This book is every foodie’s dream cookbook, a book like no other: a secret almanac of sorts of the themed degustation nights that have featured in Isadora Chai’s venue, Bistro à Table, in Kuala Lumpur – a hole-in-the-wall venue that remains as the only restaurant in Malaysia to have themed degustation dinners every month.

Resplendent with stunningly detailed photography, Isadora Chai’s cookbook explores her gastro gourmand’s take on a delicious array of superbly satirical but infinitely edible recipes. She details many sophisticated, very passionate, and innovative culinary surprises, including a wide range of dishes directly reversed, such as the Reversed Sushi and the Reversed Root Beer Float, where the proportions of the components and the composition of well-known dishes are reversed. Other menus reflect the heady worlds of politics, love and war no less. The book also includes a beautifully illustrated Manga graphic novel – by the author’s own hand – which presents an exquisite collection of dishes from the degustation combining modern Japanese food, subculture and art. Intrigued? This book is unique and spectacularly expressive snapshot of a culinary expert whose star continues to be on the rise.

With his trusted 35mm camera, Ron Hoffer plunged into the turbulent post-Soviet world of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In a myriad of images, he captured the beauty as well as the daily challenges, friends and strangers alike had to face in Czechoslovakia or East Germany, while trying to cope with the adventurously new economic and political realities. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Ron Hoffer’s vignettes of women, the youth, everyday culture, and devastated landscapes turn this book into a very personal memento and photographic tribute to this astonishing time of global optimism.

“Moonwatch Only is certainly one of the best books ever written about a single watch model.” – William Massena – Timezone.com “It is an indescribable reference work and a true must-have for every Speedmaster collector.” – Forbes “This book sets a new standard. Not only for books on the Omega Speedmaster, but for watch books in general. I’ve never seen anything like it, and believe me when I tell you that I could fill an impressive sized wall with books on watches. Authors of other books or publishers should take a look at Moonwatch Only as well to see how it should be done.” – Robert Jan Broer – FratelloWatches “The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional – the Moonwatch – has done things that no other timepiece has done and it’s been worn in places that only a few human beings have been.” – Captain Eugene Cernan, ‘Last man on the moon’ There are very few timepieces in the world that deserve a definitive and comprehensive book such as this one. The OMEGA Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is one of them. Initially designed for automobile racing teams and engineers, the Omega Speedmaster embarked on a very different trajectory when NASA chose it to accompany astronauts heading for the Moon in 1965. Its involvement in the space adventure has propelled the Moonwatch to the top of the list of celebrated timepieces. After years of research and observation, the authors present a complete panorama of the Moonwatch in a systematic work that is both technical and attractive, making it the inescapable reference book for this legendary watch. This third edition has been enriched with numerous new features including a 16-page gallery of astronauts and their Speedmaster, QR codes to extend your exploration and a detailed story of a vintage Speedmaster.

This two-volume publication illustrates the evolutionary history of the pendulum clock from the early Age of Metternich and provides detailed explanations on their engineering. In addition, it contains a catalogue with almost 400 wall and longcase clocks, most of which have never been published, and a unique index with over 14,000 entries on clockmakers from all over the Austrian Empire, including a vast amount of previously unknown masters and workshops. It also includes biographical information on the makers, locations of the workshops, masterpieces and exhibits from trade exhibitions, inventions, characteristic features of the pieces, sales outlets, and the prices of the time. An indispensable compendium on classic longcase and wall clocks of the Austrian Empire and a major reference work for all those with an interest in clocks!

Text in German.

The splendid decoration of these ancient structures – in particular, their wall paintings – is presented as never before, thanks to an extensive photographic campaign carried out especially for this book. With these superb illustrations complementing an authoritative text, Herculaneum is sure to be welcomed by all students and enthusiasts of archaeology.

