For Thomas Putze, performance is a snapshot of a moment, a play on possibilities, and at the same time a well-planned and sophisticated act to captivate the onlooker. Yet above all, it is thinking, drawing, sculpting, and realising with and through the body, which he treats just as relentlessly as all the other materials in his works. He swings through trees, occupies church facades, and submerges himself in mud; frequently without clothing or scantily wrapped in plastic sheeting, he gauges and challenges the physical and thus social space between us bystanders. Thomas Putze typifies the risk of being human, with all its failings and plenty of humour. He not only holds us to account but rather invites us to do this ourselves: to partake in art and to reflect on the performance we call life.
Text in English and German.
The Hanau City Map project by Claus Bury relates to the new city of Hanau, which was formed from 1597 on and is characterised by its strictly geometric pattern of streets and star-shaped ramparts. The walk-on granite sculpture on the square directly next to the Walloon-Dutch church references the city map engraved in copper in 1632 by Matthäus Merian and revitalises Hanau’s historical 17th century topography through its relief-like recesses and encompassing seating areas. An installation spanning centuries that brings the history, present, and future into a flourishing dialogue for the visitors of Hanau.
Text in English and German.
Breathtaking photographs and details provide a tour through the rich sites of this legendary city. Tracing Munich’s history from the 12th century through the present, this sumptuous book illustrates the city’s treasures, from the collections of antiquities in the Alte Pinakothek, to incomparable baroque and rococo buildings, to the neon-lit festivities of the modern-day Oktoberfest.
Of Limbs, Leaves, and Hope represents the unforeseen gain of biophilic relief in Philadelphia from the coronavirus pandemic. Forced to work remotely because of COVID-19, daily walks and bike rides became an essential distraction from hours of uninterrupted screen time. Photography became a pastime, and as weeks turned into months the city began to present itself anew: streets, plazas, parks, church grounds, cemeteries, and untold nooks and crannies not before seen or recorded. Trees soon began to dominate the compositions, as if beckoning to stand out against the gridiron construction. And so, the project began: to record the presence of trees as foreground actors of the everyday urban landscape. Beginning in the spring of 2020, hundreds of photographs were taken, often times of the same tree at different times of the day, under varying light conditions, and through the seasons. A sense of intimacy developed: of seeing how a plant breathes-in the city over time, silently, exhaling in return nurturing permanence and resilience.
Institutions — the state, the church, the army, the judiciary, the university, the bank, etc.— organise social relations. As social structures, they regulate societies according to various practices, rites and rules of conduct, and guide our actions by delimiting what is possible and thinkable. Institutions’ individual scope depends on how the society as a whole understands them. They are in perpetual mutation and thus form complex entities. Architecture plays an essential role in the establishment, identification and perpetuation of this social structure as it formalises value systems in space and represents ideologies in permanent physical structures. Architecture establishes and reveals the way an institution functions through different strategies.
Institutions and the City investigates this role of architecture, taking the Tracé Royal (King’s Street) in Brussels as an example. Running from the Place Royale in the heart of the city to the Église Royale Sainte-Marie in the Schaerbeek district north of it, it is the place where several of Belgium’s national political, legal, religious, financial, and cultural institutions are located. The book explores the stratagems put in place over time by the various institutions to inscribe themselves durably on the country’s social order, and reveals similar spatial responses and surprisingly common mutation processes. And it highlights the importance of architecture when it comes to inventing new relationships with institutional spaces in order to live together better in a time when social, political and cultural reference points are being blurred.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
The goldsmith and art dealer Johann Karl Bossard (1846–1914) is regarded as one of the key figures of Historicism in Switzerland. This publication focuses for the first time on not only the workshop’s exceptional production and signature style but also the appropriation and adaptation of historical paradigms as well as Bossard’s international network. The production of jewellery, cutlery, weapons, and commissions for the Church are particularly explored in further detail. In addition, an overview is also given of the production by the successors of the Bossard goldsmithing atelier, extant until 1997. The approximately 500 images lend an impression of the immense workshop legacy, which is preserved by the Swiss National Museum. Moreover, key objects from public and private collections are published for the first time and presented in a comprehensive catalogue section.
