Chosen for the 59th Venice Biennale, to represent contemporary creation at the Lebanese pavilion Ayman Baalbaki is a Lebanese artist born in Beirut in 1975. He first trained at the Institute of Fine Arts of the university Lebanese school in Beirut, then at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris. Five years after his arrival in France, he received the silver medal in painting at the Francophone Games and then participated in several exhibitions worldwide. Lebanon, France, Great Britain, Argentina, Egypt and Niger are all countries that welcome the works of the artist.
His productions of the last 10 years have been compiled through this unpublished work, published in French, English and Arabic. The authors endeavor to decipher his paintings and installations, crossed by societal issues specific to Lebanon: war, abortive revolt, political and financial bankruptcy, the tragedy of the port of Beirut or even pandemic. The artist paints anonymous portraits of his contemporaries, which have today become symbols of the Middle East. It represents the city, its buildings, erected, but also in ruins. His art is vibrant, dynamic and textured.
Text in English, French and Arabic.
On the occasion of the centenary of the Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which marked the heyday of Art Deco, this catalog celebrates a major style and its success. During this event, which established Art Deco, numerous decorators, manufacturers, magazines, department stores, artists, and even foreign nations competed fiercely to take over Parisian buildings, while others erected temporary structures to showcase their latest creations. Protean and elusive, this movement brings together a range of modern forms, patterns, materials and techniques used by designers such as Jean Puiforcat, Maurice Marinot, Suzanne and René Lalique, Pierre Chareau, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, André Groult and others. Through eight essays, twelve focus sections and image portfolios, this catalog covers the many incarnations of Art Deco, from its beginnings in the 1910s to its contemporary reinterpretations, including its golden age at the 1925 Exhibition. It draws on a rich iconography that showcases Art Deco masterpieces from the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and others, through magnificent full-page reproductions and previously unpublished details.
Text in French.
“Outsider art” is the name given to the idiosyncratic work of self-taught creators who are driven to use their own invented visual language to bring forth images from their imaginations. It is outside the continuum of art history, outside the boundaries of art recognized by established art institutions, and outside the collective discourse of the mainstream art world. This book examines the underlying biases, ideologies, and social factors that inform the various approaches to outsider art, including myths surrounding mental illness, movements toward social inclusion, and movements away from the marginalizing effect of labels. Most importantly, Outsider Art of Canada explores how we think about art and who is entitled to call themselves an artist. In this survey dedicated to outsider art in Canada, the first of its kind, the artists introduced have much to tell us about their need to create, unapologetically and without regard to public opinion.
The Art & Times of Daniel Jocz presents the entrancing and challenging work of American jewelry 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 jewelry scene of the late 20th century.
Dallas & the New Tradition explores Dallas’s unique architectural history and celebrates Larry E. Boerder’s vision of restoring the city’s great revival past in a manner fit for the twenty-first century.
Larry E. Boerder Architects specializes in designing and building homes in the prestigious suburbs of Highland Park, University Park, and Preston Hollow, nestled in Dallas. With a modern revivalist approach, their work honors the architectural traditions established in these communities in the early twentieth century.
Delve into the origins of some of America’s most beautiful and idyllic suburbs and how this setting inspired Boerder to create homes that are elegant, refined, and above all, harmonious to their surroundings. Come behind the scenes to tour some of his greatest properties located in Texas and farther afield, which stand as an enduring testament to the talent of Boerder and his team, as well as their dedication to preserving and taking forward the New Tradition.
“More than just a biography, this book is a critical assessment of Aditya Prakash’s oeuvre as a designer, painter and philosopher” – Mark Jarzombek Professor of History, Theory and Criticism, MIT
“At once deeply moving and seriously informative, this book details a life in architecture in post-Independence India dedicated to social service, education, and environmental reform.” – Anthony Vilder, Professor of Architecture at The Cooper Union
“This book charts the intellectual odyssey of the pioneering artist, architect and urban planner, Aditya Prakash, a multi-talented renaissance man.” – Partha Mitter, writer & historian on art & culture
“An intimate, revelatory analysis of a life that exemplified the cosmopolitan modernism and national commitments of India’s founding, Nehruvian generation.” – Sunil Khilnani, Avantha Professor & Director, King’s India Institute, King’s College London
Vikramaditya Prakash (1924-2008) belonged to the first generation of Indian modernists that came into its own in the Nehruvian era. Built around a multi-disciplinary oeuvre that was unique amongst his peers, Prakash’s life was dedicated to finding the ‘one continuous line’ which linked art – as the search for the beautiful, architecture – as the enabler of life, and planning – as the ethic of protecting the interests of poor.
