most exclusive and unique homes that represent the authentic Barcelona way of living.
At the end of 2020, the concrete factory in Ghent, popularly called ‘the Betoncentrale’, was demolished. With this book, Cultuur Gent, the cultural department of the City of Ghent, aims to keep the memory of this graffiti paradise alive. A team of experts selected the 10 most important street artists who were active onsite: ROA, Klaas van der Linden, and Bue the Warrior, among others. This book showcases the most beautiful work that adorned the walls of the factory. Street art expert Tristan Manco frames the local scene in its international context and Giulia Riva, a street art blogger, spoke to the artists about their memories of that unique place.
Text in English and Dutch.
The Parisian café is an integral part of the city’s daily life no matter the weather, the time of day or year, the mood or neighbourhood. It is the spirit of the café, the dance of the waiters, the camaraderie of the patrons, the perpetual movement and joy, that brings Joanie Osburn to share a dollop of history, a shot of insight, and a boatload of images that celebrate the Paris café as a cultural heritage worth celebrating and preserving.
Café Society: Time Suspended, The Cafés, & Bistros of Paris is neither a history book nor a cookbook, but a non-traditional travel guide, coffee table, and lifestyle book about a treasured lifestyle. Osburn’s unique perspective, honed over many decades as an American in Paris exploring and capturing images of café society, captivates and amuses with anecdotes and insider recommendations.
Café Society: Time Suspended, The Cafés, and Bistros of Paris is a book that matters now as the world reopens and eager travellers return to Paris. The spirit of the café brings Joanie Osburn to share a dollop of history, a shot of insight, and a boatload of images that celebrate the Paris café as a cultural heritage worth preserving.
Recaptioning Congo places the colonial Congo’s photography history in new perspectives. Six writers and everyday Congolese urban voices take an African-centered look at imperial archival images and provide them with creative, contemporary and/or literary ‘captions’. The book, linked to an exhibition in the photography museum FOMU Antwerp, is based upon the extensive research of the photographic history of colonial Congo (1885 – 1960), conducted by Dr. Sandrine Colard. It contains a wealth of revealing images that highlight the relationship between past and present, Africa and Europe and Belgium and Congo.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
“Fascinating and lucid . . . a stunningly illustrated and illuminating life of a singular painter.” — Sue Roe, Wall Street Journal
“Not just another art history book, no title in recent memory recalls with such exactitude the style of an era that, in retrospect, has become increasingly golden. . . . The book and its prose shimmer.” — New York Times
“Never before have Sargent’s talents been so gloriously displayed as they are here. Quite simply, this Abbeville edition is a stunner, a book as satisfyingly extravagant as a Sargent portrait.” — Christian Science Monitor
“The spontaneity, elegance, and grace that characterize Sargent’s work are everywhere evident on these large, luminous pages. . . . A visual delight, well written.” — Art and Antiques
The classic monograph on a much-loved artist—reissued in a spectacular oversize format
In the early work of John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Henry James saw “the slightly ‘uncanny’ spectacle of a talent which on the threshold of its career has nothing more to learn.” Sargent’s talent, nay, genius was indeed uncanny, sustained with equal intensity through his famed society portraits, like the scandalous Madame X; his full-size showpieces, like The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit; his thousands of watercolours executed en plein air from Venice to Corfu to Maine to Montana; and his ambitious mural decorations for the public monuments of Boston. In Carter Ratcliff, Sargent has found a biographer and critic nearly his match in style and subtlety. Ratcliff expertly evokes the expatriate American milieu into which the artist was born, and offers penetrating insights into every phase of his career, every aspect of his work. Now, for the first time, this landmark monograph is offered in a special oversize format, with all of its 310 illustrations reproduced in stunning full colour, many at full-page size, allowing the reader to appreciate the master’s every brushstroke. This new edition of John Singer Sargent will be a treasured reference for artists and an unalloyed delight for art lovers.
