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Documents on Contemporary Crafts
is a book series published by Norwegian Crafts in collaboration with Arnoldsche Art Publishers. The series provides a critical reflection of contemporary crafts in a wider context and in doing so asks questions about the ties between contemporary craft, fine art and design, thus helping to redefine the concept of crafts as such. The five volumes discuss such topics as skills, materiality, curating, collecting, perception and New Materialism. The more than thirty contributors range from leading craft theorists, such as Jorunn Veiteberg, Glenn Adamson and Liesbeth den Besten, via academics outside the craft tradition, such as Roger L. Kneebone, professor of surgical education, Trevor Marchand, professor of social anthropology, and Margaret Wasz, consultant psychological therapist, to emerging voices like Sarah R. Gilbert, Marianne Zamecznik and Stephen Knott.

No. 1: Museum for Skills. Skills are essential to the crafts discourse. Yet in an art world that for the last 50 years has become increasingly focused on conceptual strategies, we have seen the tendencies of deskilling and outsourcing. In Museum for Skills, the contributors analyze the current situation for skills by drawing on experience from the fields of brain research, surgery and anthropology.

No. 2: Materiality Matters. If materiality is a quality-related concept in both contemporary crafts and contemporary art, are we talking about the same notion? Or is there a fundamental difference between, on one hand, a maker’s confidence in his or her materials, and on the other, a contemporary artist’s use and adaption of a given material?

No. 3: Crafting Exhibitions. Curatorial discourse has been an increasingly important aspect of contemporary art. The curator took on a new role as the ‘author’ of the exhibition. Crafting Exhibitions introduces some of the processes that go into making an exhibition, from developing concepts to the physical realization. The contributors offer different approaches to exhibitions.

No. 4: On Collecting. Collections make up an important part of the contemporary arts and crafts infrastructure. Collectors and museums help improve the financial situation of artists. Additionally, to be included in the ‘right’ collection or museum can give an artist a high level of recognition and preserves the art works for the future. On Collecting offers insights into collecting from different perspectives and sheds light on some of the structures that determine the ‘collectability’ of works of art.

No. 5: Material Perceptions. Contemporary craft objects can be perceived for instance, as works of art in ceramics, glass, textile, metal and wood, or as functional, handmade and everyday objects. Material Perceptions investigates contemporary crafts as representations of reality that do not rely on the concept of autonomy, unravelling the dualism between aesthetic objects and everyday things.

Norwegian Crafts is a non-profit organisation founded by the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts in 2012. Norwegian Crafts initiates and produces exhibitions in collaboration with Norwegian and international institutions, curators and artists. The aim is to strengthen the position of contemporary craft from Norway internationally, contribute to the development of the artists’ careers and stimulate further exchange across national borders in the field of crafts.

Jewellery in Context
is the doctoral dissertation, edited by Theo Smeets in its first English translation, by the Dutch art historian and design critic Marjan Unger (1946-2018). In this work she initially endeavours to formulate a general definition of jewelery. Yet above all she also analyzes to what extent jewelery is associated, across the globe, with different, sometimes contrary issues: all human fears, but also desires, have, in a sense, materialized as objects of adornment, she postulates. This comprehensive approach aimed not least at developing a solid theoretical framework to aid the study of jewelery. Thus the text can already be seen as an outright standard reference work, indispensable for all students of jewelery. However, experts, too, will discover new perspectives on the phenomenon of jewelery.

Contents:
Foreword – Theorems; 1. Introduction; 2. Definitions and classifications; 3. Art history as foundation for the study of jewellery; 4. Man as measure; 5. Angles from other disciplines; 6. Symbolism in jewellery; 7. Evaluation; 8. Conclusion.

