Intizar Husain is the finest writer of Urdu prose and the most brilliant story-teller of the post-partition generation. The two novellas, Day and Dastan (Din Aur Dastan), his favorite texts, show his versatility and fictional inventiveness. Day, a realistic story, is a meditation on the cruellest of events to have scarred our times – migrations. When people are forced to move to new homes or new geographies, they only recall a mix of uncanny facts, streets lost in sad nostalgias, fantasies of lovers, parables of simple things, or an unending romance about a possible life and a world. While physical geographies are redrawn, moral landscapes become so bewildering as to leave one emotionally paralyzed. As in Intizar Husain’s other work, India’s partition haunts the tale like an inexplicable shadow.
In contrast, Dastan is a traditional tale of wonder. Its language is lyrical and exaggerated; its narrative, obsessed with action, weaves dreams and adventure, heroism and mercy, beauty and love, magic and grace. It is located in another time of turmoil and uncertainty when mysterious forces cause havoc in nature, and societies rise up suddenly to avenge old wrongs. The 1857 war of independence is prophesied by a mysterious faqir; rivers suddenly break their banks; an old haveli is left desolate; a princess weeps beside a fountain; a parrot shows a soldier the road to take; and hope of political change is fatally lost. Intizar Husain is neither a social critic nor a preacher; he is a story-teller – a supreme one.
Despite some field research our knowledge of the sacred among the Mumuye is still embryonic. In all these acephalic groups of a binary and antinomic nature, the complex va constitutes an extremely varied semantic field in which certain aspects are accentuated depending on the circumstances. Religious power is linked to the strength contained in sacred objects, of which only the elders are the guardians. Moreover, this gerontocracy relies on a system of initiatory stages which one must pass to have access to the status of ‘religious leader’. Geographically isolated, the Mumuye were able to resist the attacks of the Muslim invaders, the British colonial authority and the activities of the different Christian missions for a long time. As a result the Mumuye practised woodcarving until the beginning of our century. In 1970 Philip Fry published his essay on the statuary of the Mumuye of which the analysis of the endogenous network has so far lost nothing of its value. Basing himself on in situ observations, Jan Strybol attempted to analyze the exogenous network of this woodcarving. Thus he was able to document about forty figures and some masks and additionally to identify more than twenty-five Mumuye artists as well as a specific type of sculpture as being confined to the Mumuye Kpugbong group. During and after the Biafran war, hundreds of Mumuye sculptures were collected. Based on information gathered between 1970 and 1993 the author has demonstrated that a certain number of these works are not Mumuye but must be attributed to relic groups scattered in Mumuye territory.
In 2008, a discovery was made that brought the works of Marie Goslich to light. Part of her estate, long thought to have been lost, was rediscovered in a guesthouse in Geltow at the Schwielowsee lake. Some 400 glass plate negatives exist today, survivors of the chaos of both world wars. This book makes Goslich’s photos available to the public 100 years after their capture, celebrating her as a bold pioneer and a grande dame of German photojournalism and social critique. Born in Frankfurt (Oder) in 1859, Marie Goslich tried her hand at various things before beginning to work as a journalist and editor. Cited in Berlin’s residents register, these professional titles alone were remarkable for a woman of her time. To cap it all, she began training as a photographer at the age of 44 in order to be able to provide her articles with pictures. As a result, she is one of the first professional female photographers in the world. With social injustice being her main concern, Goslich wrote and illustrated many articles, some of which were quite radical, to address the causes of suffering and misery. Again and again, her works denounce the gap between rich and poor. They portray traveling people, street vendors, beggars, ragmen and tinkers. All of her pictures betray her empathy towards her subjects, giving her photos a very intimate and rousing effect. Text in English and German.
Lightstream represents Nigel Grierson’s most recent foray into photographic abstraction as he makes long exposures of figures beside the light of the ocean. Taking the maxim from Dieter Appelt “A snapshot steals life that it cannot return. A long exposure (creates) a form that never existed”, Grierson makes beautiful images, which on the surface might appear to owe as much to the medium of painting as they do to photography. However, it is important to him that these are un-manipulated images straight from the camera: “From the outset, my work has been largely about ‘photographic seeing’ as I’m fascinated by what Garry Winogrand so simply described as ‘how something looks when photographed’. Hence, a sense of discovery within the work itself is very important to me; finding something new that I didn’t already know. There’s a huge element of ‘chance, and the embrace of the happy accident within this approach, which is a sort of photographic equivalent of action painting. I’m often more interested in what something suggests rather than what it actually is, each image becoming a starting point for our imagination as it edges towards abstraction”.