Swiss artist Silvie Defraoui, born in 1935, is a pioneer of video art and art education in Switzerland. Beginning in 1975, she worked in collaboration with her husband Chérif Defraoui (1932–1994). Together they developed the Archives du Futur, a reflection on images, their status, and potential for memory and the future. The two artists also founded the legendary Atelier Médias Mixtes at Geneva’s École supérieure des Beaux-Arts (now HEAD—Genève). Since 1995, Defraoui has pursued a practice using various forms of expression, including projection, installation, ceramics, and serigraphy.
This book is part of the new On Words series that presents conversations with contemporary women artists. Through them, readers come to understand the sources from which they draw inspiration, the themes in their work, and their view of the world. Edited by Julie Enckell, Federica Martini, and Sarah Burkhalter and bringing together a wide range of viewpoints, the On Words series adds a new narrative to polyphonic art history as told by those who actively shape it.

Text in English and French.

The unique convergence of architecture and landscape found on the Bernina Pass inspired Swiss photographer Guido Baselgia to create a visual epic. The result is a one-of-a-kind presentation of the new road maintenance base near Bernina Pass, designed by renowned Swiss firm Bearth & Deplazes Architekten, in a seemingly arctic winter landscape. Baselgia explored the territory along the road and railway line with his analogue camera. His images also draw a connection between the existing infrastructures for traffic and energy production – built over the course of the landscape’s industrialisation and continued development since the late 19th century – to the architecture of the new maintenance base.

A concavely curved shield wall topped by a round tower is all that is visible of this vast, purely functional, and largely underground space. The shield wall cuts a segment from the existing topography and thereby encloses a courtyard along with an area of the surrounding landscape. The tower refuses direct encoding – until entering the camera obscura at its very top, which connects photography, architecture, and landscape to reveal that this place is about insights and not outlooks.

The book features a selection of Guido Baselgia’s striking photographs and reproductions of camera obscura images from the tower in outstanding duotone reproduction and documents Bearth & Deplazes’ architecture through concise texts, images, and selected plans.

Text in English, German and Italian.

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.

This attractive little volume takes us on a visual journey through the greatest splendours of China’s varied geography and the chief monuments of its 5,000-year-old civilization. Its 243 colour photographs, which include 12 panoramic gatefolds, show us the country’s most famous landmarks-like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall-as we have never seen them before, and introduce us to less familiar but just as fascinating sights, like the multicoloured travertine lakes of Huanglong Valley and the beautiful calligraphic inscriptions on the rugged rocks of Mount Taishan. Extended captions at the back of the book provide a concise introduction to the history and significance of each of the forty-four locales depicted, 28 of which have been designated as World Heritage sites by UNESCO.

Chinese architect Pu Miao has long explored the development of modern Chinese architecture from a localised perspective. As he has learned from his practice, the integration of architecture and landscape promises to be one of the main directions for localisation. This volume selects 15 architectural designs from Miao’s practice since the 1990s; 12 of them have been constructed and written about in international and Chinese professional journals and books. The building types include restaurant, retail, exhibition, worship, residence, education, and public facilities. The projects illustrate four modes of integrating buildings and landscape: using outdoor spaces as alternatives for indoor activities; architecture and landscape each playing a unique role in a functional pair; architecture partially taking the form of landscape; and gardens as urban public spaces in a building. Through detailed analyses of design concepts, a large number of building photos and drawings (including wall sections for some projects), this book acts not only as a virtual tour of these places, but also provides meticulous design documentation. Today, it is very rare for an architect to practice by him/herself. Pu Miao has proved that such a traditional craftsman’s mode of practice is still possible; more than that, he inspires us to see that the modes of architectural practice need not to be as uniform as many believe. There are actually many possibilities, as long as you dare to imagine and to try. Perhaps Pu Miao’s initial objective was to control the building detailing as much as possible, which he has accomplished, but meanwhile he has also become a special banner of independent practice in China. 

Text in English and Chinese.