Interspersed with a series of visual essays, this book is conceived as an introduction to Prakash’s vast body of work. Besides practising architecture, he was an academic, a prolific painter, sculptor, furniture designer, stage set-designer, poet and public speaker. This volume documents Prakash’s education as an architect in Delhi and London, his early modernist works, his deep artistic impulses, his love of theatre, and his efforts to rally a culture of academic inquiry. The narrative describes his successes and failures, his arguments for and against modernism, postmodernism and globalization, and his passion for sustainable urbanism, the animal and the acoustic. The book concludes with an interpretive essay on Prakash’s life and legacy, along with lavish illustrations of a portfolio of select works.
From Brooklyn brownstones to Bauhaus blocks, Art Deco icons to towering skyscrapers – New York’s ever-evolving skyline spans all architectural styles, tracing the history of this modern metropolis. From famous icons like the Flatiron Building to hidden architectural gems, the guide features more than 50 must-see buildings spanning all architectural styles. Whether you’re a seasoned New Yorker or a curious visitor, this is your boldly opinionated guide to the most arresting buildings in The Big Apple.
London is a city of innovation. In its suburbs, green roofs grow on flats, homes are insulated with cork and light timber structures have been designed to be as beautiful as they are energy efficient; in the center, striking new offices are retro-fitted over preserved buildings, while communal hubs are creatively built from reclaimed materials. The original photographs and detailed design interrogations in this book look at the way the capital is responding to the ever-pressing need to build with the environment foremost in mind – talking to the London architects, designers and residents who are creating a city that lives, works, plays and produces sustainably.
Art of the Cameroon Grasslands unveils the artistic creativity of a region of West Africa through the Weis Collection. With texts by Peter Weis and Bettina von Lintig, and a contribution by Michael Oehrl, the book is a comprehensive overview of Grasslands Art.
In contrast to many other African regions, the works of the artists of the ethnic groups that live in the Grasslands are characterized by enormous diversity, dynamism, movement, asymmetry, power, and even unbridled wildness. Other works radiate tranquillity, offering the viewer uncommon visual pleasure and delight. For centuries, kingdoms and rulers in this region competed to create new works of art or perfect inherited styles. These works served cultural, profane, and representational purposes, and they reflected the social and ruling structures of the Grasslands—aspects that the book’s essays and descriptions go into in detail.
A broad spectrum of objects and their uses are reflected in the Weis Collection. It includes everyday objects, works of folk art, ritual, and cult objects such as magic or commemorative figures, masks, posts, palace doors, representational objects, musical instruments, tobacco pipes, and drinking horns.
The introduction presents important aspects of the cultural and artistic development of each object’s region of origin, also in the context of European colonization. All are illustrated with numerous field photographs. This is followed by an essay on beaded artworks from the Grasslands, a subject that has been little researched to date. As the Grasslands are embedded in a larger cultural area, objects in the collection from neighboring ethnic groups are also presented, in many cases shedding light on centuries-old connections and artistic exchanges.
This book is put together like a jewel and contains a carefully chosen selection of around 100 West African combs from one of the world’s largest and finest private collections of sub-Saharan African art. Featuring a hitherto unseen assortment of pieces assembled over a period of more than 60 years, the book also includes an authoritative analysis by Alain-Michel Boyer, who approached this rarely addressed theme in what was his final work, begun almost ten years ago.
As well as offering us valuable insights into the cultures that produced these miniature sculptures (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), he explores the way the form itself is approached. These creations transform what is in principle a plain accessory and in the effort to attain pure beauty, they display an aesthetic awareness that raises the adornment of the body to the level of fine art.
“Neural networks do not understand what optical illusions are.” – Technologyreview.com
“Some pictures tell a thousand lies.” – hplyrikz.com
An optical illusion confuses the eye by pretending to be something it isn’t. It both misleads and deceives the brain, which is trying to make sense of the information the eye is sending. This book presents a selection of brain-bending optical illusions featuring graphic art and photography by 60 artists, and includes an overview of the history of optical illusions in art.
‘The Indian tribal art, a new field of exploration of contemporary art’ – Le Monde.