Yet what is unique about photography is that it always keeps something of the original subject. So there’s a dynamic duality, a dramatic to and fro in the viewer’s mind, between what it is and what it suggests. The marks and traces created by the moving light, at times have a simplicity like a child’s drawings. On occasion, the residue of a human figure might be reduced to little more than their posture or demeanor, which then seems more significant than ever, a sort of essence, whether that be elusive or illusive.
William Underhill (1933–2022) was one of the great talents and enigmas of the modern American studio craft movement. He became an acclaimed master of lost-wax casting, pursuing the sculptural potential of bronze vessels with unrivalled persistence and virtuosity. He “molded and scratched the wax until the final bronze surface embodied all of the mystical connotations of a ritualistic object,” said Lee Nordness in his ground-breaking Objects USA (1969) survey of modern studio crafts. But Underhill then left the limelight and went on to ceaselessly explore both the power of beauty and form-making as a way to shape the spirit.
The book dives into the history of sedition and censorship in colonial India. Closely examining 100 texts that the British Empire banned, censored or deemed seditious, the work brings to life these lost gems from India’s freedom, cultural, and social movements. It includes writing by figures famous and obscure, of events immortalized and forgotten, by Indians and non-Indians, by people jailed and free, by politicians and missionaries, by travelers and novelists, and in several Indian as well as European languages. Each excerpt illuminates not just its author’s thought processes, but the times in which it was composed and circulated.
What kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children? What planet, what future do we want to pass on to them? In his latest book, Cyril Christo poses the most fundamental of all questions. Together with his wife Marie Wilkinson and their son Lysander, Christo has been seeking out the wonders of this world for more than 40 years and across all continents. During their travels to the Inuit or the first peoples of Africa, they come into contact with communities who seem to have everything that modern, technological society has lost: time, family and an almost inexhaustible kindness towards strangers.
The photographers present the wonder of unspoiled nature in their book, captured in powerful duo-tone images that provide a fascinating glimpse into the beauty of life. With a fighting yet sensitive spirit, they share how their experiences and encounters have guided their son’s development and how nature can serve as a teacher to all children with their irrepressible yearning for wonder. The world’s greatest classroom, nature as the school of life, is threatened as never before by climate change and the continuous loss of habitat. Christo and Wilkinson regard their book as a manifesto and a warning, because “without wonder we are lost.”
Andrew Holmes is renowned for his hyper-real colored pencil drawings. His subject matter is the fixed and mobile service infrastructure that sustains the city of Los Angeles. The gleaming trucks, automobiles, and motorcycles that traverse the highways, and the industrial armature of storage tanks, service stations and truck stops to be found beyond the city’s edge are, for Holmes, the greatest artifacts of a society based on oil. Over the past 50 years, he has captured scenes from this uniquely American landscape in painstaking detail. Together they evoke a lost civilization. Gas Tank City presents 100 of Holmes’s Los Angeles drawings, along with commentaries by art historian, Thomas E Crow, architects Mark Fisher and Cedric Price, and Holmes himself.
In a symbolist striptease, Moreau painted Salome’s lethal fan dance twice. Fochessati explores what Dickinson called “The Homesick Eye” in a show in Genoa. There’s a Mood Indigo spreading over San Diego’s El Prado, as Shugaar describes: the show is Blue Gold. Salis looks back fondly at buxus, a cousin of Masonite beloved by Futurist Fortunato Depero. Navoni describes the latest auction of work by Vigée Le Brun as well as her wanderings across half the courts of Europe. Scaraffia describes the Japanese painter Foujita in Lost Generation Paris, with his bowl haircut and round Lennon glasses. Maróti brought the style of the Hungarian Secession to Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. Dell’Acqua tells us about the ivories of Salerno, a finely etched medieval diorama of the Bible, from Creation to Pentecost. Brilli reminisces about the Marmore Falls, a spectacular manmade cascade. And Mariotti brilliantly revisits the metaphysics of coin banks.
Geert Baudewijns, full-time ransomware negotiator, is called every week by hacked companies and governments across the globe. But by then, it’s too late. Cybercriminals have infiltrated the system. To prevent worse-case scenarios – weeks of downtime, all your data leaked – over 70 percent of the victims give in to ransom demands. And malicious hacker collectives on the dark web are making fortunes. This is still a taboo because no one wants to go public with it. Who is at risk? How do hackers operate? How can we protect ourselves? In this book, Baudewijns takes the reader into the dark side of the digital world. His insider stories describe recent cases from around the world.
