A volume that aims to present and tell the work of a chef, Matteo Grandi, through his thoughts and his research on taste. A journey that starts from the vision of the Venetian territory and of a city like Vicenza, very important from a historical and artistic point of view, with its links to the East and Northern Europe, as a “faithful daughter” of the Serenissima.
Elements that are found in Grandi, who embodies the collective memory in his personal experience: from his stay in the Far East, which trained him as a professional and as a chef, to the assimilation of classic French cuisine, which still constitutes the backbone of his culinary aptitude; passing from the success of the international television program Hell’s Kitchen, to the conquest of the prestigious Michelin Star which marked the “homecoming” with the establishment in the central square of Vicenza, right in front of the Palladian Basilica which serves as an example for his research and harmony of taste with perspectives and chiaroscuro constructed both for the eye and for function.
The red-figure vases from the National Museum “Domenico Ridola” in Matera and the Rizzon Collection – rich in precious Apulian and Lucanian pieces – offer a unique opportunity to grasp Magna Graecia antiquity from an unusual perspective through the photographs by Luigi Spina. Significant testimony to vase painting between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the museum’s artifacts largely date back to the discoveries of Domenico Ridola (1841-1932) and form part of elaborate funerary assemblages, possessing great aesthetic and historical value through which everyday life is reflected in myths.
In the book, black is the protagonist: it enhances the red figures and brings out the keen eye of photographer Luigi Spina. Anatomical details, drapery, and decorative motifs emerge in all their strength without the filter of museum cases, while touches of white enrich the vases’ bichrome palette.
Photographing a work of art means capturing its deep meaning to communicate it to the world. Far from the idea of a museum catalog, the volume is rather a figurative atlas of antiquity.
Text in English and Italian.
Bristol is one of the UK’s biggest cities but is small enough to sometimes feel like a village. It is a city built on trading with much of its former maritime heritage now transformed into buzzing independent harborside businesses in which to eat, drink and let your hair down. Both water and green spaces abound. And you’ll have to get used to hills when exploring this cosmopolitan city because like Rome, Bristol was built on seven of them. Step away from the obvious – the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain (both designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel), or the wonderful We The Curious where science and art collide – and discover unexpected treasures such as secret gardens, hidden memorials to the past and unusual modes of transport.
Journey through the old haunts of world famous pirates; past the Oscar-winning animation studio home to Morph and Wallace & Gromit; along shopping streets that sell everything from handcrafted violin bows to locally-made gin; and through an indoor market selling everything from spices to fossils. If you know where to look, Bristol will unravel its secrets in front of your eyes.
Campi Flegrei, near Naples, is a seismically active landscape that attracts, stimulates, and challenges. It seduces the soul, engages perception, and demands to be interpreted rather than merely registered.
People have chosen to live amongst these unique geological and volcanic features, weaving the fabric of human occupation and taming a land in perpetual transformation, one of the harshest yet most enchanting environments. Mankind has matched its own impermanence against the earth’s inevitable and unrestrained convulsions, in the process hewing out some of the most glorious examples of human endeavor, such as Cumae, the oldest Greek colony in the Western Mediterranean, the bustling Roman port of Puteoli, and the “dolce vita” savored in the baths and villas dotted around the Bay of Baiae.
Luigi Spina has been exploring this land since 2020, delving into the complex, stratified geography. Key landmarks include places of memory (archaeological sites, monuments, landscapes), which, like true benchmarks of perception, outline the path towards an understanding of a world that links nature, ancient ruins, and the overwhelming presence of mankind. Balanced between mimicry and contradiction, the Campi Flegrei landscape is now blanketed by a dense urban sprawl, where the ancient and the contemporary coexist in a kind of precarious equilibrium, generating a complex socio-cultural state of affairs that is challenging to govern.
Spina explores and photographs places such as the Dragonara Cave, the Piscina Mirabilis, the Theatre of Misenum, the Flavian Amphitheatre at Puteoli, the Temple of Apollo on the shores of Lake Avernus, and the Temples of Venus and Diana, as he wanders through the hills above Baiae, finally heading towards Cumae.
Dive into the bustling city of Copenhagen.
With the New Mags City Guide, you can make the most of your time, whether you’re seeking a great meal, an inspiring hotel stay, a perfect cup of coffee, or an unexpected art experience. The New Mags City Guide offers an updated selection of the best hotels, restaurants, bar, coffee shops, retail concepts, and cultural landmarks.
Copenhagen is the quintessence of cool, where history meets modern lifestyle. You’ll never run out of things to do, and you’ll most likely leave the city full of impressions, yet still feel a bit unfulfilled. But that’s Copenhagen where FOMO isn’t just a feeling, it’s practically a chronic condition.