“A true collector’s item…” Tim Chan, Rolling Stone

“Filled to the brim with everything from Harry’s colour palettes to his inspiration, this pick combines high-fashion with all the quirkiness we love about HS and it’s just perfect.” — Glamour UK

“Have the best-dressed coffee table by adorning it with this book filled with photos of THE best-dressed man.”  Seventeen Magazine

“It’s a wonderful book… if you’re a Harry Styles fan or not…just have a look at how he wears clothes, look at his influences, and if you are a Harry Styles fan, it’s a double whammy.” — BBC’s Jo Good Show

“This deep dive into some of his most iconic fits is a dream gift for the person who basically spent 2021-2023 living, breathing, and eating Love On Tour.” —  Buzzfeed

“I’m incredibly lucky to have an environment where I feel comfortable being myself” – Harry Styles. 

Stepping bravely into the cyclone of 21st-century fashions, Harry Styles is more than weathering the storm. Whether he’s breaking the internet with his $7.99 frog-eyed yellow bucket hat or a pair of black fishnets, or fronting cult magazine The Beauty Papers, as he did in March 2021, Hazza’s sparkle knows no boundaries.  

Gucci met Styles in 2014, and there was instant chemistry. According to designer Alessandro Michele, Harry is ‘a young Greek God with the attitude of James Dean and a little bit of Mick Jagger’ – and that effortless superstardom certainly radiates from the photos in this collection, which document the heart of Harry’s wardrobe, both on-stage and off. 

Part fashion history lesson, pulling references from the rock and roll greats of the past, and part innovation, Harry’s style pays homage to Kurt Cobain and Marc Bolan, Prince and Little Richard, while developing into something authentic and entirely his own. This chic book fizzles with facts about Harry’s styling choices, presenting the star’s most revered looks alongside pictures that trace the roots of each design. With quotes from key designers, this is the perfect gift for any fan. 

Crafting a Future is a heartfelt celebration of artisans and their vocational skills. Each region in India has its own distinctive raw materials, craft techniques, textiles, motifs and color palettes, and through her well-researched narrative enriched with numerous stories, Archana Shah demonstrates the diversity and true value of handcrafted textile processes. She believes that handspun, handwoven fabrics made using indigenous fibers and natural materials for dyeing will help create a unique identity for handcrafted textiles, and suggests ways to repurpose the abundant artisanal talent available across the country to rejuvenate this sector. These tenets are woven throughout the book, which is broadly divided into three sections based on natural fibres: cotton from plants, silk from insects and wool from animals. This resonates with Gandhiji’s concept of developing khadi and village industries to rejuvenate the rural economy, and stimulate development through a bottom-up approach.
Beyond its beauty and heritage value, artisanal production is eco-friendly, has a negligible carbon footprint and fulfils most of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has the potential for creating dignified employment opportunities for millions of people in their own regional location, so that they are not compelled by economic constraints to abandon their ancestral professions and migrate to urban slums to earn a meagre livelihood as unskilled laborers. In essence, the book focuses on artisans, their aspirations and fulfilment in their work. It also draws upon their traditional wisdom to address two of the most serious challenges that we face today: growing unemployment and climate change.

Architecture Asia, as the official journal of the Architects Regional Council Asia, aims to provide a forum, not only for presenting Asian phenomena and their characteristics to the world, but also for understanding diversity and multiculturalism within Asia from a global perspective.

This issue discusses the topic of globalization and locality through four essays and eleven projects. The essays attempt to observe the tension between the different forces of globalization, which is being widely debated as a distinguishing trend, and also highlight globalization’s impact on local architecture, as well as the various efforts being taken to ensure local identity and distinctive locality in architecture design. The projects, accompanied with full-color photos and text descriptions, demonstrate the many successful attempts in developing design concepts and methods to cope with the globalization trend while maintaining locality. These essays and projects are carefully selected to represent diversity in project locations, and includes locations such as Thailand, India, Japan, and China.

Since 1987, Eileen Joy Liebman and Fernando Villavecchia Obregón have focused on developing housing and measures to existing buildings. Over the years, they have gradually developed an oeuvre with the special qualities of reserve and “silence”. Projects include the careful renovation of the Casa Coderch Milá in Cadaqués (2017) and the Casa in Sant Llorenç (2014), inherently engaging with the rural architecture.

Text in English and German.