If Richmond VA represented the historic heart of the Confederacy, then Monument Avenue was meant to memorialize its soul. The avenue was conceived in the 1870s, when the city elected to build a memorial to General Robert E Lee. It was not until 1890, however, that the massive monument was unveiled. Over the succeeding decades, Lee was joined by statues commemorating other leading Confederate military and political figures – JEB Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury.
Almost from the moment they were erected, the Confederate monuments, as symbols of white supremacy, were the focus of controversy and protest. The climax came in the summer of 2020 when Black Lives Matter protesters, outraged by the death of George Floyd, converged on the avenue to vent their fury. On July 10th, Jefferson Davis was dragged from his pedestal. Two days later, Brian Rose packed up his cameras in New York and drove back to his home state to document the last days of the grand boulevard of the Lost Cause. En route, he reflected on his own history and the roles played by his forebears in the Antebellum South.This new edition of a classic book captures a pivotal moment in modern American history.
“A time capsule of sorts, the tome features iconic photographs of Steve Martin, Carrie Fisher, Richard Pryor, John Belushi, Lily Tomlin, Bill Murray, Ray Charles… the list goes on and on.” — Entertainment Weekly
Live From My Studio is the first book to showcase the Art of Edie Baskin. The pioneering, 2x Emmy-nominated photographer and art director, created the signature look of a show that would transform television, popular culture and influence the people and events that have shaped our lives for 50 years. Her iconic hand-colored portraits of the stars of rock, screen, stage and television were a signature of the show, broadcast to tens of millions of homes every week, reflecting the show’s wit, charm and mischief, captivating generations while reviving a long-lost art form.
1000 Piece Puzzle featuring the artwork of Benjamin Styer.
In Benjamin Styer’s Mondegreen Codex (2021) a continuous narrative of flying creatures, lost souls, and scattered musical energies unfold amid multicolored crystal towers and rivers. Overhead, shapes dart around a darkening sky punctuated by black portals.
A Mondegreen is- of course- something, often a lyric, that one hears mishears or misinterprets- think Toto’s “I left my brains down in Africa” or Elton John’s “Hold me closer Tony Danza”. In Mondegreen Codex however, Styer shows how a mondegreen could be visual as well. The painting is, in large part, an epic visual mishearing, primarily of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights but also maybe of Candy Land and Saturday morning cartoons.
This may well be the most puzzle you’ve ever put together. You didn’t mishear that.
The Aston Martin Bulldog is a car that should never have existed. A car that was built before its time and became lost in time. A car that never failed to leave those who encountered it mesmerized by its aesthetics and its jaw-dropping capability.
Aston Martin created Bulldog as a concept car in the late 1970s with the hope that it would go into production as the first road car capable of breaking the 200-mph barrier. They missed that speed due to lack of space and the car never entered production. Instead, the sole prototype, designed by William Towns, designer of the DBS and Lagonda, spent the next 40 years bouncing from one owner to another, gradually deteriorating in condition. That is, until 2019. Bought by American collector Phillip Sarofim, Bulldog was about to have one more shot at securing its place in the 200-mph club.
Hundreds of never-seen-before photographs from the Aston Martin Archive, as well as new photography by experienced car photographer Amy Shore, chronicle the lifecycle of this incredible car. Including interviews with the original engineers who were involved in the restoration and speed record, Aston Martin Bulldog follows the full story, from concept and design, through the lost years and on to its recent resurrection, which saw it successfully break the 200-mph threshold in 2022.
Art Deco Statuettes features over 1000 of the most fascinating and striking examples of interwar statuettes.
Capturing the very essence of Art Deco, the statuettes created in Paris, Berlin and Italy during the 1920s and ’30s epitomize the era and its fashions. These small, decorative sculptures are extensive in number and of widespread provenance, with many artists dedicated to their creation. Their influences and inspirations included the Ballet Russes, Egyptomania, Music Hall theater and more, leaving the world a unique cultural legacy.
First published in 2016 as Statuettes of the Art Deco Period, this vastly extended edition includes newly documented pieces and several obscure, long-lost artists, as well as a selection of period catalog pages, giving a sense of the allure and commercialization of these artworks at the time of their creation. For the first time, the secrets of these lost statuettes, once hidden in plain sight, are revealed for all to enjoy. Perfect for collectors and enthusiasts.
Ratha Yatra, the ancient annual festival of the chariot and Jagannatha, the presiding deity of the great temple Srimandira at Puri, is one of the grandest spectacles on earth.