Text in German.
Hidden Holland is an alternative travel guide with inspiring stories about approximately 380 different and unexpected places all around the country. This guide entreats you to leave the beaten path, pointing you to locations that many people didn’t even know existed. Such as a forest full of miniature waterworks, a cellar with a mummy in a small Frisian church and secret NATO headquarters.
This guide introduces you to the lesser-known charms of the Netherlands through surprising places presented in original lists, such as: 5 artworks in unexpected locations, the 7 most authentic pubs, 5 cool repurposed industrial heritage sites, 6 local specialities you should try, and much more.
The first comprehensive illustrated book on the Cyclades archipelago, which also includes the well-known islands of Santorini, Naxos, Paros and Mykonos. The islands are currently among the trendiest travel destinations in the world. There is no Hollywood or Instagram star who has not been photographed in front of the white cities of the Greek islands.
This illustrated book attempts to capture the islands’ attitude to life in an undisguised way. In doing so, the volume does not aim at the big tourist hotspots and Instagram shots that can be seen everywhere else, but would like to capture the Greek island world as a whole – with all its discrepancies. Lonely bays and half-ruined towns stand next to the glossy world of the rich and famous who spend the summer on the islands. Highlife in summer next to almost deserted streets in winter. Greek tradition next to modern mass tourism. It is precisely these discrepancies that make the volume so distinctive. In addition, each individual island has its own exciting peculiarities that are worth discovering. The volume also portrays in pictures and text local Greeks who pursue an exciting profession: The last fishermen of the island, the priest of a mountain church on Naxos, the last local beekeeper, etc.
Rudi Sebastian has spent many weeks on the islands over several years in all seasons and has followed the soul of the country and its people. He was at least once on every single island of the region, so he attaches importance to completeness. The result is a probably unique collection of images that reflects the island life in all its facets.
Text in English and German.
These previously unpublished images of New York’s waterfront are presented here as part of a unique editorial project: the iconographic perspective is analysed and discussed in Pauline Vermare’s interview with Sophie Fenwick, and finds further literary development in the photographer’s poetry, on which she started working during the pandemic and is used here to accompany the visual narrative.
The language of photography is used here — in a series of black and white and colour shots — to retrace the memory of a transformation and to express the urgency of documentation that in these pages evolves from personal to universal. The invitation to travel voiced by Fenwick is visual poetry articulated in a series of pictures, each of which possesses the potential to become a true icon.
Text in English and French.
Meet Galileo Galilei and discover the story of his life and work in this engagingly illustrated biography – narrated by the scientist himself. Astronomer, physicist, and philosopher Galileo Galilei was referred to as “The Father of Modern Science,” because of his groundbreaking research. Making observations about nature, and using mathematics to back them up, he proved the Copernican Theory true: the Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the universe. Join Galileo on his pioneering journey to see why his work had such long-lasting implications, and why the Catholic Church even condemned him for heresy. Ages: 6 plus
Explore 31 extraordinary monuments from around the world – from ancient treasures like the Colosseum to the modern Sydney Opera House. A world of wonders awaits children in this book! From the Palace of Versailles in France to the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, from Knossos Palace in Greece to Mount Rushmore in the US, it presents some of history’s greatest monuments, along with their location, size, and fun facts and features. Each one is marvellously illustrated by Giulia Lombardo, and introduced by a famous character connected to its legend – including Antoni Gaudi, designer of the Sagrada Familia church; Gustave Eiffel, who created the Eiffel Tower; Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, whose family lives in Alnwick Castle, where scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed; and Tom Jobim, who wrote a song about the statue of Christ on Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro. Ages: 8 plus
A definitive collection, edited by one of the world’s pre-eminent authorities on populism.
Both old and new money flocks to Palm Beach for “the season”, and the houses that line the oceanfront and Intercoastal Waterway exhibit a remarkable range of approaches to living under the subtropical sun. Among the twenty homes that are featured in this lavish volume are those of Dorothy Spreckels Munn and Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau. All the most renowned Palm Beach architects — Addison Mizner, Maurice Fatio, Howard Major, and Belford Shoumate — are represented.