The Book of Norman: Norman Sunshine / A Life in Art, brings together more than seven decades of the American artist Norman Sunshine’s painting, sculpture, pencil, charcoal, and digital work, all deftly interwoven into his remarkable life story. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sunshine began as an illustrator for the entertainment industry and the New York Times, eventually moving into advertising, where he authored some of the most recognizable campaigns of the 1970s. He quickly drew acclaim as a painter of southern California’s soft geometry and quiet loneliness. After moving back to the East Coast, his practice expanded: sometimes through distinctively experimental, Cezanne-like still-lifes, sometimes capturing the austerity of the New England winter, but always developing a visual language equally attuned to the psychological and physical spaces he inhabited.

The Book of Norman is both a memoir of the social and artistic worlds of post-war America and a deep reflection on a life devoted to making art. The art critic Donald Kuspit said of Sunshine’s work that it is, “a classical example of dynamic equilibrium.” That statement is also true of the artist himself. 

“With his legendary swag, Norman Anderson, aka Normski, hip-hop ambassador in the United Kingdom since its emergence in the 1980s, is the great archivist of these glory days he captured London to Detroit.” — Rolling Stone France
“The difference between Normski’s photograph of me and any other is that it captures my soul.”
Goldie

“He was a larger-than-life character, full of energy and totally motivating. He really was the hip hop photographer of the day in the UK.”Stereo MC’s
“This book contains a striking catalogue of images, many of which have been exhibited by establishments such as Tate Britain, the V&A, Somerset House and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.”Marcus Barnes

“On the heels of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, Man with the Golden Shutter is a celebratory record of hip-hop as much as it is a definitive collection of Normski’s incredible photographs.” — GQ Middle East

Normski was a vital witness to the period known as the Golden Age of Rap, when big US artists like Run DMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy started to play in the UK. At the same time, a British music scene born of Black music and myriad multicultural influence was developing, giving birth to Jungle, Garage and Techno.

The author, who describes himself as having been a “young Black British homeboy photographer”, was in the right place at the right time to document the emergent music, community and social movements of hip hop and rap in the UK. Normski: Man with the Golden Shutter presents Normski’s personal journey through that world from the mid-1980s to early 1990s.

The book includes Normski’s often previously unseen photographs of Public Enemy, N.W.A., Cypress Hill, De La Soul, Goldie, Ice-T, Run DMC, Wu-Tang Clan and many others, alongside the photographer’s stories and anecdotes from the center of what would become a hugely influential cultural movement.

Long awaited by collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts, this book illustrates the bronze pieces, most of which have never before been published, collected by Syrop during more than 40 years of passionate, attentive, and untiring research.

An architect by profession and a collector by instinct, Arnold Syrop was a pioneer for his interest in this particular area of African material culture, developing what Susan Kloman in her introduction calls “one of the best eyes” in the field of African bronze artefacts.

As remarked by the author/collector in his preface, these bronzes are for the most part “spiritual in nature,” their function being to protect and give strength to their owner.  

Text in English and French.

Taking those steps that will lead to your ultimate victory and achieving top performances, everyone dreams of it. In The Ultimate Victory, top sports psychologist Ellen Schouppe teaches you how developing attitudes such as leadership, energy management and mental resilience can leverage your talents. Take your personal development into your own hands, be inspired by top performers and achieve your own goals as a professional in your field, as an athlete, as an entrepreneur, but above all, as a person.

Antoine Leperlier (b. 1953) is a trained visual artist and painter. He has been working as a freelance glass artist since the 1980s, developing his own glass technique based on casting and the lost-wax technique to create large-format translucent and painterly blocks.

In this survey of work spanning more than 40 years, skulls float, snakes are frozen alive, and what looks like abstract watercolors are preserved forever. Time stands still, the universe speaks. His works explore transience and memory, past and future; he stops time, makes moments eternal. Enamel and ceramic inclusions, bubbles, colors, and engravings create colorful, expressive worlds reminiscent of organic forms floating in outer space. This endeavor to capture dynamic images in material form is an approach unique in contemporary glass art.

Text in English and French.