Dive into the bustling city of Stockholm.
With the New Mags City Guide, you can make the most of your time, whether you’re seeking a great meal an inspiring hotel stay, a perfect cup of coffee, or an unexpected art experience. The New Mags City Guide offers an updated, handpicked selection of the best hotels, restaurants, bar, coffee shops, retail concepts, and cultural landmarks.
Surrounded by 30,000 islands that form the archipelago, Stockholm is undeniably attractive but can be a little hard to get—in the best possible way. Take your time exploring the city, get under its skin, let it unfold, and you’ll be richly rewarded. With this guide in hand, Stockholm won’t let you down.
For over 30 years, Paolo Pellizzari, a Belgian photographer of Italian origins, has observed and described the shared spaces of contemporary times. Its sweeping panoramas capture squares, beaches, crowds, and places of passage, transforming them into settings in which the individual —alone or among others— becomes the protagonist of social dynamics.
Halfway between documentary photography and artistic research, his work combines formal rigor and attention to detail, in dialog with the tradition of the German School. Each image is constructed as a dense, layered field of view, where the gaze can be lost and found again.
Like a contemporary flâneur, Pellizzari traverses public space, capturing its invisible choreography. His photographs precisely and sensitively question the relationship between the individual and the community, conveying the complexity of the contemporary world.
Text in English and French.
As soon as Bill Wyman was given a camera as a young boy, he quickly developed a passion for photography. After joining what would become the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, Wyman continued his hobby. When he didn’t have his bass, he had his camera. The result is an arresting, insightful and often poignant collection of photographs, showing his exclusive inside view of the band. From traveling to relaxing, backstage and on, Stones From the Inside is a unique view captured by a man who was there, every step of the way. Along with the images of the band at work and play, Wyman includes remarkable images of those along for the ride, from John Lennon, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Iggy Pop to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. To accompany his photographs, Wyman offers up wonderful insights, anecdotes and behind-the-photo stories, giving all us a front-row seat and backstage pass to what it was like to be there, as music history was made as a member of The Rolling Stones. Limited to just 300 copies, this slipcased edition is accompanied by a print.
This book of photographs by Swedish photographer Christer Löfgren explores the diverse and multifaceted world in which we live, from north to south. In comparing photographs of various cultures, diversity is more noticeable: the colors, clothes, and food point to the identity of each place. The further north or south of the equator you travel, colors are paler, and the food is milder and less spicy. The more extreme nature is, the more difficult the lifestyle. These vibrant photographs ask us to broaden our vision and grasp the complexity and beauty of the world as a global whole. This deluxe edition consists of three hardcover books in a slipcase.
Darwishi Ur-atum Msamaki Minkabh Ishaq Eboni, the son of an Egyptian pharaoh, is only nine years old when he dies. He is mummified and laid to rest in a tomb, with the powerful Golden Scarab of Mukatagara hanging around his neck. Thousands of years later, during a transport of three precious sarcophaguses, there is a terrible storm. Lightning strikes, the lorry plunges from a flyover and the sarcophaguses are hurled through the air. During all this, a little white shape escapes the wreckage unnoticed…
Angus Gust is ten and has a perfectly normal life. Then one night a little mummy appears in his room! Life changes completely. Angus and Dummie (short for his real name) become best friends. One dreadful day, Dummie’s scarab goes missing. Without the scarab Dummie falls terribly ill. Angus must now do everything he can to find the scarab, so Dummie doesn’t have to face death again. Can Dummie be saved in time?
The Darnley jewel, a masterpiece of the goldsmith’s art on display at Edinburgh’s Holyrood Palace, has been deemed a love token, but has also been labelled an emblem of political ambition. Taking the shape of a heart, the jewel was produced at a moment (1565-75) when such objects worn by courtiers were a primary means of asserting status and proclaiming allegiances. With a deep medieval history – originally the fleshly power center of the human body, the seat of the soul, and place of memory and emotion – the heart has many aspects to offer. This book shows how the understanding of the heart changed during the Middle Ages, from spiritual locus of the body, to source of devotion to country, and finally, to the font of love and sentimentality.
“Mesmerizing and unputdownable – a virtuoso translation of what must surely be one of the best Thai novels to make it into English.” – Lawrence Osborne, author of Hunters in the Dark and Only to Sleep
”At its core, this novel from Veeraporn Nitiprapha has a simple dynamic: the tension between two sisters, and the young man whose life interweaves with each of theirs. What makes this novel unique is its attention to the granular, whether it’s the music that several of its characters obsess over or its author’s tendency to fill in the history or future of a specific character at a moment’s notice.” – Words Without Borders, February 2019
Watchlist On the day Chareeya is born, her mother discovers her father has been having an affair with a traditional Thai dancer. From that moment, Chareeya’s life is fated to carry the weight of her parents disappointment. With her sister, Chalika, she grows up in an insular world, until joined by the laconic orphan, Pran, and together they navigate the labyrinth of their own making, each trying to escape their fate.
