George Byrne’s photography depicts the gritty urbanism of Los Angeles in sublime otherworldliness. Arriving a decade ago, the Australian artist was immediately enthralled by the sprawling cityscape of L.A., mesmerised by the way the sunlight transformed it, into two-dimensional, almost painterly abstractions. In his Post Truth series (2015–22), Byrne reassembles his photos of the urban landscape into striking, ascetic collages of colour and geometric fragments, creating a postmodernist oasis in the metropolis. By masterfully harnessing the malleability of the photographic medium, the photographer situates his work in the space between real and imagined. Byrne’s compositions evoke associations with Miami Beach’s Art Deco, the Memphis Group’s designs, as well as the painting of David Hockney or Ed Ruscha, and at the same time tap into the aesthetics of today’s visual culture played out on Instagram.
The volume offers an unprecedented reflection on the work of Lucio Fontana, whose art appears to be not so much masculine, volcanic, demiurgic, as much critical literature has already claimed, but alluding to the female generative force, which is active in the mind of the artist as in nature, in the cosmos and in the fertile body of the earth. Through a selection of refined drawings and small sculptures, a new reading of the master’s research is proposed, directed towards a chthonic, original, telluric dimension of a newly generated material: new light can thus be shed on the “cuts”, on the “holes” and on the graphic representations, often performed with a primary, childish gesture, like an instinctual drive, even before being a project and reproduction. The volume includes a series of critical texts and is completed by bio-bibliographical apparatuses.
Texts by: Sergio Risaliti, Paolo Campiglio, Andrea Bruciati, Luca Piero Nicoletti, Maria Grazia Messina, Lauretta Colonnelli, Letizia Fuochi, Marco Fagioli, Eva Francioli
Six women, six stories. They make cartoons and graphic work in the besieged Syrian city of Idlib or unfree Egypt of President al-Sisi, they fight fat shaming and homophobia in Mexico, are on the run from president Putin, criticise Hindu nationalism and misogyny from Indian Prime Minister Modi or defy the powers that be in The Washington Post. Whether they are from Mexico, the USA, Syria, Egypt, India or Russia, they all belong to the absolute world top. But the way to the top was not an easy one for any of them.
The office complex in Karlsruhe is considered as Tadao Ando’s first urban design in Germany. The publication provides exclusive insights into the creation and planning of the building. Architecture photographs and building plans show Ando’s design formula: reduction to the essentials, exposed concrete on the scale of the tatami mats, strict geometries, precision and refined detail give the building its characteristic touch. The architect and client agreed on creating an aesthetic and energy-efficient building that meets the latest technical standards and offers the employees the best working conditions.
Text in English and German.
A pioneer of the Nouvelle Tapisserie (New Tapestry) movement, Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930–2017) revolutionised the practice of weaving in the 1960s. She elevated this craft to the status of sculptural expression, using the possibilities of organic fibers such as wool, sisal, and linen as living, malleable materials to realise her artistic vision based on the observation of nature and man. Her spectacular wall-mounted and spatial woven works made her name internationally and marked several editions of the Biennale of Tapestry, held in the Swiss city of Lausanne between 1962 and 1995.
This French-language book illuminates the crucial role that Lausanne played at the beginning of Abakanowicz’s international career and in her artistic explorations. Her reflections and creative paths are juxtaposed with places and encounters in Lausanne and the rest of Switzerland: the Bienniale of Tapestry and the Alice Pauli Gallery, local patrons and collectors of art, scholars, and friends.
Text in French.
The first monograph on a pivotal figure of postwar American art.
Best known for his monumental sculptures, Ronald Bladen (1918–1988) was regarded as an artistic forerunner by such minimalist artists as Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt, and Carl Andre. But in contrast to the matter-of-fact work of these artists, Bladen’s sculptures are charged with emotional power. They fill entire rooms, pressing outward against the walls and ceiling; their themes include the force of gravity, the dynamism of planar surfaces, the impact of scale, and confrontation with the viewer.
This splendidly illustrated book presents a comprehensive overview of Bladen’s career: his breakthrough works such as Untitled (Three Elements), a standout at the Jewish Museum’s legendary Primary Structures exhibition of 1966; his monumental outdoor commissions of the late 1960s through the 1980s; and his reflective wall reliefs of 1980s. Bladen’s drawings and working models are discussed in detail, and his early career as a painter is considered in the light of his later sculptural oeuvre. Art historian Robert S. Mattison’s thoughtful analysis of Bladen’s art is informed not only by extensive archival research but also by numerous interviews with Bladen’s contemporaries, including fellow artists like Bill Jensen, Alex Katz, and Dorothea Rockburne.
In addition, this volume collects several of the most important critical essays on Bladen, by Irving Sandler, April Kingsley, Bill Berkson, and Naomi Spector. The full scholarly apparatus includes an illustrated chronology of the artist’s life and career.