India’s cultural richness makes it an endlessly fascinating country. India is known for its profusion of sacred art reaching back several thousand years, but we are less aware of the fact that over 60 million Indians come from the several hundred miscellaneous tribes with which the country is studded. The Indian government has done more than any other to preserve and give visibility to its tribal and popular art and since 1976 the Indian authorities have regularly accorded the great names in tribal art the same status as those in the modern art that has followed independence. These are India’s ‘other Masters’, as the title of an exhibition held in New Delhi in 1998 put it. At the instigation of the great modern painter and guru Jagdish Swaminathan, the year 1982 saw the inauguration in the very heart of India of the Bharat Bhavan, the first museum to give an equal standing to contemporary artists from both dominant and minority cultures. The groundbreaking historical figures among these other masters, such as Jangarh Singh Shyam and Jivya Soma Mashe, who were present in the historic exhibition Magicians of the Earth (Centre Pompidou, 1989), are enjoying a burgeoning international reputation. Their works are now on display in the great private collections, from the Devi Art Foundation to the Fondation Cartier, and the international press, ranging from the New York Times to Le Monde and including The Hindu, have celebrated these artists’ imaginative range. India astonishes once again through its extraordinary capacity simultaneously to provide a stage for all the best examples of contemporary art generated by its diverse cultures, whether they be dominant, minority, global, local, urban or rural. Like contemporary art, India is itself multi-faceted. One word, manifold cultures.
This catalog presents masterpieces of calligraphy, painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquers, and textiles from two of America’s greatest Japanese art collections, which are featured in a landmark exhibition at the Asia Society in New York. Impermanence is a pervasive subject in Japanese philosophy and art, and recognizing the role of ephemerality is key to appreciating much of Japan’s artistic production. The dazzling range of art and objects in this beautifully photographed exhibition catalog show the broad, yet nuanced, ways that the notion of the ephemeral manifests itself in the arts of Japan throughout history. Insightful contributions from noted scholars explore the aesthetics of impermanence in religion, literature, artifacts, the tea ceremony, and popular culture in objects dating from the late Jomon period (ca. 1000-300 B.C.E.) to the 20th century.
Contents:
The Art of the Ephemeral;
Works in the Exhibition:
I. Retrieving Lost Worlds; II. Buddhism: Perpetual Impermanence; III. Tea: Choreographed Ephemerality; IV. Transforming Impermanence into Art.
Published to accompany an exhibition at the Asia Society Museum, New York, between 11 February and 26 April 2020.
Roger Fry (1866–1934) and his role as critic, curator and member of the Bloomsbury Group are explored in this rich and vibrant biography. From his curation of one of the most important collections in New York and groundbreaking exhibitions in London to his launch of the Omega Workshops with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Fry introduced Post-Impressionism, radicalised interiors and changed the landscape of twentieth-century art. His introduction of Cézanne, Van Gogh and Matisse to a British audience played a significant role in a legacy that still inspires today.
Often overlooked, Fry was one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century art in Britain, giving a generation of modern artists their first exhibitions, while also creating art himself. Roger Fry: Bloomsbury and the Invention of Modern Art offers a compelling portrait of his extraordinary career and his pivotal role in redefining British art.
Brussels is well known for its wide variety of buildings in the Art Deco style, which were built in the aftermath of the Great War in the 1920s and 1930s. In this book, the authors have created seven walking (or biking) itineraries that explore Art Deco and modernist architecture in neighborhoods throughout the city. Several key architects are profiled, and the historical context of the period is discussed, offering readers new insights into the living heritage that lines the streets of Brussels.
Also available: Brussels Art Nouveau ISBN 9782390250456.
As an emerging contemporary art discipline, installation art, with its characteristics of creation materials and forms, brings artists great creative freedom. In recent years, installation works have appeared frequently in various exhibitions and are an important part of contemporary art history that cannot be ignored.
In response to the call of the times, Contemporary Installation Art is a collection of excellent installation artworks from all over the world, with both panoramic complete form drawings and detailed displays, as well as graphic designs or hand-drawn drawings, aiming at conquering the readers with the charms of the artworks themselves and conveying the artistic concept that “real artworks originate from life and are higher than life”.
Simon Schama explores our enduring fascination with birds in a visually stunning art book
‘No other creatures have fixed themselves so obsessively and ubiquitously in our restless, earth-stuck imagination as birds… the fixation painted, imprinted, sculpted, filmed in our art.’ – Simon Schama
From Icarus to Peter Pan, who hasn’t dreamt of flying? Birds are the embodiment of our desires, fears and fantasies. In this publication internationally renowned (art) historian Simon Schama and Mauritshuis director Martine Gosselink explore the fascinating relationship between humans and birds through art, literature and cultural history.
Carel Fabritius’s world-famous Goldfinch, Picasso’s Dove, Brancusi’s Bird in Space, an Egyptian falcon mummy, a feather dress by Iris van Herpen: this book is a visual and literary journey through centuries of bird imagery. The icing on the cake is a wonderful anthology of bird stories from, among other works, The Epic of Gilgameshand One Thousand and One Nights, as well as bird poems by such writers as Rabindranath Tagore, Ted Hughes, Bob Marley and Rūmī.