The Vatican Museums is one of the most important museum complexes in the world, housing incredible masterpieces from the Egyptian Age to the late Renaissance.
The Vatican Museums hold a treasure trove of art and history, as well as an inestimable patrimony of our culture and our civilisation. This volume focuses on the paintings to be found in the collection – including The Sistine Chapel.
Text in English and Italian.
Men in stately black, women with huge ruffs, children with golden rattles, old women with wizened faces, and self-satisfied artists… These are the main players in just about every portrait ever painted in the Southern Netherlands. From the15th to the 17th centuries, the tract of land that we today call Flanders was the economic, cultural, intellectual and financial heart of Europe. And money flows – with everyone who could afford it investing in a portrait.
Today, these cherished status symbols of the past have largely lost their original significance. But beyond their functional and emotional aspects, these portraits turn their subjects into gateways to the past. This book takes masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation and outlines the broad context in which they came into being, peeling back levels of meaning like the layers of an onion. Whether captured in an impressive Rubens or Van Dyck, or an intimate portrait by a forgotten artist, the persons portrayed were once flesh and blood, each with their own peculiarities, hidden agendas and ambitions. Some portraits are very personal and hyper-individual. Others are a little dusty, the ladies and gentleman being children of their time. In most cases, however, their dreams and aspirations are surprisingly timeless and soberingly recognisable.
The Bold and the Beautiful
is an appointment with history: a meeting through portraiture with men and women from bygone centuries. But for those willing to look closely, the border between the present and the past is paper-thin.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Blind Date. Portretten met blikken en blozen, Autumn 2020, in Snijders&Rockoxhuis Antwerp, curated by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren & Hildegard Van de Velde with a scenography by Walter Van Beirendonck.
“…a significant contribution to the study of Chinese photography.” – The Art Newspaper
From political leaders to celebrities, photographic portraits exert considerable influence over our reaction to public figures. As the first academic publication focused on the Taikang photography collection, this book explores both the mechanics of portraiture and its psychological effects.
Taikang Space is one of the most important non-profit art institutions in China. Based in Beijing, they focus on contemporary art and photography. The Chinese Portrait: 1860 to the Present is based on the framework of the eponymous exhibition, which ran at Taikang Space from March 2017. This book introduces the curator and researchers involved with the exhibition, as well as researchers such as Shi Zhimin, Jin Yongquan, Liu Jianping, Liu Zhangbolong, who deliver their own unique angles on the topic of portrait photography. The Chinese Portrait: 1860 to the Present also features the curator’s interviews with Qia Sijie, Chen Shilin and Zhang Zuo – respectively the personal photographer, standard portrait re-toucher and darkroom technician of Chairman Mao.
Forgotten in Thailand’s troubled Deep South, stands a dilapidated wooden palace once home to a Malay ruler, the last of his dynasty. Locals call it the “House of the Raja,” a place suffused with loss and solitude, laden with the region’s glorious past and tragic present. Intrigued by this demonized, little-known borderland, photographer Xavier Comas chanced upon this mysterious house and felt compelled to delve into its past. The caretaker, a Muslim shaman who held rituals inside, invited the author to stay and initiated him into its hidden dimensions. As Comas builds a bond of trust with the inhabitants of the house, the missing pieces of its history gently fall into place, revealing an ancient culture long hidden and the building’s ties to the centuries-old struggles in this contested region.
Comas’ evocative black-and-white photographs take us into a realm of hauntings, mystic powers and fading memories. His first-hand account enthralls the reader with vivid descriptions in which the real and the magical entwine. The House of the Raja provides a missing key to controversial issues of legacy, belief and identity in Thailand’s Muslim South.
The Bari people, who settled on the banks of the White Nile, remained closed off from the outside world until the dawn of the 19th century. The earliest contact dates back to the “scientific” expedition commissioned in 1840 by Ismail Pascha, followed by repeated forays by explorers in search of the sources of the Nile during the closing decades of the Ottoman period in Egypt, interspersed with the often competing efforts of slave hunters.
This book places the collection of Bari statues known today in the historical context of the Egyptian Sudan, from the earliest contacts with explorers Joseph Pons d’Arnaud and Wilhelm Werne in 1841 to the final stages of the pre-colonial era described by Wilhelm Junker. Many museums founded during the 19th century embarked on a frantic scramble to collect ethnographic objects, relying in particular on explorers, but also on traders and adventurers. This book catalogs the roughly 63 Bari statues that are known today and offers a comprehensive overview of historical sources and current knowledge of the Egyptian Sudan that provide the context for these works, their use and stylistic diversity.
