Using the formalist conventions of an ironic heritage, William Ludwig Lutgens attains the expression of something sincere. Like the philosophical idiot who did his utmost best to unlearn all the fallacies he was acquitted with since birth and now only knows he knows nothing, the artist made the world into his own theatre wherein he can stomp around like a bull in a china shop with the grace of a prima ballerina. Forcing a pathway to possible exits by presenting us with the alloy of his observations, imagination and scattershot references. Not merely asking questions, which seems to be the hype in contemporary art nowadays, he is unraveling the framework wherein these questions originate. The image deconstructed by the story of its creation, alternating between the power and impotence of the theatrical madness at the end of the world as we know it. William Ludwig Lutgens presents with his Comedy of Humours the dysfunctional family of man.
Text in English and Dutch.
Portia Zvavahera is one of the outstanding artists of her generation. Born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1985, she has developed a unique combination of print/painting techniques to register a private world of dreams, fantasies and figural constructions. She received her art education in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, and has become recognised in the past decade as one of the foremost representatives of African figuration, showcased at the Venice Biennale in 2022, and in a number of commercial gallery exhibitions in South Africa, the US and the UK. She has not yet had a solo show in a public museum in Europe.
This new publication accompanies a major exhibition, curated by Tamar Garb, which will include reproductions of brand new works created on the occasion of this exhibition alongside a selection of recent and older paintings which reveal the depth and richness of Zvavahera’s practice. The focus will be on the theme of dreams, fantasy and figuration, and large details will highlight Zvavahera’s innovative amalgamation of printmaking and painting techniques that build rich surfaces to create her private cosmology of creatures and contexts.
The book will feature a significant new essay from curator Tamar Garb and will centre around an extensive conversation between Garb, Sinazo Chiya, Tandazani Dhlakama and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela discussing Zvavahera’s engagement with eros, intimacy and female-centred experience.
The book will open up how Zvavahera’s works emerge from dreams; being figurative without being illustrative, registering a world of feminine experience and fantasy.
In his paintings, the artist Szilard Huszank (*1980) deals with the possibilities and peculiarities of the landscape as a subject, exploring it through new contexts in refreshing and unusual ways. Enthused by the colour palettes of classic modernism, yet far from parody, he has developed an inimitable canon of colour and a formal vocabulary all his own. Always gliding into abstract solutions, the colours and content demand the eye’s attention.
Text in English and German.
The first institutional presentation with works by Sven Drühl took place in 2002 under the title Die Aufregung at the Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen. The rooms in which the museum presented the then young positions have been used by the Kunstverein Leverkusen Schloss Morsbroich e. V. for many years. Sven Drühl, who is known for his artistic adaptations and remixes, has now returned to this location with his new landscape paintings, which are based purely on virtual models. In the place where his artistic career began, the artist is now showing paintings and bronzes from the past six years.
Text in English and German.
“Although the street art is generally conveyed in a very natural matter, even his dead animal paintings seem at peace.” – Streetartbio.com “Detached from the artist’s identity, his detailed, illustrative animal paintings have brought him back to the world. With local species of animals as his main focus, ROA inevitably starts a dialogue about human interaction with nature and the environment, whether it is painting on the walls of a museum or in an abandoned rural factory.” – Hi Fructose – The New Contemporary Magazine “One of the most influential acts of street art around the world.” – The Huffington Post Fascinated by nature, the anonymous muralist and street artist ROA is inspired by the beauty of its non-human inhabitants. With great attention to detail, ROA draws over-sized black and white creatures of endemic or endangered species on buildings around the world, from Moscow to Mexico City, and from Los Angeles to London. His subjects are frequently survivors; scavengers, rodents, and unusual animals that thrive in their particular milieu.
Thorvald Hellesen (1888-1937) was a Norwegian avant-garde artist who lived and worked in Paris in the 1910s and 1920s. He and his wife, the French artist Hélène Perdriat, were part of a circle of artists that included Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Constantin Brâncuși, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, and many others. In his short yet intense life, Thorvald Hellesen created an impressive unique oeuvre, oriented on Modernism, consisting of oil paintings, watercolours, gouaches, drawings, design projects, and textiles. Nevertheless, even in Norway he is only known to a few. With this publication the authors Dag Blakkisrud, Matthew Drutt, and Hilde Mørch have created a written portrait of Hellesen. In addition to classifying him within the history of art, they try to find explanations as to why his artistic practice is only now being considered important and interesting for Norwegian and international art history.
