Collaborative and trans-disciplinary artist Antje Majewski (born 1968 in Marl, Germany) has opened an ongoing dialogue with colleagues from Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, France, Hungary, Poland, and Senegal, and invited them to contribute works exploring the reciprocal relationships between human and beyond-human beings in a poetic way. This book stems from this conversation between the participating artists and their interactions with others. The project and its title emerged from a conversation between Senegalese painter, sculptor, performance artist, playwright and poet Issa Samb and Antje Majewski under the trees in his courtyard in Dakar. Sadly, both Issa Samb and the trees are gone today, but the discussion set a process, a laboratory in motion. It was the start of meetings, travels, and conversations between Majewski and the invited artists. How to talk with birds, trees, fish, shells, snakes, bulls and lions takes artists’ interactions with endangered places, societies and environments as points of departure. The presented works often focus on specific places that have been destroyed, altered, or are seriously imperilled by encroaching capitalism, colonialism, and other detrimental human influences. Videos, large-scale installations, sculptures, manifestos, poems, photographs, drawings, and paintings address delicate socio-ecological systems, of which human beings are always a part. The artists speak from personal positions of dissidence to today’s dominant modes of interaction with the environment – whether feminist, decolonizing, situational, and by proposing radically non-capitalist ways of interacting with humans, other living beings, and matter.

Text in English and German.

We all walk past trees every day. But do we really stop and look? In a fast-changing world, it is more important than ever to consider our relationship with nature. This book brings together the world’s best contemporary photography of trees, encouraging us to reconnect with the wisdom of these ancient, life-sustaining plants.

This volume presents the proceedings of the symposium of the same name held in September 1995 to celebrate the centenary of the National Trust. The papers deal with many specific case-histories in all areas of the conservation of historic textiles including upholstery, embroidery, costumes, curtains, carpets and tapestry. They reveal the ingenuity, skill and care of the conservators who undertake work for the National Trust to preserve the contents of historic country houses.

This field guide is the result of the author’s intense study of the flora of the southern western ghats as well as those of Palni hills for several years. The book lists more than 200 species of trees, herbs, and shrubs, that can be found in the region. The author names the genus, the species, the short name of the botanist who classified the plant, and the family name of the plant, in all the cases. She also takes great pains to provide the common English names as well as the local names of the species in various regional languages of India. Not only is the distribution of the species in various parts of the world explained, but the author also gives a physical description of the species, including its leaves, flowers, and fruits. Medicinal as well as general uses of any part or parts of the plant is also explained in most cases. The author, however, warns the reader that use of any species for medicinal purposes must be preceded by doctoral advice.

Contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Trees; Shrubs; Herbs; Line Drawings; Glossary; Bibliography; Indices – Trees, Shrubs, Herbs; Index.
• An extremely useful field guide for general readers and nature lovers
• This book provides a list of more than 200 species of trees, herbs, and shrubs that can be found in the region, accompanied by over 400 color images

This field guide is the result of the author’s intense study of the flora of the southern western Ghats as well as those of Palni hills for several years. The book lists more than 200 species of trees, herbs, and shrubs that can be found in the region. The author names the genus, the species, the short name of the botanist who classified the plant, and the family name of the plant, in all the cases. She also takes great pains to provide the common English names as well as the local names of the species in various regional languages of India. Not only is the distribution of the species in various parts of the world explained, but the author also gives a physical description of the species, including its leaves, flowers, and fruits. Medicinal as well as general uses of any part or parts of the plant is also explained in most cases. The author, however, warns the reader that use of any species for medicinal purposes must be preceded by doctoral advice.

Contents: Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Trees; Shrubs; Herbs; Line Drawings; Glossary; Bibliography; Indices – Trees, Shrubs, Herbs; Index.