Appreciation of the works by the German artist couple Annelies and Fred Stelzig from Besigheim in the discipline of art made for architecture has been a long time coming. To mark the 100th anniversary of them both, the town of Besigheim has made this its task. For the large retrospective, a publication is launched that focuses on the incredible breadth of their production for the very first time. Waiting to be discovered alongside wall ceramics and carpets are works in wood, glass, and enamel. Numerous contributions by authoritative experts present the personal backgrounds of the couple, trace lines of development, and highlight the material specificities of their works. Over 300 illustrations additionally provide a lively impression of the couple’s ability to be versatile yet at the same time retain continuity during their long creative period, from the 1950s to their last work in 2006.

With contributions by Christian Behrer, Dieter Büchner, Christiane Fülscher, Sabine Gärttling, Inken Gaukel, Regina Ille-Kopp, Andreas Janssen, Cornelia Marinowitz, Martha Pflug-Grunenberg, and Sandy Richter.
Text in German.

Palazzo Vecchio, which towers over piazza della Signoria, at the centre of Florence, is an iconic building and from the Middle Ages to the Medici family to present day it has been the seat of civic power.

Among its most admired features are the marvellous grotesque decorations which animate the walls and vaults of the courtyard and several rooms. Grotesques are a type of wall decoration, in stucco or fresco, often with the addition of gold, that developed in the Renaissance when the vaults of the Domus Aurea in Rome, which were underground (considered grottos hence the name), were rediscovered by artists who drew inspiration from those designs.

Palazzo Vecchio’s grotesques are lively, extravagant ornaments, generated by the creativity of artists – among whom Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483-1561) and Marco Marchetti da Faenza (ca. 1526-1588) stand out – and they include, birds, flowers, vegetation and many strange creatures that have a mixture of human and animal traits.

The Swiss Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale exhibits itself and the relations to its immediate surroundings. The exhibition is a conversation over the shared boundary of the pavilions of Switzerland (1952, designed by Bruno Giacometti) and Venezuela (1954, designed by Carlo Scarpa), the only two in the Giardini not fully detached: they share one wall. Artist Karin Sander and art historian Philip Ursprung temporarily open this wall and dismantle the gates from the Swiss Pavilion, thus revealing unanticipated connections between the two neighbours, both distant and close.

The complementing book offers a manifesto, a play with the two buildings as dramatis personae, and three brief topical essays. Ten conversations with architectural historian Kurt W. Forster, photographers Paolo Gasparini and Guido Giudi, and Venezuelan architects Elisa Silva and Margarita López-Maya round off this volume.

In the 1950s, a large number of internationally renowned artists created pictures made of ceramic. In 1956, in close collaboration with the artist and ceramicist Richard Bampi, Julius Bissier developed a ceramic work for the University of Freiburg. The abstract composition on a wall in the city centre measures over 19.5 metres long by 2.6 metres high (64 × 8.5 feet). Its restoration and relaunch is occasion to examine more closely the story of its genesis. The distinctiveness of the artwork becomes clear against a backdrop of the cultural politics oriented on France in Freiburg after 1945. Unexpected parallels in contemporaneous ceramic murals by Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, and Victor Vasarely are revealed and make the Freiburg ceramic picture a unique work in the post-war art of Germany.

Text in German.

What do the Great Wall of China, Georgia’s polyphonic singing, the Mediterranean diet and the Vanuatu sand drawings have in common? Despite their evident dissimilarity, they are all protected by UNESCO, the supranational organisation that is responsible for preserving the common cultural heritage of humanity, protecting it from disappearance and ensuring its conservation for future generations. The Great Wall of China is one of the natural and cultural sites that comprise the famous list of World Heritage Sites, compiled by UNESCO while the other three are part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage list that includes immaterial goods. In fact, in 2003, the UNESCO General Conference adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage with the intent to safeguard the traditional cultures and folklore of our planet. Today, over 400 practices and expressions from more than 100 countries represent the riches and demonstrate the cultural diversity of the populations in the world. Appearing on this variegated list of traditions are the art of the ‘pizzaiuoli’ – the pizza makers of Naples, the Carnival of Basel, the Rebetiko music of Greece, Japanese kabuki theatre, Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration, the Brazilian capoeira, Chinese shadow puppetry and the mass Hindu pilgrimage of faith, Kumbh Mela. This book of photographs and splendid illustrations will guide you on your discovery of the Intangible Cultural Heritage list; a journey that will open your eyes to the cultural riches of our planet and to the importance of preserving them for future generations.