Text in Norwegian.
Helmut Middendorf is one of Germany’s most renowned painters. As a member of the neo-expressionists, the Neue Wilden, he left a lasting impression on the artistic landscape of the 1980s. In 2022, Middendorf showed an exhibition entitled Berlin SO 36 Revisited at the Museum Schloss Derneburg, Hall Art Foundation. SO 36 was the name of an area of Kreuzberg, but also of the famous music venue that inspired many of the artist’s works. Middendorf lived and worked in Berlin Kreuzberg’s SO 36 district throughout the 1970s and 80s. As well as the documentation accompanying the exhibition at the Museum Schloss Derneburg, this publication presents a wide selection of paintings and works on paper dating from that era, most of which are being republished here for the first time in many years. A large number of hitherto unseen photographs from the artist’s private archive also feature.
Text in English and German.
Welcome to the world of Edvard Munch and… You! Step into the studio and play with stencils, lines and patterns, and have fun drawing new characters and scenes while helping the artist finish his paintings. In this book you can discover places and motifs from Edvard Munch’s life and artwork, and bring the pages to life with your own wonderful creations. Have fun, and experiment just like Munch!
The catalogue Max Neumann – Journey comprises around 80 paintings and works on paper from all creative phases of the painter and graphic artist Max Neumann (b. 1949), who is an important representative of contemporary German figuration. His enigmatic human figures seated in enraptured pictorial settings are not geared toward capturing a subjective, distinct portrayal, but toward the crystallisation of an unmistakable humanlike allegory. His characters, in their at once disconcerting and graceful silhouettes, fall out of time and history as symbolic markers of a human state of mind. Neumann does not intend to narrate any incidents; he rather traces emotional human qualities, confronting the viewer with his own desires, fears, obsessions, and phantasms.
Text in English and German.
It is Cadell’s zest for life and the diversity of his subjects that makes him unique in the group of artists popularly known as the Scottish Colourists. Influenced by direct contact with the European avant-garde movements taking place at the turn of the century and with early knowledge of the work of Matisse and the Fauves, Cadell’s paintings are confident and rich with colour. Celebrated for his stylish portraits of Edinburgh New Town interiors and his vibrantly coloured, daringly simple still lifes of the 1920s, exceptional in Bristish art of this period, he also captured the beauty of nature, especially in the evocative works portraying his beloved Iona. Contents: Birth of an Artist A Colourist Emerges Private Cadell Ainslie Place The Later Years and Cadell’s Legacy Cadell and Iona
In her paintings, the Swiss artist Regula Syz (b. 1946) opens up a space for contradiction. They depict blossoming life, but also foreboding and destruction. To this end, the artist works with elementary manifestations of the life cycle, which she links to humankind’s internal and external struggles. Regula Syz’s oeuvre, which spans more than fifty years, is characterised by a turning point in 1999: a studio residency in Genoa marked her transition from precise watercolour techniques to large-format acrylic paintings; beauty and harmony were followed by expressiveness and movement. Red Raven – Black Poppy focuses on this second phase of her work, though it also features earlier works and excerpts from her sketchbooks, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of Syz’s artistic practice.
Text in English and German.
John Bellany, born 1942, helped change the course of painting in Scotland. His intensely felt paintings of fisherfolk and their precarious life at sea were a direct challenge to the much diluted Scottish colourist tradition and its landscapes and still lifes. The sheer size and raw emotion of Bellany’s canvases, their depictions of a way of life that the artist knew from growing up in a Port Seton fishing family – and their elevation of that life onto a symbolic level – were at odds with the decorative, drawing-room pictures of much contemporary Scottish painting in the 1960s.
This book will mark John Bellany’s seventieth birthday and will accompany the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of John Bellany’s work since the National Galleries of Scotland organised the retrospective in 1986. The fully illustrated catalogue will illustrate paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints from all the key periods of the artist’s career.