Today, Bladen’s works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, Storm King Art Center, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, among many others. His grasp of the expressive power of mass and abstract form continues to influence sculptors from Richard Serra to Ursula von Rydingsvard. Here, finally, is a book that reveals and elucidates the full extent of his achievement.
Van Overstraeten is one of the oldest and most exclusive interior design companies in Belgium, started in 1891 and now with a worldwide reputation working with the best architects, interior designers and decorators for private and public projects. In this stunning debut monograph, beautifully presented with all new photography is a selection of more than 40 projects from recent years.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
Cities of art and culture that captivate. Villages at the top of tightly-knitted roads, or, stretched out across waves of vineyard-covered hills. Monuments, palaces, and cathedrals that chronical centuries past. A place where history is imprinted in every wall and enchantment found in every breath-taking landscape. A journey through Italy is always rich; it is a country with hidden treasures in every corner. This beautiful photographic book takes the real or daydreaming traveller through Italy’s most spectacular itineraries. Taking time to describe not only the landscape and historical sights, but also the culture, traditions, celebrations, and specialities of each territory along the way.
When he discovered that his home country, the Netherlands, was the second largest food exporter in the world after the US, photographer Kadir van Lohuizen was interested to learn more. He wanted to discover the world behind our food production. Where is our food produced? And how is it distributed across our world? Like a fly on the wall, Van Lohuizen follows the entire process, in the Netherlands, in Kenya, the US, the United Arab Emirates and China. The scale and efficiency of most food companies raises as much respect as questions: What are the effects of these production and consumption chains on the planet? And how future-proof is this? Food for thought, indeed. In this book, which was also partly conceived as a food atlas, Van Lohuizen bundles his images, but together with experts he also takes a closer look at the facts and figures behind the global food industry and shows unique infographics.
This book presents the richness, diversity and strength of the work of the most famous street art artist in the world… and yet nobody knows his identity. We are invited to follow the evolution of the artist from England to the United States, France, Israel and the Ukraine, and through more than a hundred emblematic works, all explained. This is the original Catalog Raisonné of the Banksy Museum, in which all these works are reproduced in their urban contexts, allowing the general public to discover them in a realistic way and to grasp their strength, including those that have been stolen or defaced and no longer exist.
Twenty-five portraits of upcoming and renowned interior architects and designers from all over the world. The follow-up volume of the highly successful Generation Next, ISBN 9782875500649.
What was the meaning of the extraordinary collection of texts, sketches and graphic prints that Edvard Munch called The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Get a glimpse into the artist’s world of ideas through one of the greatest mysteries he left behind. In this book you can experience The Tree of Knowledge as it was found in Munch’s home, with both loose, bound and blank pages. An essay by art historian Nora Ceciliedatter Nerdrum provides new perspectives on Munch’s most enigmatic project. No one knows why he created this album. Was it a book proposal? Or was it an attempt to organise his ideas?
What we do know is that he worked on the album for several decades, and that it was probably never completed. The most astonishing part of its content is perhaps Munch’s own texts about love, jealousy, life and death, composed in large, colourful lettering.
Step into a captivating world where the lens becomes a storyteller, and architectural marvels and interior masterpieces unfold with mesmerising clarity.
For the first time ever, this book brings together 50 of the world’s best photographers specialising in architecture and interior design and showcases each one through portraits, interviews and a handpicked selection of their best images to date.
In Focus is not just a book; it’s a visual odyssey paying homage to the world’s most exceptional architecture and interiors photographers.
As the curated collection unveils the unique perspectives of each photographer, from the play of light on architectural structures to the intimate details of curated living spaces, readers are invited to witness the convergence of art and functionality. This tribute encapsulates the essence of architectural and interior photography, showcasing the visionaries who have dedicated their craft to immortalising the soul of spaces.
Wines from Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage and Châteauneuf-du-Pape have made the Rhône Valley world famous. This may be a classic wine region, but as Matt Walls reveals in Wines of the Rhône that doesn’t mean it is set in its ways. Change here is not only driven by innovations in winemaking and fashions in wine, it is also an essential response to a rapidly shifting climate, which has seen temperatures rise significantly over the last 40 years and extreme weather events become more commonplace. Walls provides a rounded picture of this large and complex region, which varies greatly along the 200-kilometre stretch of river, from Vienne in the north to Provence in the south. Beginning with a vivid journey through the terrain, he explores one of the region’s constants, its varied geology, before moving on to the pressing issue of climate. A short tour through the Rhône’s winemaking history, from early Greek settlers to the modern industry, is followed by vignettes of all the AOC-permitted grapes and an explanation of the five levels of the region’s appellation system. Walls encourages readers to venture beyond the famous crus, making it easy for those eager to explore by detailing the terroir of every appellation and describing and assessing typical wines. Profiles of 200 key producers complete the picture. Boxes throughout the text provide interesting asides on current issues as well as key appellation facts, while an appendix on ageing wines offers a guide to the last 40 vintages. This comprehensive examination of a renowned region is an ideal introduction for those new to the Rhône, while providing fresh insights for long-time admirers of the wines.