With Impulses, the Gold and Silversmith’s Craft Trust in Schwäbisch Gmünd celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. The book documents the Trust’s extensive achievements and shows highlights from publications, workshops and exhibitions. The main focus lies on the detailed presentation of the sixteen goldsmiths in residence. In 1989 the Trust was the very first German institution to appoint a City Goldsmith and continued to do so every two years. Famous artists like Max Fröhlich, Norman Weber and Deganit Stern Shocken are among the award winners. The outstanding setup of the exemplary works allows new perspectives on the diverse artistic expressions in gold and silver. Text in English and German. Contents: Prologue; TimeSignals; Lectures; Competitions; Exhibitions; Black Box; Karfunkelschein; Workshops; Meetings; Hammerclub; die Stadtgoldschmiede; Max Fröhlich; Nikolaus Kirchner; Johann Müllerperth; Klaus Dieter Eichler; Marianne Schliwinski; Walter Storr; Deganit Stern Schocken; Berthold Hoffmann; Bettina Menrad-Maier; Brigitte Moser; Ulrike Knab; Petra Dömling; Norman Weber; Peter Bauhuis; Paul de Vries; Simone ten Hompel.

As part of a major urban renewal project in the Humayun’s Tomb Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti area of Delhi, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture has been hosting the Jashn-e-Khusrau festival with the support of the Ford Foundation since 2010. Hazrat Amir Khusrau Dehlavi, the renowned 13th-century Sufi poet, was the favorite disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. His remarkable legacy is entwined with the rich cultural heritage of the Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti.

This volume is a compilation of discussions, lectures, exhibitions, heritage walks, musical performances, as well as film screenings devoted to illustrating the impact of Hazrat Amir Khusrau Dehlavi’s legacy in folk and classical music all held as part of the Jashn-e-Khusrau festival. The book is accompanied by a set of three music CDs that will have selected tracks from spanning the repertoire of Jashn 2013 concerts.

Published in association with Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi.

This important volume, proceedings of a conference held in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge on 6-9 September 2007, focuses on ancient Egyptian decorated surfaces, from polychrome wood to coloured basketry and from patinated metal to painted textiles. Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, this book brings together experts from around the world to explore all aspects of investigation and treatment, as well as broader issues of preservation, storage and display. A comprehensive review of past and current treatments for organic objects is followed by case studies, including innovative solutions to conservation problems, the discovery of an unusual lead cladding on a royal sculpture and the revealing forensic study of a red-shroud mummy. Wide-ranging, authoritative and accessible, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the study and care of ancient Egyptian objects.

This book covers the latest research in the field of ancient Asian metal-working in South and Southeast Asia, China and West Asia, concentrating mainly on copper alloys. The papers presented in this volume are authored by leading international experts in archaeometallurgy who gathered in Washington D.C. to celebrate one of the Freer Gallery’s earliest technical research topics – the study of ancient Chinese bronzes and other copper-alloy metalwork from Asia. Early casting techniques and technical studies of bronzes in China, Thailand and Vietnam are joined by investigations into ten millennia of metallurgy in the Middle East.

For the nature and adventure enthusiast: Roaming America is a visually stunning, ultimately practical guide to visiting the US National Parks.
Combining breathtaking imagery, useful planning information for each national park, suggested itineraries, best-of recommendations, and more Roaming America will give you all the inspiration you could need to plan your next national park road trip! Featured inside:

“From Colombia to Croatia and back to Florida, Sherman pairs breathtaking imagery with expert insight to help you plan your next adventure.” — Naples Illustrated

This book includes more than 200 pages of tips for the sunniest travel destinations. Dream away at the stunning photography of rows of palm trees on snow-white beaches, as well as in cities and even jungles. Get planning with the practical information the book provides. In this publication, travel journalist Skye Sherman prioritizes unknown places not yet on everyone’s list. No crowded beaches, but paradisiacal scenes and hours of undisturbed enjoyment. The must-have for any world traveler who loves palm trees.

The Ashmolean Museum is fortunate in having the most comprehensive British collection of the art of the Indian subcontinent outside London. Especially strong in sculpture, this rich representation of Indian art from prehistory to the twentieth century has come about through the generosity of our benefactors over more than three centuries. The Museum’s first major Indian sculpture acquisition, a stone Pala-style Vishnu image of the eleventh century, was given in 1686 by Sir William Hedges, a governor of the East India Company in Bengal. From the late nineteenth century, a substantial core of the present collection was assembled at the University’s former Indian Institute Museum (1897-1962), precursor of the Department of Eastern Art, which opened within the Ashmolean in 1963. Since that date many more Indian objects of all periods have been acquired by gift, bequest or purchase.