Born in 1935 in France, Jean-Louis Avril studied architecture at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Technique is central to his building process. He is passionate about jazz and is interested in American minimal art, particularly the work of Donald Judd. This monograph traces his career and focuses on his furniture, which represents the taste and aspirations of a generation of baby boomers. The choice of Celloderm, a derivative of cardboard, allows for a simple and accurate design language. The solutions display strong ideas: a beautiful shape, a practical function, an accessible price. His creations are very successful. With the creation of the company Marty-Lac (Carton Applications) in 1967 associated with his father-in-law, he achieved commercial success by developing numerous models of furniture, seats, tables, bed, shelves and lighting. They offer a strategy, a catalog, sales outlet and export to England with Hull traders. Faithful to his commitment as an architect, he also imagines interior spaces with great spatial efficiency.

Text in French.

You’ve heard of the “Starchitects.” Now meet the “Marketects.” This monograph spans all twenty-five years of Powers Brown Architecture and evinces why all clients deserve good design.

“Marketecture,” a term coined by Powers Brown Architecture as an antithesis to the “Starchitecture,” is a market-driven strategy for striving for the best design solutions for all clients. Through this bottom-up approach, Powers Brown seeks cutting-edge solutions that elevate a seemingly mundane building type beyond client expectations. Its dedication to working with clients to develop cost-effective, market-driven buildings without sacrificing good design has resulted in a broad range of commercial projects that respond to everyday pragmatics while still exhibiting strong architectural ideas and developing new technologies along the way.

In Powers Brown Architecture: Commodity and Virtue in Architecture, the firm presents a curated collection of work that spans its entire twenty-five years in practice and includes projects not covered in earlier publications. The body of work evinces the disciplined structure of the practice itself over a predominant style or form.

Projects such as Hillel Student Center in Washington, D.C. and the Transit Terminal in Galveston, Texas showcase the firm’s approach to public work. Frank’s International and Seismic Exchange explore the possibilities of corporate architecture to create place as much as to make a statement. Arabella showcases the potential for variety, rather than repetition, in a condominium building, and the Thompson Hotel & Arts Residences in San Antonio navigates pedestrian scale in a twenty-storey tower. POST covers the commitment to resiliency and the future of the planet, while MEDDNet™ transforms urban design tactics into a national-scale disaster relief strategy.

The introduction is by journalist Stephen Sharpe, who has covered Powers Brown’s work for nearly twenty years. An extended essay by principal Jeffrey Brown, FAIA, situates the firm’s position at the conversational threshold of scepticism about “Starchitecure” and the reality of everyday architecture, or “Marketecture.” Architecture professor and author Donna Kacmar, FAIA, interviews Brown to reveal the details behind the firm and its work.

“Beauty is the quality or qualities that give pleasure to the senses or mind. These qualities are both tangible and intangible, creating a visual and perceptual experience that stirs an emotional response. This collection of work showcases beauty in architecture and design. We are on a continual exploration of how to make beautiful buildings, spaces, and objects, always developing our knowledge and experience of what is beautiful, as it is manifested and perceived in different ways.

While some architects work in one style, continuously refining and perfecting it, I love to explore different styles and to learn, discover, and evolve. I grew up in America and have traveled, lived, and studied around the world. Now in Indonesia for more than thirty years, I bring this broad understanding and perspective to our work, while always being inspired by and embracing Indonesian culture, tradition, and the sharing of ideas. It’s this fusion and approach that sets my work apart.

The words you’ve encountered in this book are some of the ways in which we manifest beauty in our work. These words reflect both the physical and sensorial qualities in a design. Sometimes you see them, such as the materiality, palette, and light. Sometimes you feel them, such as anticipation and transitions. These qualities are all highly considered and carefully layered to create residential, commercial, and hospitality spaces that we characterize as “comfort luxury” and that have a positive emotional affect. They are spaces for people to feel at home; oases to enjoy after a long day.