Collectors design their homes with their prized objects in mind. In this book 20 art and design collectors open the doors to their homes, many for the first time. You will be amazed at what you’ll see: from a Giacometti sculpture to a garbage bag by Gustav Metzger, from an iconic Eames lounge chair to the Living Tower by Verner Panton. This successor to the successful book Homes for Nomads (9789401477437) offers pages and pages of inspiration for all those who love beautiful and real-life interiors, and who perhaps live with, and love, their own collections.
“Laura Mary Todd’s new book delivers surprises. Her perspective is architectural and international.” — Old House Journal
Wallcoverings have moved far beyond the classic floral wallpaper. New designs and new techniques are opening up a whole range of inspiring possibilities for inventive wall treatments. This book brings together the best ideas from an international roster of architects. Included here are wallcoverings with reliefs, textures, and fabrics, along with advice on how best to incorporate repetitive patterns, neutral touches, and artwork: everything is possible. The book contains practical information and how-tos to help you get started and personal insights from interior designers who are eager to use wallcoverings and share their tips.
An Architect’s Address Book is memoir in 18 chapters of the places Robert Lemon has lived, studied, and worked over the past six decades. Some are of places that he has visited many times and are important to his career.
Studying architecture and conservation, Lemon has lived in Ottawa, Paris, London, Rome, and York. His work has involved projects in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Dorset, the High Arctic, and Xi’an. Other stories are about visiting the buildings of Andrea Palladio and Carlo Scarpa in the Veneto, Arne Jacobsen and Kay Fisker in Denmark, and five iconic 20th-century houses in France, in company of colleagues.
Most of the chapters focus on someone influential to Lemon’s career; and his vast interest in food is a thread through most stories.
Facades: Beauty. Utility. Performance illustrates the depth and breadth of the many innovative exterior wall facades that were designed from 2007–2020 at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG). The featured projects, both built and unbuilt, are explored through photographs, renderings, model images, detail drawings, narratives, and illustrations. Each project addresses a series of environmental concerns, offering site-specific, performative solutions and innovative techniques that harvest resources and maximise efficiencies.
Urban Jungle: Living and Styling with Plants is a source of inspiration, ideas and a manual for all of those who want to bring more plants into their home. The book guides the reader through different “green” homes in five European countries and shows how beautiful, unique, creative and even artistic living with plants can be. More than that the reader finds endless ideas for styling from the bloggers of the “Urban Jungle Bloggers” community. To complete the topic of indoor plants the book offers easy help for taking care of the plants and DIY tips.
What are the best burger joints in San Francisco? Which local craft breweries are worth visiting? Where should you go to find the coolest surf gear? The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco is the perfect guide for anyone who’s keen to explore the city’s best-kept secrets. It guides the reader to the places not typically included in tourist guides. Like a secret fairy door in Golden Gate Park or the truly steepest hills in the city. At the same time, it also lists fantastic places frequented by San Francisco residents, like where to shop for local goods and antiques, or where to go for a fabulous brunch and the best craft cocktails in the city. Packed with hundreds of places to go, things to do, and good-to-know facts about the city, The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco will help you make the most of your visit to one of the United States’ coolest towns.
Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com
Eliseo Mattiacci: Sculpture in Action in Rome is a fresh examination of the developments in Mattiacci’s sculpture from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, dates that embrace the two decades he spent living and working in Italy’s vibrant capital. New research by the contributors to this book reveal how the exceptional constellation of studios, galleries and institutional spaces as well as the architectural and landscape settings Rome offered were the crucial factor in Mattiacci’s rapid sophistication as an artist. In the mid-1960s the city was already a major centre for art, literature, theatre and cinema, and the setting for numerous avant-garde performative ‘actions’ and ‘happenings’. The Piazza del Popolo district was crowded with bars and galleries, and Mattiacci soon became warmly acquainted with various gallerists and artists, including the Arte Povera practitioners Jannis Kounellis and Pino Pascali. In this challenging and competitive environment Mattiacci sought to establish his own distinctive exploratory style, investigating materials, forms, sounds, presentations and actions in endlessly novel and inventive ways. The extraordinary Tubo, the long flexible yellow coil of metallic tubing that could be endlessly rearranged and even carried out of a gallery into the streets by files of admirers, was first exhibited in 1967, and made his name. The following year he staged Lavori in corso, a trio of very popular performances, in the Circo Massimo, which involved spinning huge umbrellas in imitation of the Earth’s rotations and revolutions. Percorso, in 1969, was Mattiacci again in action, this time driving a noisy roadroller into and around a gallery.