But author Jennifer Ash also takes us off the beaten path to fascinating residences known to natives alone: an artist’s bungalow on the bohemian Root Trail, a luxuriously appointed yet fully seaworthy yacht, a cozy retreat in a landmark church. And while relating the gossip-packed history of many of the island’s famous residents, she gives us a guided tour of interiors created by both local and world-renowned designers, including David Easton and Juan Pablo Molyneux.
From the rococo splendor of Mar-a-Lago — designed by Joseph Urban for Marjorie Merriweather Post and now owned by Donald Trump — to the ultra-modern chic of a house by Richard Meier, Private Palm Beach affords intimate access to life behind the island’s meticulously manicured hedges.
“This is the very best of Antwerp and the best from here in Oxford.” — The Oxford Times Weekend
“This entertaining exhibition of the 16th- and 17th-century drawings from the Low Countries has energy to spare.” — The Telegraph
This catalogue will accompany the Bruegel to Rubens exhibition held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford between 23 March and 23 June 2024.
Through a selection of over 100 world-class drawings created by Flemish artists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an insightful and comprehensive overview will be given into how these drawn sheets were used as part of artistic practice, within or beyond the artist’s studio. By revealing the drawings’ function, rather than on their attribution or iconography, these sheets will become more fully understood through the eyes of contemporary readers. Identifying how and why these sheets were created will render these artworks more accessible to a wider audience. The three main essays will each deal with one of the principal functions of drawings at the time: studies (copies and sketches), designs for other artworks (paintings, prints, tapestries, metalwork, stained glass, sculpture and architecture), and finally the independent drawings. Each essay will discuss the relevant works within their functional context and compared with other related objects. Introductory chapters will focus on what precisely can be considered a drawing, including its materials, media and techniques, in addition to an attempt to explain the notion of Flanders and Flemish art. Emphasis will be placed throughout the catalogue on how Flemish artists collaborated in creating the most astonishing artworks of their time, unveiling their networks and friendships, as well as their travels across Europe, revealing their international importance.
The exhibition is a partnership with the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp and will bring together for the first time the most stunning drawings from both the Ashmolean and the Plantin-Moretus collections, in addition to further loans from renowned Antwerp and Oxford institutions like the Rubenshuis and Christ Church Picture Gallery. Many of the sheets coming from Antwerp are registered on the Flemish Government’s Masterpieces List and will not be shown again for the next five to ten years to protect them from fading. Prominent artists featured in this catalogue include Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacques Jordaens, among many others. Highlights will include a sketchbook in which a young Rubens has copied Holbein’s Dance of Death woodcuts, intricate pen and ink drawings by Pieter Bruegel, meticulously drawn miniatures by Joris Hoefnagel, portrait studies by Anthony van Dyck, and a rare survival of a friendship album containing numerous drawings and poems dedicated to its owner. Two recently discovered sheets by Rubens will also be included, a design for a book-illustration on optics and an anatomical study of three legs.
In 2023 the Danner Foundation is honouring exceptional achievements in craft at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Landshut, Germany, with the Danner Prize, four additional honorary awards, and a remarkable exhibition featuring a total of 41 artists.
Gunther Pfeffer received the Danner Prize for his display cabinet Raster. The unit comprises fir slats arranged in a grid, which, depending on the angle of view, reveal what is inside and render the grid visible, or obscure the view and meld into a single surface.
The objects are presented in the publication in large-format photographs and informative descriptions of the concepts. Personal statements by the artists provide insights into their various working methods. To conclude, texts by renowned authors look into the significance and development of handicraft today from different perspectives.
Text in English and German.
“… In fact, my entire journey through Amsterdam’s vibrant house museums was one great historical sensation in a variety of contexts. I followed in the footsteps of Dutch East India Company directors, workers, orphans, writers, artists, architects, and many others, seeing how they lived and worked. How they ate in poverty-stricken 19th-century slums or at lavishly laid tables in canal-side mansions of Van Loon or Bartolotti. How they prayed in secret with Father Parmentier in a clandestine attic church. I am not longer just an Amsterdammer: now I’m an Amsterdammer with a past.” – Froukje Wattel.