Jagannatha (along with siblings Balabhadra and Subhadra) ride three colorful chariots in their annual sojourn to their garden house and birthplace Gundicha Temple, where they stay for seven days before returning back. Full of drama, vitality, and a panoply of rituals and ceremonies, Ratha Yatra is rooted in ancient traditions, myths and legends. It embodies the most colorful elements of the classical folk cultures of the Indian subcontinent and the Odisha region, and is the most succinct manifestation of India’s heritage today. Celebrating the Hindu faith, this festival keeps Jagannatha alive and vibrant in the great pilgrim town of Puri, one of India’s four most sacred cities.
Delhi: Red Fort to Raisina traces the journey of Shahjahan’s new capital of the Mughal Empire, Shahjahanabad built on the banks of river Yamuna in 1638 to New Delhi the new capital of British-ruled India in 1911. From Red Fort to Jama Masjid and from Jahanara Bagh to Hayat Bakhsh Bagh, every palace, mosque, bazaar, and bagh in the Mughal city was planned to perfection. The new city too, designed in the early twentieth century, was a blend of Mughal architecture and modern aesthetics. This book celebrates the centenary with four essays on different aspects of Delhi’s history by JP Losty, Salman Khurshid, Ratish Nanda, and Malvika Singh. A lively portrait of the city and its culture and people, the book documents the transition of the old-world charm of Shahjahanabad to a modern city with a new seat of power built on the Raisina Hill. Contents: Introduction – JP Losty; Delineating Delhi: Images of the Mughal Capital – JP Losty; Life in Shahjahanabad – Salman Khurshid; Architecture of Shahjahanabad – Ratish Nanda; Map of Shahjahanabad, 1846-47; Making of New Delhi – Malvika Singh; Bibliography; Notes; Index. Pramod Kapoor is a collector of historical records and photographs, and a publisher by profession. The photographs for this book were lovingly collected by him over a long period of time from all over the world. Often, the best photographs were found in old trunks lying forgotten in dusty attics or damp basements of the palaces. A keen photographer, he has also compiled and researched photographs for pioneering books like India: Then and Now, Witness to Life and Freedom: Margaret-Bourke White in India, New Delhi: Making of a Capital, and the most recent Delhi: Red Fort to Raisina.
Documentary photographer William E. Crawford spent three decades documenting Vietnam, and in particular Hanoi, its people and the surrounding countryside. As one of the very first Western photographers to work in post-war North Vietnam, Crawford was drawn back to the country numerous times at regular intervals between 1985 and 2015 to record this fascinating country’s culture, people, and society with beautiful, compelling and intimate photographs, concentrating on colonial and indigenous architecture, urban details, portraits, and landscapes. In 1986, the Vietnam’s Communist leadership began to shift from a Soviet-style central planning model toward free-market economic reforms. As a result, Hanoi has been transformed over the last three decades, becoming an example of how traditional Asian and developing cities have often been torn down or allowed to crumble – only to re-emerge in a ‘modernized’ form. Unlike photo-journalism, which is interested in the theatre of the moment, Crawford’s evocative and powerful photography chronicles life throughout Hanoi and its surroundings over the course of the last three decades. Filled with full-color photographs and informative essays on his experiences and the people he encountered, Crawford’s work – showcased in this beautifully presented volume – provides a unique visual catalogue of the evolution of a city and its inhabitants, and particularly the complex historical area known as The 36 Streets.
Over the course of 60-plus years, Erwin Hauer has created modular sculptures that feature penetrations and prominent interior voids yet, remarkably, are bonded by continuous surfaces. The modules of these sculptures contain the seeds of infinity: what Hauer calls ‘continua’. Still Facing Infinity covers the full scope of Hauer’s artistic oeuvre, from early two-dimensional works that double as room dividers to three-dimensional, space-filling sculptures that are conceptually similar to innovative architecture and engineering (works by Antoni Gaudi, Félix Candela, and Frei Otto) as well as advanced mathematical concepts (triply periodic infinite surfaces without self-intersections). Hauer offers detailed presentations in writings as well as in abundant photographs of a number of significant works, including Jerusalem Tower and Infinite Surface I-WP, the basis for numerous tabletop and large-scale sculptures as well as for two independent series that explore multiple iterations of the infinite surface concept.
This book from Mysore, stands out, not only because of the splendour of its illustrations but also because it engages with that great and sacred text, the Bhagavata Purana, in a manner that is completely different from almost anything else that one sees.
There are leaps of imagination here that take one’s breath away, and the episodes picked up by its great but unnamed illustrators are explored in dense, brilliant detail. At each step the painters seem to have been aware of the importance of the text itself. For the Purana they were engaging with has a very special place in the heart of devotees, there being the belief that the Bhagavata ‘is equal in status to the Veda’.