In the 1970s – a difficult decade of political violence in Italy – Mattiacci continued to explore both outwardly and inwardly. He was increasingly fascinated by archaeology, antique alphabets and non-literate cultures, notably the USA’s First Peoples, and he created actions and presentations that ranged from exhibitions of x-rays of his own inner organs to appearances encased in ‘bandaging’ and plaster. In 1981 he first showed the admired Roma, a collection of 50 large sinuous metal shapes inspired by the volutes of classical and Baroque architecture, once again an artwork that is endlessly rearrangeable, indoors or out. Sculpture in Action is the beautifully illustrated account of Mattiacci’s artistic creativity in those decades.
The Art & Times of Daniel Jocz presents the entrancing and challenging work of American jewellery artist and sculptor Daniel Jocz. There is a spontaneous quality to the work, yet it is always rich with meaning. His open spirit is fully embodied in the 2007 neckpiece series An American’s Riff on the Millstone Ruff. Inspired by the extravagant scale of 17th-century Dutch ruffs at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, he decided to update them with automobile paint.
Jeannine Falino takes an in-depth look at the twists and turns of Jocz’s long career, from his early geometric sculptures to the fashion-forward flocked Candy Wear collection, and from his ruminations on Marlene Dietrich in the form of necklaces featuring enamel smoked cigarettes to the wall reliefs he explores today. Wendy Steiner considers Jocz’s place in the avant-garde through the lens of fashion and culture, while Patricia Harris and David Lyon explore his involvement in the rollicking Boston jewellery scene of the late 20th century.
The Tekkieh Moaven is a significant religious monument in Kermanshah and one of the most important national memorials in Iran. Following the building’s destruction in the early 20th century, it was rebuilt and furnished with exclusive tiles, the focal point of this publication. Since 1975, it has also been a popular museum visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. The tiles illustrate the fascinating world of art in the Persian empire and Islamic era and are distinguished by colourful illustrations featuring floral, calligraphic, and also figurative motifs. Author Hadi Seif weaves the recollections of the ancient guardian Sojdehpur into his narratives, contributing valuable insights into the evolutionary history of these impressive tiles. This is the first major English-language publication dedicated to this outstanding cultural monument.
Zhu Pei’s Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum recalls a time of glory of the once “Millenium Porcelain Capital” city, Jingdezhen, and extends these memories to the present. Inspired by the perception of Jingdezhen’s specific regional culture (porcelain) and the survival wisdom of the locals, the museum is a symbol of the past and future. The contemporary architecture magnificently resonates the ages: the building form is reminiscent of ancient traditional brick kilns, and its landscape — with mirror pools, bamboo groves, kiln ruins, and courtyards — recreates an impression of Jingdezhen’s vibrant porcelain past. As an “Architecture of Nature,” that evokes both contemporaneity and ancient vibes, the museum subverts typical perceptions of modern-day museums. Coloured photos, drawings, essays, and interviews provide detailed insights on the conception of the museum — from design concept to environmental strategies, to construction techniques and construction materials — as well as the architect’s personal perspectives on the overall concept and intention of the museum. The pages also feature commentaries on the museum by well-known architects, including Fan Di’an, Kenneth Frampton, Steven Holl, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, Thomas Krens, Mohsen Mostafavi, Wang Mingxian.