Crafting the spaces comes from thoughtful consideration of the journey through a house, and what people will see and feel as they transition from space to space—from public to private, from collective spaces to sanctuaries.” – Thomas Elliott (from the Afterword)

This major retrospective catalogue is the first institutional show focusing on the visual works of art by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke. The majority of the paintings, drawings and digital works were specifically made for Yorke’s internationally celebrated band Radiohead, formed in Oxford in 1985. This features iconic artworks from the 1980s until today, relating to Radiohead albums, their covers and promotional band images, as well as sketchbooks and rare materials from their archives that have never before been published. It offers fresh views on the art of album covers, exploring the complex relationship between visual art and music.

Radiohead was formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The collaboration with the artist Stanley Donwood began in 1994 when the band was developing their second album, The Bends, which was released on 13th March, 1995. 2025 is therefore the 40-year anniversary of the band and the 30-year anniversary of the release of The Bends. The catalogue’s focus is upon the art produced by both Stanley Donwood and the band’s lead vocalist, Thom Yorke presented chronologically. Radiohead’s popularity has never waned and they have a strong core following and new fans (many of who are the children of ‘original’ fans).

The high-quality reproductions are complemented by exclusive interviews with the artists, and essays by Alex Farquharson, Nico Kos Earle, Benjamin Myers, James Putnam and Jennifer Ramkalawon.

A major retrospective will be held at the Ashmolean Museum from August 2025 to January 2026.

Linda Vinck is a visual artist with a long-standing and sustainably developed body of work centered around rhythm and pattern formation. The materiality of her artworks strengthened by the mixed media techniques the artist uses, demonstrate her fascination by the interplay of predictable and unpredictable micro-forms in nature, psychocorporeal transformations, dance, and contemporary composers. The impact and integration of color and spirituality in her practice refer to her yearlong residencies in Cape Verde, South Africa, and Japan.

For almost five decades Linda Vinck has been developing a consistent body of work around rhythm and pattern formation. This comprehensive publication contextualizes and presents this artist’s oeuvre, and introduces her prolific language as a visual artist in relation to her unique artistic identity.

Text in English and Dutch.

All About Eve is the latest series of the American artist Ruth Marten (*1949) which she has been developing since 2022. Here she unfolds a complex interplay involving the boundaries of reality, time, and genre.

She began her career as a tattoo artist and later worked as an illustrator for various publishers and magazines. It was during this time that she discovered the technique of overpainting and collage, subsequently to become integral to her artistic practice. Marten’s works are based on old graphic prints from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as on photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By reworking the originals, she creates a fascinating link between historical representations and contemporary perspectives.

The All About Eve series reflects on the radical cultural shift of the 1920s: the heliogravures reworked by Marten depict female dancers from a French variety theater, embodying the new freedoms of the post-war era. Through her artistic reworkings, Marten emphasizes the diversity and complexity of female possibilities, infusing them with her characteristic dash of humor and subversion.

Tent Poles in the ground is a collection of twenty-one texts by Stephen Bates. Like Papers (2001), Papers 2 (2007) and Papers 3 (2016), which were written in collaboration with Jonathan Sergison, co-founder of Sergison Bates architects, ‘Tent Poles’ testifies to the importance of writing as part of a form of practice that includes building and teaching.

The reflections included are part of the process of developing and testing ideas in Sergison Bates’s London studio and in Stephen Bates’s teaching studio at the Chair of Urbanism and Housing, TU München. Covering a range of themes, from domesticity to the city, landscape and the design process, they record both the fundamental principles that inform his approach to architecture and the shifts in thinking that have come about in 30 years of practice.

While these are personal reflections on buildings and spaces, they were inspired by discussions across the table in the London studio, with teaching colleagues and students in Munich, and meetings with interesting people from different creative disciplines. Like the making of buildings, thinking and writing about them, too, is always the result of a process of collaboration.

Fortitude, a 500 piece puzzle featuring the artwork of Kyle Staver.

Engaging with the beautiful and the grisly of canonical Western narratives in equal measure, Kyle Staver finds her inspiration in sources ranging from the Bible to ancient Greek mythopoetic traditions. The artist personifies a series of virtues including Charity, Justice, and Fortitude, among others, developing a tradition of iconography stemming from early Christian manuscript illumination.