With contributions by Simon Schama, Martine Gosselink, Laura Cumming, Stefan Hertmans, Philip Hoare, Eva Meijer and Adrienne Quarles van Ufford.
This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition BIRDS – Curated by The Goldfinch & Simon Schamain Mauritshuis, The Hague from 12 February to 7 June 2026.
With The Art of Endurance 2025, Éditions Cercle d’Art is publishing a new, exceptional coffee table book dedicated to international motor racing and the FIA World Endurance Championship. This 2025 edition follows on from The Art of Endurance 2024 ISBN 9782702211458 and continues a collection for all enthusiasts of motor sports, competition cars, legendary circuits, and major endurance races.
Designed as a total immersion in a complete season, this official WEC book recounts, race by race, the eight major events on the world calendar, from the start to the checkered flag, including the strategies, drivers, cars, teams, and decisions that tip the balance of a championship.
Text in English and French.
This volume accompanies the Art Brut CUBA exhibition organized by Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne and features essays by Cuban authors and other experts, reproductions of works and previously unpublished letters from the collection’s archives.
The exhibition represents a voyage of discovery that explores the world of outsider art in Cuba more than 40 years after the first exhibition, which came about as a result of Jean Dubuffet’s desire to gather together in Collection de l’Art Brut works by self-taught Cuban artists assembled by his friend Samuel Feijóo, the curator of the 1983 exhibition.
Being an island with a distinctive history that has long been isolated for political and economic reasons, Cuba is a fertile breeding ground for artistic creations unaffected by the traditional artistic influences of the world outside.
The exhibition is divided into two sections: the first presents historical works by the Signos Group, founded by Samuel Feijóo in the late 1960s to promote popular Cuban culture through the graphic arts; the second presents works by contemporary outsider artists from the Riera Studio. Most of the works on display are made from recycled materials – cardboard packaging, newspaper, scrap metal, recycled waste – or natural materials, such as wood and jute fiber.
The works reflect the artists’ personal experiences, the economic, social and political circumstances of their country, and their inner worlds and obsessions. They offer an alternative and authentic view of Cuba, far from the stereotyped imagery associated with this nation.
Text in English and French.
(Re)discover Art Nouveau at the heart of Brussels. At the end of the 19th century, the anti-academic movement pushed Brussels’ architects towards Art Nouveau. Both Victor Horta, in an organic style, and Paul Hankar, in a more geometrical tendency, created an architecture that quickly gained an international reputation. In a little more than a decade, from 1893 on, hundreds of Art Nouveau-fashioned buildings appeared in Brussels, elaborated first by the great pioneers and later by their students and imitators who are also influenced by the Vienna Secession and other trends of European Art Nouveau. At first, this style fulfilled industrial bourgeoisie’s dreams, yearning to assert itself in the city’s structure through this new, and sometimes exuberant, architecture. This book offers nine walks to discover – in different districts – the multiple aspects of architectural Art Nouveau in Brussels. Witness the personal style of the most important architects as well as decorative methods such as sgraffito. Through interviews with owners, custodians and restorers of Art Nouveau-styled buildings, Brussels Art Nouveau describes the fundamental guardians of this remarkable heritage.
In the 1910s and 1920s the unique landscape of the chalk downs of southern England began to exert a new fascination on writers, historians, archaeologists and artists. Modernists such as Paul and John Nash, Eric Ravilious and William Nicholson immersed themselves in exploring these enigmatic, ancient places. The stark, rolling forms of the downs suited the modern aesthetic, offering a place where prehistory and modernity could converge.
With the growing political tensions of the 1930s, this modern engagement with ancient landscape took on a symbolism that still resonates. Images of Britain evolved as the downs became both symbols of wartime vulnerability and resilience and the site of machine gun emplacements and crashed aeroplanes.
Art of the Chalk Downs investigates this extraordinary collision of ancient and modern, idea and place, and the network of artists who worked and lived there. Seventy-five plates of paintings, watercolors, prints and photographs are accompanied by texts written by leading art historians James Russell and Stephens.
Tracing the erotic from its earliest origins to the present day, this provocative and opinionated guide reveals the many shades of erotic art. Covering phallic Babylonian carvings from 1800 BCE, forbidden Victorian watercolors, 18th-century Shunga woodcuts and the extraordinary queer art of Ron Athey, Valie Export and Tom of Finland, this witty guide celebrates the beauty, chaos and absurdity of erotic art – and questions how desire shapes the way we see the world. With simple design, beautiful reproductions and concise, colorful opinion, this is part of the series of Opinionated Guides on art movements, mediums and ideas.