Text in English and Dutch.
My first books collection box with four exciting and educational books for children, covering numbers, shapes, colours and opposites, all inspired by Edvard Munch.
Circle? Or Oval? And a diamond shape on the bedspread! My first book of shapes. Yellow hats, purple forest – and what is the colour of the moon? My first book of colours. Day and night, light and …? My first book of opposites. I, 2, 7, 9! How many people do you see on the bridge? My first book of numbers.
Ages 3-5.
Also available: Boxed-set, ISBN 9788293560906; Colours, ISBN 9788293560944; Opposites, ISBN 9788293560982; Numbers, ISBN 9788293560869.
Chablis has a distinct identity amongst the wines of Burgundy. The gently sloping vineyards of this small, scenic region produce a remarkably diverse range of wines, even though all are made from just one variety – Chardonnay.
As in other parts of France, it was the Romans who introduced vines and the medieval Church which expanded the vineyard. By the twelfth century the wines of Chablis, were already being celebrated in poetry. However, over the centuries a considerable amount of everyday wine also found its way via the river Yonne to the cafés of Paris. In its heyday of production towards the end of the nineteenth century the region encompassed 40,000 hectares of vines. But that was before phylloxera and oidium ravaged the vineyards and the railways brought competition from further south to the capital’s wine drinkers.
From a low point of 500 hectares just after the Second World War, the vineyard has now expanded more than tenfold, and quality has increased too. Wines in the appellation’s four categories – grand cru, premier cru, Chablis and Petit Chablis – are created by vignerons keen to work with the terroir to produce the elegant, mineral, long-lived wines for which the region earned its reputation. To this end, ever greater care is being taken in the vineyards and the routine use of chemicals is becoming increasingly uncommon.
The region’s history, unique soil, geography and climate are all covered in detail, but it is Rosemary George’s lively and insightful profiles of those who make the region’s wines that form the body of The wines of Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois. Through the lives of these vignerons – from the lows of disastrous weather to their love of the land – she paints a unique picture of a much-admired region.
Australia’s wine history dates back almost 250 years, to the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. The first commercial wine region, the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, was created a mere 40 years later, and by as early as the 1850s small amounts of wine were being exported to the UK. In the modern era, Australian wine became known for fortified wine styles modelled on Port and Sherry. These were the main wine styles consumed for several decades, but by the mid-1990s nearly all grapes were going into table wine and Australia was the sixth largest global exporter of wine. Vibrant, varietally expressive and affordable wines introduced new generations of drinkers to the joys of wine. The popularity of Australian wine has ebbed and flowed over the years but experimentation, innovation and the illumination of newer regions has created a quiet revolution, challenging preconceptions of what is possible.
In The Wines of Australia, sommelier Mark Davidson tastes his way round this new Australian wine world. European immigration was an important factor in the development of wine but it also had a dramatic and negative impact on the indigenous peoples, an issue that Davidson addresses in a chapter on history and culture, explaining how the wine industry is taking steps to involve First Nations peoples in grape growing and winemaking. The growing environment, including the critical question of climate change, is tackled, and today’s most important grape varieties, along with those that can take Australian wine into the future, are profiled. This is followed by a chapter explaining why the country is home to some of the oldest vines in the world. Every region is clearly delineated, its key producers introduced and their wines assessed. The Wines of Australia captures the character of one of the most exciting wine-producing countries on the planet.
Gertrude Vernon, or Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, was an English woman who married a Scot. The American artist John Singer Sargent excelled as a painter in Europe. His portrait of Lady Agnew was painted in London but has found its definitive home in Edinburgh. All these contexts converge in a supremely beautiful painting which is one the icons of the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Created in the 1890s, it proved to be a seminal work in the lives of the artist and his subject and has enjoyed a rich afterlife, inspiring artistic and written responses. This book offers a fascinating biography of this most accomplished, evocative and admired of portraits, placing it in the context of Sargent’s career and how he worked, discussing the life of the sitter and unveiling the picture’s rich critical history.