The fall of the Berlin Wall motivated photographer and journalist Lieve Blancquaert to set off on an epic tour of Europe in her campervan. She visited all 27 member states of the European Union in search of the origins of this identity. She wanted to hear and feel what holds us together and what divides us.
Her many personal encounters reveal time and again that our own language, history, concerns, desires and dreams are far more universal than we might at first think. Europeans as such don’t exist, and yet we are connected in many different ways, whether we like it or not.
Through hundreds of penetrating images and dozens of colourful stories, Lieve Blancquaert shows, as in a travel diary, the complexity, diversity and beauty of this vulnerable continent.
With a foreword by Hendrik Vos. At the same time as the book, VRT Canvas is also launching a series of the same name, and the accompanying exhibition at Mechelen Cultural Centre runs from 14 March to 30 June 2024, as part of the city festival Construct Europe.
Palazzo Vecchio portrays the architecture of the historic Florentine palace immortalised by the internationally-renowned photographer Massimo Listri. The first complete and organic photographic documentation of the building, updated in the wake of recent restoration and re-functionalization, the sequence of images runs page after page through the exterior and the interior of the palace. The alternation of rooms, courtyards and museum spaces, enriched by countless pictorial and sculptural elements, gives life, in Listri’s view, to a faithfully objective overview of the building that, since the end of the 13th century, has been the heart of Florence’s civic and political life, still today a place for meetings, debate and dialogue. The volume, edited by Sergio Risaliti, offers brief essays by experts on the subject such as Serena Pini and Carlo Francini, with a contribution by Mayor Dario Nardella.
Award-winning German photographer Michael Wolf (1954–2019) grew up in Canada, Europe and the United States. In 1994, Wolf moved to Hong Kong, where he worked for eight years as a contract photographer for Stern Magazine. The core of Wolf’s work consisted of capturing life in megacities. Many of his projects depict the architecture and popular culture of metropolises, and Hong Kong Whispers is no exception.
This book contains a stunning series of photos showing the vibrant global city of Hong Kong. Wolf’s photographs are displayed in dialogue with the acerbic and ambiguous drawings of Arpaïs Du Bois (°1973). Based on intense engagement with Wolf’s series of images, she reflects on unnoticed moments and events that characterise life in the metropolis. The visual exchange between photographs and drawings took shape during Du Bois’ stay of several weeks in Hong Kong (2004), during which the two artists observed the city both together and individually.
In this opulent coffee table book, photographer Werner Pawlok shows us the diversity of New Orleans and paints a breathtaking portrait of the city. He captures special places, personalities and stories in his expressive photographs. We marvel at the colonial-style rooms steeped in history as well as the passionate music scene in the city, which is also known as the “cradle of jazz”. The magical feeling of life in this unique metropolis in the south of the USA becomes immediately tangible.
Text in English and German.
Hotels continue to appeal to the imagination. The sector re-invents itself time and time again and sets the limits for the ultimate overnight stay. But which hotels offer you a once in a lifetime experience? This book lists the ultimate top 150 hotels, compiled by travel and lifestyle journalist Debbie Pappyn. All hotels guarantee a unique experience: a unique view or location, the incredible luxury or inimitable charm, the sophisticated design, the service or simply manta rays and sea turtles swimming under your bed… Debbie Pappyn visited more than 1000 hotels. She draws from her own experience, adds her ultimate wish list and gives you the reason why you have to stay there. This is a revised and updated version of the ultimate ‘bucket list hotel guide’ and one of the 10 books in the highly successful 150 series.
This volume pays tribute to Robert Mapplethorpe, one of the greatest exponents of photography of the 20th century, through an unpublished comparison with Wilhelm von Gloeden and Fratelli Alinari: a comparison evocative, at times pointed, that reveals the recurrence of common themes.
The interest in the Ancient and the sculptural approach to the photographic medium come alive in the choice of subjects, the definition of poses and the suspended atmospheres of the compositions, leading to the discovery of an unconventional idea of beauty and eros.
The shots, inspired by the canons of classicism, invite questions about the themes of the body and sensuality and offer themselves as food for thought on how art, morality and spirituality change and evolve continuously in their mutual relationship.