Text in English and French.
This is the era of the Smart Ecosystems Economy, where the companies that thrive must be ready to cope with randomness and unexpected events. In this digital world, the traditional boundaries have disappeared, paving the way for new and smarter ecosystems to develop. Companies seeking to transform into future-proof organizations would do well to understand these ecosystems, and get a grasp on how they work.
This book serves as a guide to building smart, competitive ecosystems for both small and large organizations. A timely book that cracks the code of tomorrow’s business models.
In 1856, just months after Britain and Siam had finalized the historic Bowring trade treaty that would prevent the countries colonization, the violent death of a Siamese official at the new British consulate threatens to scuttle the deal and lead to war. The King and the Consul explores UK and Thai archives to reveal the twists, turns and tensions of this little-known episode that pitted Thailand’s renowned King Mongkut, Rama IV, against the first British Consul, Charles Hillier. The crisis was resolved without war, but not without cost for the participants who suffered unintended tragic outcomes. By examining the background to this tragedy, the book reveals how history has often overlooked the importance of an issue that lay behind it the right of foreigners to own land in the country, and issue that continues to be a thorn in the side of Thailand’s foreign relations to this day.
“The tragic deaths in 1856 of the first British consul to Siam and a Siamese official had an unusual impact on Thailand‘s property law and Britain’s diplomatic presence in the country. This intriguing book could only be written by someone with long residence in Bangkok, through knowledge of Thailand’s property law, and enthusiasm for history. Simon Landy gives us a slice of legal and diplomatic history with close attention to its human dimensions. An unusual and lovely read” – Chris Baker
This is the era of the Smart Ecosystems Economy, where the companies that thrive must be ready to cope with randomness and unexpected events. In this digital world, the traditional boundaries have disappeared, paving the way for new and smarter ecosystems to develop. Companies seeking to transform into future-proof organizations would do well to understand these ecosystems, and get a grasp on how they work.
This book serves as a guide to building smart, competitive ecosystems for both small and large organizations. A timely book that cracks the code of tomorrow’s business models.
In a series of color-saturated, dream-like, hallucinatory images taken at night, this second book in a trilogy by Kolkata-based photographer Arko Datto explores the shifting world of nature, society, and politics in Malaysia and Indonesia. Over the course of 4 years, he has captured both people and animals in confrontation with the changing urban environments they live in, with the subtext of the politics that made this change possible. In a place that used to be considered a tropical paradise, over- development and property speculation have forced residents out and have created deserts of empty real estate where neither locals nor animal life can thrive. SNAKEFIRE is dedicated to this paradise that has been lost to unmediated human greed and ponders the costs of untrammeled consumption.
Photographer Monika Rittershaus is regarded as an inspiring interpreter of today’s musical theater in all its diversity, opulence, and drama, but also in its human profundity, uniqueness, and veracity. As a highly sensitive observer, she looks out over the on-stage activity, uncovering gentle, touching, and peripheral moments. Barrie Kosky: “I have often observed Monika at work through the corner of my eye as I sit behind the production desk … She seems to sense the inner world of a moment and to know at exactly the right moment when to click her camera.” In her highly stringent visual compositions, Rittershaus depicts in a personalized and decisive way many influential directors and operas such as:
DAS RHEINGOLD, Richard Wagner, Los Angeles Opera (2009), director: Achim Freyer
COSI FAN TUTTE, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburger Festspiele (2020), director: Christof Loy
TANNHÄUSER, Richard Wagner, De Nationale Opera, Amsterdam (2019), director: Christof Loy
CARMEN, Georges Bizet, Oper Frankfurt (2016), director: Barrie Kosky
SALOME, Richard Strauss, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow (2021), director: Claus Guth
ELEKTRA, Richard Strauss, Staatsoper Hamburg (2022), director: Dmitri Tcherniakov
IPHIGÉNIE EN TAURIDE, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Opernhaus Zurich (2020), director: Andreas Homoki
CENDRILLON, Jules Massenet, Opéra National de Paris Bastille (2022), director: Mariame Clément
Text in English and German.
The global porcelain scene is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, which was founded by Brian Haughton and his wife, Anna, in London in 1982. That was just the beginning: further fairs and accompanying symposia on design, jewelry, and antiques in New York and Dubai were to follow, becoming important venues of exchange, not just for trade but for the academic world too.
To mark this anniversary, more than 40 renowned scholars were asked to write about selected European ceramics that had been traded in Brian Haughton’s gallery and that he had been particularly passionate about.
This publication is a wonderful kaleidoscope of unique ceramics from the 18th and 19th centuries, released as a homage to Brian Haughton, The Man with the Butterfly Tie.