The Adornes family has left a special legacy that can be admired to this day in Bruges. The Adornes Estate with its mansion and alms-houses reminds us of the family’s aristocratic lifestyle. The fascinating Jerusalem Chapel, a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, brought great prestige to the Adornes family with its unusual architecture and powerful symbolism.
Who were the Adornes? When did they arrive in Bruges and how did they establish their position as one of the most influential Bruges families of the fifteenth century? Ten authors, led by historians Jan Dumolyn and Noël Geirnaert, highlight the different facets of this extraordinary dynasty: from a critical genealogical analysis to a study of the collections, including an analysis of the architectural heritage and a presentation of current management aspects of this historical treasure which is still owned privately by its founders’ descendants.
Santa Maria Assunta in Cremona, among the great Romanesque cathedrals of the Po Valley in northern Italy, is not only one of the most renowned for its artwork, but also one in which the slow stratification of time is most evident. The names of the greatest masters, in the first person or in the medieval sense of workshop, follow one another in quick succession: Wiligelmo, Antelami, the excellent Marco Romano, the Campionesi, enrich the façade with grandiose and superb sculptures, aristocratic and earthy. In the interior, the cycle of frescoes in the main nave with the Stories from the Life of the Virgin and Christ shows, as nowhere else, the symptoms of the pressing renewal taking place in early 16th century Italian painting, from the faultless classicism of Boccaccio Boccaccino to the eccentric Altobello Melone and Gianfrancesco Bembo, the Brescian Romanino and the Friulian Pordenone, who is given the grand finale with the resounding Crucifixion on the counter façade. Alongside these two poles, the façade and the nave, there are masterpieces from all centuries: paintings, sculptures, and goldsmithing, including frescoes and canvases by the Campi, the greatest exponents of the 16th-century Cremonese school of painting.
What do movable dolls’ eyes have to do with a Catholic church? Where could you meet Plain Bob Maximus and Surprise Major? Why does just one person know where Oliver Cromwell’s head is buried? And where is a dog a very large cat?
The answers to all these questions lie in Cambridge, which combines the magnificence of a medieval university with the dynamism of a high-technology hub. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to Cambridge every year to see the colleges, go punting on the river, and shop. But there is much more to Cambridge than its university and Silicon Fen. Over the centuries, town and gown together have transformed this city, which was an inland port until the 17th century. Eccentricity is something of a Cambridge tradition, and the town seems to delight in taking its visitors by surprise, whether that’s with a huge metal time-eating grasshopper, May Balls held in June, sculptures that dive into the ground feet first, or a museum that makes a feature of broken pottery. You will find these and many more curiosities in this book.
On 27 April 1867, a month before the opening of the sensational World’s Fair in Paris, Claude Monet officially requested permission to paint views of the city from the balcony of the Louvre. His painting sessions resulted in three paintings: a view of the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a view of the tightly landscaped greenery of the Jardin l’Infante, and a depiction of the bustle on the Seine around the Quai du Louvre. This book masterfully brings those three works together, while reflecting on the development of the Impressionist cityscape during a turbulent period in the history of Paris. Artists such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot and Caillebotte each approached the depiction of Paris in their own unique way, portraying all kinds of facets of this city in transition.
Image © Kunstmuseum Den Haag
The work of the Estonian jewelry artist Tanel Veenre comes alive in its fullest extent in the current artist’s book. Between dramatic objects and mellow-sensual jewelry unfold thoughts, ideas and questions, which are framed by sequences of pictures showing the sources of his inspiration: photographs of Nordic landscapes, of best friends, of church vaults, erotic forms and the workshop in which the fantastical and poetic pieces are created by his very hand. With this ‘artist’s diary’, Tanel Veenre gives an insight into his world – intimate and sincere thoughts on the ideas and concepts behind his creativity. As a rather abstract thinker, these concentrate less on the detail than the big picture behind it: Why and how is man able to create art? Where does the beginning, where does the end of art lie? Where does nothing end and where does everything begin? Text in English and Estonian.