Religion has always been a fundamental force for constructing identity, from antiquity to the contemporary world. The transformation of ancient cults into faith systems, which we recognize now as major world religions, took place in the first millennium AD, in the period we call ‘Late Antiquity’. Our argument is that the creative impetus for both the emergence, and much of the visual distinctiveness of the world religions came in contexts of cultural encounter. Bridging the traditional divide between classical, Asian, Islamic and Western history, this exhibition and its accompanying catalog highlights religious and artistic creativity at points of contact and cultural borders between late antique civilizations.

This catalog features the creation of specific visual languages that belong to five major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. The imagery still used by these belief systems today is evidence for the development of distinct religious identities in Late Antiquity. Emblematic visual forms like the figure of Buddha and Christ, or Islamic aniconism, only evolved in dialogue with a variety of coexisting visualizations of the sacred. As late antique believers appropriated some competing models and rejected others, they created compelling and long-lived representations of faith, but also revealed their indebtedness to a multitude of contemporaneous religious ideas and images.

Whether you want to convince your co-workers of your ideas in important meetings, or would do anything to have your presentations remembered forever, or want to stand out as a coach and have your ideas last forever in a company, you need to be able to visualize your ideas. Start to Draw is a hands-on guide discussing the positive aspects of drawing and visualizing your ideas in your work environment. It is an accessible, richly illustrated and bite-size book providing insight into why drawing works, how you can have a great impact on your own (and others’) professional work, and how you can end up with a more creative approach to your job.

As the first ever organized collection of Delhi’s maps, containing a chronology of magnificent ancient and modern hand-drawings as well as digital maps of the city, this book is as visually stunning as it is informative. Dr Guerrieri describes each map as an individual entity. She gives the maps unique and detailed focus, elaborating on their idiosyncrasies, aesthetic details, and rich historical relevance. The evolution of planning and architecture, which elegantly unfolds through the maps, mirrors the political, social, and historical progression of the capital. Maps of Delhi is both beautiful and stimulating, while also offering deeply insightful commentary that will be appreciated by the most discerning of scholars. It is an indisputable milestone for those wanting to research the capital. The book reveals, as A.G. Krishna Menon notes in the foreword, the charm of printed maps and the many pleasures and insights they offer when they are physically handled. It is a remarkable tribute to a remarkable city.

Jewel Changi Airport documents the creation of a remarkable addition to one of the world’s premier airports. The sinuous, faceted glass Jewel serves as Singapore’s new gateway to the world, and redefines what an airport can be. Brimming with terraced plantings, lush valleys, floating bridges, art installations, shops, restaurants, and a central waterfall, Jewel is a new type of destination: part public garden and part shopping and entertainment complex. Through photos, drawings, ephemera, essays, and interviews, the book provides detailed insights on how the project came to be – from its bold vision and concept to the innovative engineering, environmental, and construction strategies employed to make it a reality.

Moshe Safdie explains that probably more than half of his lifetime design work is unbuilt, and he considers his unbuilt work to be some of his most significant work. In this richly illustrated book, replete with detailed diagrams, sketches, models and studies, Moshe Safdie explains that for those who design in order to build, not succeeding in building is never a failure (there are many reasons why a project might not be built) because these designs are part of the evolution of an architect’s work. This volume is a fascinating journey through Safdie’s thoughts and career, and also a historical reference of the social and political forces at play at the time. Not only a treatise on Safdie’s unrealized concepts, this book is also a wonderful affirmation that there is valuable heritage in the unbuilt.

Includes a number of significant projects from around the globe, including the following:
Habitat Original Proposal, Montreal, Québec, Canada 1964; Habitat New York II, New York, New York, United States 1967; San Francisco State, College Student Union, San Francisco, California, United States 1967; Pompidou Centre, Paris, France 1971; Western Wall Precinct, Jerusalem, Israel 1972; Supreme Court of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel 1985; Columbus Center, New York, New York, United States 1985; Ballet Opera House, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 1987; Museum of Contemporary Art, Stuttgart, Germany 1990; Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory, Waxahachie, Texas, United States 1993; Incheon Airport, Incheon, Korea 2011; Jumeirah Gateway Mosque, Dubai, UAE 2007; National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China 2012.