Contents: Introduction; Prehistoric South Asia; The Northwest; North & Central India; Eastern India and Deccan; Miscellanea; Bibliography.

Ralph Dutton, 8th Baron Sherborne, was one of the leading taste-makers of his generation. Together with figures such as Christopher Hussey and James Lees-Milne, he helped create the perception that the apogee of English architecture and design was the 18th century; and in his own house and garden at Hinton Ampner, beloved of hundreds of thousands of National Trust visitors a year, he showed how to make that taste supremely effective in our own time. This biography, the first, explores how his achievements took shape, and how they were rooted in his circle of friends and fellow enthusiasts and scholars, all of whom played a part in creating heritage as we understand it today. John Holden, a leading cultural historian, charts Dutton’s life with warmth and critical acumen. 

Since the practical invention of photography in the 1840s, Scotland has been at the centre of the history and development of the medium. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery – which houses the Scottish National Photography Collection – and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, hold outstanding collections of photographic art spanning three centuries. Included are figures such as D.O. Hill and Robert Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Annan, Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Capa, Bill Brandt, Annie Leibovitz and Andreas Gursky. This book offers a detailed guide to the collections as well as an accessible and informative introduction to photography. This revised edition includes recently commissioned photography and significant new acquisitions, with works by Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Calum Colvin is one of Scotland’s most innovative and exciting contemporary photographers. In his work he creates a kaleidoscope of figures, symbols and ideas, which are blended into the most vibrant and stimulating images. With this project, Colvin has explored the mysterious world of Ossian. Ossian, a third century Celtic bard, was first discovered by James MacPherson, himself a poet but also a cultural entrepreneur and an adventurer. MacPherson published the ballads of Ossian in the years after 1760. These mournful elegies to the lost world of the Gael became a cause celebre in Enlightenment society. On the one hand, MacPherson was hailed as the discoverer and translator of a “Celtic Homer”, while on the other, he was accused by Samuel Johnson, of having perpetrated a cruel fraud on the public. While this dispute rumbled on, the poems of Ossian became feted throughout Europe and America and touched the art of poets, writers and composers such as Burns, Goethe, Longfellow and Mendelssohn. Colvin has taken these events as the basis for his surreal meditation on contemporary culture. Through the ideas and associations inspired by MacPherson’s Ossian, he has produced a discourse on national identity, “authenticity” and the human psyche. It is characteristic of Colvin that he has successfully explored these difficult themes while simultaneously creating accessible, provocative photographs.

Papers from the first annual conference of the AHRB Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies and topics include: identification of textile materials, assessment of textile deterioration, characterisation of fibre behaviour, and more.

This book highlights 55 outstanding masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, which were founded in 1850. The works range in date from the Renaissance to the twentieth century and include many of the most famous names in the history of Western art. Artists represented include Botticelli, El Greco, Velàzquez, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Watteau, Monet, Degas, Sargent, Picasso and Braque. In addition, the major figures of the national school, Ramsay, Raeburn and Wilkie, lend a distinctly Scottish flavor to this exceptional selection. All of the paintings are fully illustrated and described in this catalogue authored by the curatorial staff of the Galleries. Michael Clarke, director of the Scottish National Gallery, gives a unique insight into the history of the National Galleries of Scotland as he discusses the development of the Scottish national collection over the last 150 years.