The work of Li-Wen Kuo (*1980) documents a perpetual measuring of the space of painterly possibility. For her, any achieved position, any accomplished painting, bears in itself the task of being overcome. The logic of form which gives this development a direction, though, is concealed by the paintings’ independent existence. For each painting is, at the same time, grown out of itself; it possesses its own centre of force by which it is organised. By virtue of their individuality, these paintings allow a dialogical relationship with the spectator. Li-Wen Kuo’s work aspires to the inexhaustibility of this relationship.
Text in English and German.
This is the exceptionally rich story of Rembrandt’s fame and influence in Britain. No other nation has witnessed such a passionate – and sometimes eccentric – enthusiasm for Rembrandt’s works. His imagery has become ubiquitous, making him one of the most recognised artists in history. In this book, some of the world’s leading experts reveal how the taste for Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings and prints evolved, growing into a mania that gripped collectors and art lovers across the country. This reached a fever pitch in the late 1700s, before the dawn of a new century ushered in a re-evaluation of Rembrandt’s reputation and opportunities for the wider public to see his masterpieces for themselves.
The story of Rembrandt’s profound and inspirational impact on the British imagination is illustrated by over 130 sumptuous works by the master himself, as well as by some of Britain’s best-loved artists, including William Hogarth, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Eduardo Paolozzi and John Bellany.
Foreword; Introduction; 1 Rembrandt’s Fame in Britain, 1630 1900: An Overview- Christian Tico Seifert; 2 Rembrandt and Britain: The Modern Era – Patrick Elliott; 3 ‘The Finest Possible State’: Cataloguing and Collecting Rembrandt’s Prints, c.1700 1840 – Stephanie S. Dickey; 4 From Studio to Academy: Copying Rembrandt in Eighteenth-century Britain – Jonathan Yarker; 5 Regarding Rembrandt: Reynolds and Rembrandt – Donato Esposito; 6 Rembrandt: Paragon of the Etching Revival – Peter Black; 7 Rembrandt and Britain: A ‘Picture Flight’ in Three Stages, 1850 1930 – M.J. Ripps; Catalogue; Bibliography.
Embark on another cosmic adventure and discover the striking artistry of NASA’s mission patches and logos. This beautifully illustrated book offers a visual tour of NASA’s heritage symbolism from the early Mercury missions of the 1960s to the rovers, orbital telescopes and brand-new lunar capsules of the 2020s.
The countdown is underway! NASA’s first Moon landing since 1972 is now on the near horizon and this follow-up to the popular Space: Posters & Paintings is the perfect way to prepare for take-off. Celebrating the achievements of the men and women who dared to venture into the beyond, Space Mission Patches uncovers the story of the space administration through the indelible artwork of their historic insignias. Perfect for space aficionados, design enthusiasts and kids old and young, this meeting of art and exploration is the definitive testament to the enduring legacy of NASA’s trailblazing journeys to the unknown.
This exhibition and accompanying book show how contemporary artists are reinventing craft techniques, exploring identity and cultural history.
Embroidery, a skill passed down through generations, is central to this exploration. Traditionally practiced by women, it’s now embraced by both genders. The exhibition highlights the work of Madhvi and Manu Parekh, who draw inspiration from India’s rich spiritual and artistic traditions. Their works, ranging from paintings to sculptures, reflect the interplay between the real and the imaginary.
The Chanakya School of Craft works with these artists to reinterpret their work through embroidery. This fusion of art and craft challenges traditional boundaries and creates a dialogue between past and present.
Wolfgang Beltracchi is a phenomenon of the international art world. His name is inextricably entwined with one of the greatest upheavals in the global art market. Emulating numerous world-famous artists, he developed and painted new paintings, continued their narrations and biography, and concluded them with a forged signature. His wife Helene Beltracchi then smuggled them onto the art market. Many experts were deceived by Beltracchi’s stupendous skill and auctioneers cast many doubts aside in the interests of insatiable market demand, selling the paintings as authentic works by the purported artists.
Reading the artistic handwriting of a painting requires an exceptional willingness and ability to be able to empathise and identify with the artist, until you “can feel what the other feels” (Wolfgang Beltracchi). Through extensive discussions with the painter and his wife, the psychoanalyst Jeannette Fischer explored this capability that is so pronounced for Beltracchi. In her new book, she places this in relation to the disappearance of Beltracchi’s own signature. As with her previous highly successful book about the performance artist Marina Abramović, Jeannette Fischer has created an exceptionally insightful portrait of a fascinating artist personality.