The scope of the volume is restricted to the second half of the Tenth Book of the Purana. Here the city of Dwarka is founded, a fierce contest with the bear king Jambavana is fought; the Khandava forest is burnt down, the great fortress of Narakasura is vanquished, the city of Hastinapura is dragged to the waters, great pilgrimages are undertaken, hordes of enslaved princes are freed, Shishupala is slain, Jarasandha is riven. Wide-eyed, one sees wonders piling upon majestic wonders.
Delhi Then and Now comprises two masterful essays that trace the story of Delhi from the days when it was known by other names Indraprastha, Firozabad, Dinpanah to its reincarnation as New Delhi. Historian Narayani Gupta takes us through the city of Sultans, Mughal emperors and viceroys, while journalist Dilip Bobb shows us the face of New Delhi as it is now. A rich portfolio of archival photographs and illustrations, together with vibrant new pictures, edited by Pramod Kapoor, capture Delhi in all its glory past and present.
Delhi Then – A city of empires and dynasties, Delhi through the ages has evoked nostalgia of its history written on the red sandstone walls. From Quila Rai Pithora to the palace on Raisina Hill, the changing face of Delhi is remarkably discernible in these photographs – a special collection that give words to the spoken and unspoken history of this city. Delhi Now – A city of dreams and desires, Delhi’s urban landscape is incomplete without the stones of seven ancient cities which give it a distinct meaning, a distinct outlook. A modern city on the move, the colors and digital vibrancy of the photographs capturing Delhi in all moods and moments, is as imposing as the grand old structures of yesteryears. A twin city of old-world charm and new extravagance, Delhi has evolved through the ages and is looking forward to an era that will be remembered down the ages.
Pahari paintings from the Horst Metzger collection, now in Museum Rietberg Zurich, are outstanding works by Indian masters who worked in the sub-Himalayan region between 1680 and 1850. This lavishly illustrated catalog of the works, which owes itself to a collaboration, yet again, between Prof. B.N. Goswamy and Dr Eberhard Fischer, is filled both with scholarly authority and poetic utterance. The passion with which Horst Metzger assembled this distinguished collection is matched by the text, for it throws open windows to a world of reflection and delight, close observation and soaring imagination. Together, the two scholars have, in earlier years, authored Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India (1980) which accompanied one of the most celebrated and groundbreaking exhibitions in the field. Three decades later (2011), they were together again – along with Dr Milo Beach – editing and writing for the monumental, two-volume, Masters of Indian Painting: 1100-1900 which served as a guide to another path-breaking exhibition, shown at the Museum Rietberg Zurich and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Contents: B.N.Goswamy: Horst Metzger – The Collector; Catalogue; The Horst Metzger Collection in the Museum Rietberg; Bibliography; Ludwig Habighorst: Horst Metzger – My friend, the Collector.
Bombay is a city always on the move. Driven by multiple impulses, it has been the site for a Buddhist ethos, a safe haven for refugees from Persia, a hub of maritime trade and a melting pot of European and Eastern influences. Enriched with in-depth historical research and exclusive photographs, Bombay: Then documents the transformation of the once ‘insignificant cluster of islets’ into one of the most exciting spots for cultural exchange in South Asia. Among other views, the book illustrates the Mankeshwar temple and the Rajabai Clock Tower wrapped in scaffolding; the construction of Victoria Dock and the opening of its massive underwater gates; a lush and sparsely populated Malabar Hill; a rare view of the interior of a Parsi fire temple; factory scenes inside the Royal Mint and the Times of India units; what the stock exchange looked like nearly a century ago; and many breathtaking aerial shots of this beautiful island-city. A sheer visual treat through extraordinary historical photographs, Bombay: Then is for keeps. Mumbai has always been a city of dreams – shiny, colorful, nebulous dreams that melt away the moment you try to grasp them. Yet it beckons and the charm of the mirage is too seductive to let pass. Mumbai has moved from being Bombay to Bambai to Mumbai in four centuries and yet it is all three: encompassing all manner of paradoxical realities within its moist borders. Mumbai is restless, transient but the pulse of its past still runs through its streets. The fifteen million souls that inhabit this great island-city belong to all walks of life, numerous ethnic and religious backgrounds, and manage to communicate through the Babel-like confusion of different tongues and diverse histories. Mumbai: Now brings this shape-shifting, elusive city to you – from the stories of the first Goan migrants to the lives of native Koli fishermen; from the tradition of dabbawalas to that of ‘cutting’ chai; and from the potters in Dharavi to the pink flamingos in Sewri – in a series of beautiful, moving pictures that capture the many moods and faces of Mumbai.