The photobook No Fat Poetry is a democratic marriage of image and text, without any subordination or superordination of either. Nowadays, new media communicates a hitherto unimagined quantity of images. This means that, today, images are far more dependent on their context, and it is within these contexts that they generate an importance that may change, depending on where the image appears or who or what the image is juxtaposed with — in this case, text and typography. The origins of the texts are democratic too, and almost all of them are recycled (samplings). They are quotes by artists and photographers; they come from the street or from photo — graphic theory or aesthetics. Ultimately, the involvement of the photographers is also democratic, including newcomers and established photographers alike (e.g., Thomas Demand, Alex Prager, Jörg Sasse, Alec Soth, Josef Sudek, Jürgen Teller, Jeff Wall).

Text in English and German.

Slash & Burn presents some of Marcin Dudek’s key creations, focusing on what he refers to as ‘Memory Boxes’ and touching on other elements of practice including collage, performance, sculpture and research.

Marcin Dudek was just 12 years old and living in a concrete housing block outside Krakow, Poland, when the Berlin Wall finally toppled. Poland’s free-fall into capitalism followed as the country reeled from severe shortages, skyrocketing inflation and suddenly-defunct industry. For many, food was scarce. Money, more than hard to come by. A frayed social fabric, lacking civic associations left children vulnerable to new allegiances. Before becoming a teenager, he followed his older brother into the arms of a wild group of football supporters who created havoc in and outside the local stadium. Over time, many from this group moved from the council estate into the prison block as petty crimes escalated into enterprising criminal endeavours. Thanks in part to his sister, Dudek found an alternative path, moving to Salzburg, Austria to attend University of Art Mozarteum. He found work in art galleries, learned German and later moved to London, earning an MFA at Central Saint Martin’s.

Art as methodology for living, coupled with the DIY survivalist strategies of his youth, became tools for transformation as well as dealing with childhood trauma. Shortly after settling in Brussels in 2012, he began to publicly question and explore his past in the seminal exhibition Too Close for Comfort. Marcin Dudek is represented by Haarlen Levy Projects in Brussels.

Chip7Land is a chaotic, energetically produced monograph that highlights some of Chip’s work over the last 20 years. Executed in his ‘techno- organic’ style he moves freely between wall and canvas, always expressing himself with vivid colours that leap off the pages. Art directed by Chip himself this pocket size book is an artwork to itself and will transport instantly to Bangkok, Thailand.

Investigations by Sara Penco stem from the insightful finding of the absence of a key figure in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. Prior to this illuminating research, Mary Magdalene was not unequivocally identified within Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Father Pfeiffer, with whom Penco establishes an inescapable dialectic, had already hypothesised the presence of Mary Magdalene in the fresco, but it is the scholar, for the first time in these pages, who convincingly justifies her identification. Mary Magdalene is closely connected to the salient episodes in the life of Jesus. The author rightly wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a figure so central to the biblical narrative and the Christian imagination could have been excluded from the depiction of the Parousia. This observation gives rise to an accurate reflection on the iconography of the saint and the Judgement, in relation to the sacred texts and in relation to Michelangelo’s poetics and production. Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, contributing to characterise the fresco – one of the best known and most appreciated works in the world – with an unprecedented theological message.

Text in English and Italian.

David Czupryn takes an opposite approach. He does not aim to trick us into believing that his surreal visual worlds are real. His images recall theatre stages where human hybrids appear next to carefully arranged still lifes whose different textures are meticulously depicted. In the spirit of classical trompe-l’œil painting, Czupryn is a master of aesthetic deception who translates the pictorial language and techniques of past ages into the present and skillfully integrates numerous references to the history of art and religion, iconography and allegory, politics and society into his paintings.

Text in English and German.