Remains: Zsolt Berszán provides in-depth insights into the works that the Romanian artist (*1974) created between 2014 and 2021. Roughly 100 artworks — paintings, sculptures, and mix-media objects — shaped by the idea of dissolution and decay are presented in three chapters. The artist again and again insinuates the human body, which becomes visible in a macabre play of distortions, contortions, and torn fragments. Zsolt Berszán is not interested in the individual itself, but in human remains, which themselves become the topic.
Text in English and German.
Sculptures of Stones by Ronny Delrue depict female statues that are either made of bricks or covered with masonry-like patterns. They form a critical riposte to the heroic male statues of former leaders that are scattered around our cities. Furthermore, the forms also broaden our prior knowledge of the depiction of figures in the public sphere. Sculptures of Stones shows drawing to be a form of spontaneous expression. It offers an alternative to the all-pervasive means of instant communication that govern the world today, namely digital tools and social media systems. Delrue’s drawings are both action and representation. Unlike the electronic devices, a drawing redeems the option of an unmediated, direct action and reflection in and on the world. It re-positions the function of the artist as a free, sovereign subject, who touches the world and is ready to participate and influence history.
English, Dutch and French.
During the early 1960s, Riley’s black-and-white work employed elementary shapes to convey movement and light. Having tested this limited set of means, the artist incorporated colour into her paintings in 1967.
This volume accompanied an exhibition at Graves Gallery, Sheffield (18 February–25 June 2016) that chronicles the period of change which took place before, during and after Riley’s representation of Great Britain at the 34th Venice Biennale. Using Rise 1 (1968) as a starting point, the carefully selected group of paintings and works on paper from 1967–85 situate this important painting within its context.
Alongside over 30 full-colour illustrations, an essay by Paul Moorhouse explores how the adoption of colour informs developments throughout Riley’s ensuing career.
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne is, with the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo’s most ambitious project of his later years. This masterpiece has been under restoration and it will be exhibited in its newly found splendour at the Louvre. There, for the first time, it will be flanked by cartoons with the same subject (but with St. John the Baptist) held at the National Gallery, London, and by preparatory sketches and drawings, thus allowing the public to gain new insights in Leonardo’s method of work. The exhibition and the catalogue present 131 works by Leonardo and other contemporary artists, such as Raphael and Luini, placing the St. Anne in its proper art historical context. This great work has had an enduring influence on the development of art in the High Renaissance (Michelangelo, Solario, Andrea del Sarto, etc.), but its effects are seen on paintings much more recent, such as those of Odilon Redon and Max Ernst. Contents: The construction of form The cartoon of 1501 First studies for the St. Anne of the Louvre The cartoon for the the St. Anne of the Louvre New studies; the second version of the composition Last studies The drawings on the reverse Emulation in Florence The St. Anne in Milan: copies and variations The St. Anne in France The fascination for the St. Anne
Herb Greene’s Generations showcases six decades of the art and architecture of Herb Greene, informed by his readings in brain science and history. This “picture book” is organised to showcase images of Mr. Greene’s architectural work alongside large-scale images of his collage paintings and armature drawings in a way that reveals the unified philosophy behind all of his work. Its purpose is to tell a story of the important interrelationships between art, science, and philosophy, which is described with a simple narrative juxtaposed alongside these images.
Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634–1705) was one of Italy’s most celebrated Baroque painters when he travelled to Florence, where his art was already appreciated and collected. He received many commissions, but certainly the most prestigious was that for the decoration of the vault of the new wing of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the ancient house of Lorenzo the Magnificent which was then owned by the Marquis Francesco Riccardi. The Riccardi family was strictly connected to the Medicis and the decorative program of the great hall, known as Gallery of Mirrors, was centred upon the Apotheosis of the Medicis and several mythological scenes which illustrate the progress of humanity. The exhibition and its catalogue document this masterpiece through the ten painted sketches by Giordano (exhibited under the very frescoes) and circa 30 other paintings from his Florentine period (1682–1685) by the aptly named Luca “fa presto” (fare presto = to be fast).