“…these charming little pocket guides clearly come from knowledgeable authors. They’re packed tight with practical advice and informed opinion.” — Wall Street Journal
A handy and stylish pocket guide to Rioja, The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide covers everything you need to know about Spain’s most famous wine region, its fascinating 150-year relationship with Bordeaux, the history of its great bodegas, the complex business of barrel ageing, the differences between modern and classic Rioja – and where to find the best tapas in Rioja. This is a guide written by wine experts for the wine-interested tourist. Everything about this complex region is covered: the difference between Rioja Alta and Rioja Alavesa, wine routes to take you past architectural masterpieces like Frank Gehry’s Marques de Riscal and Calatrava’s Bodegas Ysios. The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide series is written in collaboration with Club Oenologique, with comprehensive listings of restaurants, hotels, cafés and bars, points of wider cultural interest such as art galleries and museums, which bodegas you can visit, how to read a Rioja wine list, Rioja winemakers’ favourite restaurants and more.
There’s an elemental satisfaction in living in a cozy sanctuary in the midst of a snowy landscape. It evokes feelings of warmth, security, refuge, and comfort. This revised edition of Winter Homes beautifully illustrates examples from winter wonderlands around the globe and provides ingenious solutions on how the home’s design is formulated, and the architectural and interior design techniques used to create both a connection to nature and contend with biting winter conditions.
Curl up in front of the fire with this gorgeous edition, crammed full of evocative images, and take a journey through some of the world’s best contemporary and stylish winter residences, be they atop mountains, deep in the valleys, forests or plains, or along coastal regions. Bask in the splendid vicarious warmth from your sofa and enjoy the beauty of a home that is perfectly designed for a moody winter landscape.
“Wine lovers who have pondered the answers to questions like “Why is red wine red?” and “Why do people perceive wines differently?” will appreciate this book.” — Wall Street Journal
“…one of those rare books that will make you think differently next time you open a bottle of wine”— Club O
“… Gus Zhu MW has written a fascinating – and easy to follow – guide to the way in which chemistry, biology, physics, genetics and winemaking interact to not only create the great diversity seen in today’s world of wine, but also shape our ability to taste, understand and appreciate these wines.” — Natasha Hughes MW, wine and food writer
“A lively, readable exploration of the science behind the taste of wine… It’s not easy bringing wine chemistry to life, but Gus knows his stuff and presents it in an easily digestible read.” — Dr Jamie Goode, author of Wine Science and Flawless
“For those whose interest in wine has evolved beyond the simply sip phase, Behind the Glass would be a good first place to look for answers to some fundamental questions.” — The World of Fine Wine
In Behind the Glass readers will discover the science involved in wine tasting and learn why wine tastes the way it does. Wine is chemically very complex, while sensory appreciation can be subjective, meaning that our perception of wine is multi-layered. Behind the Glass is aimed at the non-scientist curious wine lover or wine professional and uses flavour chemistry and sensory science to help readers understand what is going on when they taste a glass of wine. The book is divided into three sections, on the visual appreciation of wine, the taste of wine on the palate and the smell of wine, and explains the chemical and sensory aspects of each. The text is illuminated by accompanying graphics. The book concludes with six pairs of wines to taste, to allow readers to put into practice the ideas explored in the book. By understanding more fully the chemical and sensorial aspects of wine tasting readers will equip themselves to better appreciate each glass of wine they taste.
“This book is a fascinating look at a history rarely told.” —The Guardian
“a fascinating look at a history rarely told” — The Observer
“In his new book “Around the World in 200 Globes” (Luster), he spot-lights some of the most significant and interesting, shpwing that a globe is more than a map on a ball.” — Wall Street Journal
“…a superb illustrator of changing boundaries and national self-regard” — Strong Words
“…exquisite examples that speak to our species’ ever-shifting ideas of who we are and where we live” — National Geographic Traveler
“…beautifully put together – and the photographs of the globes are straightforward but show off the magnificence of the collection admirably” — Amateur Photographer
The Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutelings (co-founder of Neutelings Riedijk Architects) is known as the architect of, among other things, the MAS in Antwerp and the Gare Maritime in Brussels’ Tour & Taxis district. Few people know, however, that Neutelings is also an avid collector who, over the years, has built up a very extensive and also very specific collection of hundreds of globes, made between 1900 and 2000. In this book, he presents his collection to the public for the first time. He selected 200 globes, each telling a very individual and interesting story about the time and place when and where they were created. Some globes bear witness to technological innovations by the way they were made, some show how advanced people’s knowledge of space was at the time, some were intended as navigational aids. Neutelings’ collection includes globes in cast iron, steel, wood and even paper; some look very old and fragile, others are very colourful, and some even give off light. Each one is a beautiful and intriguing object that teaches us a lot about the ever-changing world view of mankind. This beautiful and skillfully crafted book is an ode to these stories, to the unique objects often anonymous craftsmen produced in the last century, and to the special dedication of collectors.