This volume reveals the roles of foreign and Indian Jews in the Indian national art project and raises issues such as: Is an “Indian artist” any artist born into an Indian family? What role can foreigners and members of Indian minority groups play in the Indian National Art Project as scholars, critics, or artists? Is a piece of work “Indian art” because of its subject matter or its style? Is it possible to utilize “foreign techniques” in creating “Indian art”? Jews and the Indian National Art Project documents the work of artists such as Anna Molka Ahmed, Mirra Alfassa (The Mother), Siona Benjamin, Carmel Berkson, and Fredda Brilliant as well as those of photographers (David Mordecai and Man Ray) and architects (Otto Königsberger, Moshe Safdie). Also covered in this volume are the work of critics, scholars and art patrons like Ernst Cohn-Wiener, Charles Fabri, Stella Kramrisch, and Marion Harry Spielmann.
• Chronicles the substantial role played by Jews in the shaping and development of contemporary Indian art and aesthetics• Contains images of lost paintings of Fyzee Rahamin and Magda Nachman, and other never-before-seen paintings• Written in an unbiased manner and supported with in-depth research, the book will be invaluable to anyone who wishes to understand contemporary Indian artThis volume reveals the roles of foreign and Indian Jews in the Indian national art project and raises issues such as: Is an “Indian artist” any artist born into an Indian family? What role can foreigners and members of Indian minority groups play in the Indian National Art Project as scholars, critics, or artists? Is a piece of work “Indian art” because of its subject matter or its style? Is it possible to utilize “foreign techniques” in creating “Indian art”?Jews and the Indian National Art Project documents the work of artists such as Anna Molka Ahmed, Mirra Alfassa (The Mother), Siona Benjamin, Carmel Berkson, and Fredda Brilliant as well as those of photographers (David Mordecai and Man Ray) and architects (Otto Königsberger, Moshe Safdie). Also covered in this volume are the work of critics, scholars and art patrons like Ernst Cohn-Wiener, Charles Fabri, Stella Kramrisch, and Marion Harry Spielmann.

Customers today demand a highly personalized and unique purchasing experience: they require expert guidance in a purchasing process that is relevant and efficient from start to finish. Less Contact, More Impact explores the dynamics of corporate sales today and in the future as a function of trust and cooperation. The RIO model developed by Belgium-based Blinc Sales Institute marks the evolution of a new era in which genuine contact between client and salesperson is crucial to meeting the challenges of customer expectations. The goal of this book is to guide sales in the digital age in order to achieve maximum personal impact, better results, and consistent customer satisfaction in a minimum amount of time.

Humayun, the son of Babur and the second Mughal ruler, reigned in Agra from 1530 to 1540 and then in Delhi from 1555 to 1556. Until now, his numerous achievements, including winning back the throne of Hindustan, have not been well recorded. The Planetary King follows Humayun’s travels and campaigns during the political and social disturbances of the early 16th century. It delves into Humayun’s extraordinary social and intellectual life; demystifies his magico-scientific world view, draws attention to his deep involvement with literature, poetry, painting, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, occultism and extraordinary inventions, and offers a new analysis of Humayun’s mausoleum as the posthumous sum of his visions and dreams.

The book accompanies the new site museum at Humayun’s tomb created by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture upon the culmination of two decades of conservation work on the World Heritage Site.

Co-published with Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi. 

Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was one of the great architects of the twentieth century. His Edwardian country houses, surrounded by rhapsodic gardens, beguiled clients with their romance and wit. After 1918, the war memorials that he created symbolized a grieving nation’s sense of loss. In the new capital of the British Raj, New Delhi, the Viceroy’s House or Rashtrapati Bhavan had a footprint bigger than Versailles. His unfinished Liverpool Cathedral would have rivalled St Peter’s in Rome.

Intensely shy, Lutyens hid his personality behind puns and jokes – and yet he could be called ‘part mystic’, a reference to an inner profundity. Rich in stories, this entertaining and stylish short biography is a major new study incorporating fresh research which shows this most charismatic of architects in a new light.

More than any other civilization, China is renowned for its long tradition of ceramic production, from its terracotta and stoneware works in ancient times to the imperial porcelain manufactured at Jingdezhen from the end of the fourteenth century. These works have been admired and collected over centuries for their outstanding quality and refinement. Now two hundred masterpieces from prominent private collections around the world have been brought together for the first time in a new book. The Baur Collections in Geneva, formed between 1928 and 1951, and the Zhuyuetang Collection (the Bamboo and Moon Pavilion in Hong Kong), which has been building since the late 1980s, reveal the elegance and variety of imperial monochrome porcelain wares produced during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, which followed on from the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) periods. These restrained pieces – both profane and sacred – exemplify the values of simplicity and modesty espoused by classical Chinese texts. With chapters devoted to the historical, cultural and technical contexts in which these pieces were made, this book will be a key reference on Chinese monochrome ceramics for all lovers of the subject, as well as students, researchers and connoisseurs.

Text in English and French with Chinese summaries.