‘SONG’, a legendary fashion, art, and interiors concept store in Vienna was founded in the 1990s by Myung-il Song. As an early outpost of edgy design and emerging artists, it quickly became the city’s most popular platform for avant-garde fashion. This book presents a retrospective of the ‘SONG’ fashion archives, with clothing by Dirk Van Saene, Martin Margiela, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Bernhard Willhelm, Stephen Jones, Kei Ninomiya, Paul Harnden Shoemakers, and Balenciaga. These unique and timeless pieces in Myung-il Song’s personal collection have been re-photographed and are published here together for the first time

Drawing on more than 40 years of work, Walter Van Beirendonck selected over 500 iconic fashion drawings that have rarely, if ever, been seen before. Draw the World Awake is a wild ride through Van Beirendonck’s imaginative evolution, showcasing his bold and boundary-pushing style like never before. Whether you’re a fashion fanatic or just love a good visual feast, this collectible book offers a vibrant glimpse into the mind of a true mastermind in fashion design.

This XL volume features three interchangeable covers and showcases the full range of Van Beirendonck’s oeuvre in drawings, from his Sado collection in 1982 and the outfits he designed for U2’s Popmart tour in 1997, to his Hand on Heart collection of Fall 2011 until today. The book reveals his wide range of inspirations, which include technology, art, pop culture and ethnography. Walter Van Beirendonck studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He broke through at the British Designer Show in London in 1987, together with ‘The Antwerp Six’: Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee.

A captivating journey through the collages of the legendary Antwerp-Six fashion designer, Walter Van Beirendonck. Dive into a selection of original and inspiring collages, tracing Van Beirendonck’s creative journey from his early days at the Antwerp Fashion Academy right up to the present. Cut the World Awake is a wild ride through Van Beirendonck’s imaginative evolution, showcasing his bold and boundary-pushing style like never before. Whether you’re a fashion fanatic or just love a good visual feast, this collection offers a vibrant glimpse into the mind of a true mastermind in fashion design.

The Van Gogh Museum invited the celebrated Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi to present recent work inspired by Vincent van Gogh. Although the two artists differ greatly in historical period and place of origin, their art is very similar in substance. This similarity is apparent in the themes that Van Gogh and Zeng both perpetually explore, such as style, identity and personality, and the question of self-control and the outside world’s degree of control over the individual. It is evident too in their powerful, searing paintings. Van Gogh’s original paintings became famous partly for their vigorous, seemingly inimitable brushwork – the painter’s individual ‘handwriting’. Zeng has responded to this same brushwork with handwriting from a very different cultural tradition, namely that of Chinese calligraphy. He has done so at a time when Van Gogh has become immensely popular in countries like China and Japan. The result is a Van Gogh seen through Chinese eyes, in a way Vincent himself could never have imagined. Zeng takes meanings from the past and re-uses them, over and over again, to generate valuable new meanings. This book focuses on Zeng’s recent work, inspired by Van Gogh’s iconic self-portraits, and explores the position and importance of the self-portrait within his oeuvre. Text in English and Chinese.

“Dive into the ‘not-so-usual’ world of Iris van Herpen and her 16-Year Evolution! ‘Sculpting The Senses’ isn’t just a display of her iconic designs; it’s a captivating exploration of her visionary fashion revolution.” — Buro 24/7 Middle East

“Fashion is an instrument for change, to shift us emotionally. Through biomimicry I look at the forces behind the forms in nature, these patterns and natural cycles are my guide to explore new forms of femininity for a more conscious and sustainable fashion for the future.” – Iris van Herpen

Sculpting the Senses offers an overview of Iris van Herpen’s work over the past 16 years. It not only shows the most iconic designs, but also explores her forward-looking vision of fashion on a deeper level. On the basis of 100 dresses, it becomes clear how much the designer challenges our vision of “Haute Couture”. Sculpting the Senses immerses you in Van Herpen’s sensory universe and unites fashion, contemporary art, design and science on the basis of nine themes that together form the essence of Van Herpen’s work.

The New 100 Houses x 100 Architects is a celebration of diversity. Satisfying our natural and abiding curiosity about how other people live, and our endless quest to improve our own homes, this superb volume showcases architectural trends, provides insight into vernacular residential architecture, and is a rich source of ideas for every house designer- professional or armchair. Many of the houses portrayed in this book turn conventional notions of appearance and design upside down in their quest for perfection, while many reflect the emerging trend toward sustainable design while proving energy efficiency and style are not mutually exclusive concepts.

The 100 houses featured, (designed by 100 different architects) range from deceptively simple to over-the-top gorgeous. Among the awe-inspiring projects in this book are contemporary houses slotted into traditional settings, such as a modern project on a cobbled street in Ljubljana, Slovenia; a utilitarian structure nestled in a vineyard in pastoral New Zealand; a concrete polyhedron incised into a minuscule spot in the Tokyo metropolis; and a house on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique, whose colours contrast against the azure blues of sea and sky. Also available: 100 of the World’s Best Houses ISBN: 9781864704358, Another 100 of the World’s Best Houses ISBN: 9781864704501

Graphic artist, painter, sculptor, designer of wall textiles,… the artistic achievements of Herman van Nazareth, alias of Herman van Aerden, are manifold. Van Nazareth’s abstract-expressionist imagery is unpretentious, rough and powerful, faceless but with a distinct voice. His pictorial and sculptural language is restrained and universal and goes back to the basic shapes, sometimes hinting at ethnic art. It is especially his works from the South-African era that are a testimony of the artist’s personal sentiments and engagement in the social and political debate of the time. He sculpts anonymous witnesses, suffering people, numbed and powerless in a society ruled by aggression and exclusion. His pictorial work taps into the same vein, but in his paintings of people with mask like expressions and abstract landscapes, his use of colour is more exuberant, sometimes strangely bizarre. Herman van Nazareth’s work is internationally acclaimed and for the first time his extraordinary output has been collected in a comprehensive catalogue.

“…enriched not only by an introduction by the fashion author Anders Christian Madsen, but also by countless anecdotes and stories from friends, artists and collaborators who contributed to the achievement of Van Assche’s great successes.” — GQ Italia

“Squeezing two small decades worth of era-defining elegance into one book is no small feat. Just ask Kris Van Assche, who has spent the past year scrupulously archiving his life’s work.” — i-D

“Fashion is my life. I see many ways to return”, the Belgian creative, former head of Dior homme and Berluti, tells MFF. Who this evening in Paris presents the volume 55 collections, which retraces almost 20 years of his career” — Milano Finaza & M le Monde

“How Kris van Assche helped invent the modern man.” — The Face Press

Embracing 20 years in fashion as a designer and Creative Director at Dior Homme, Berluti and his namesake label, Kris Van Assche reflects on his output: 55 collections, manifold collaborations with renowned artists and a constant oeuvre that conveys his identity. Designed by the illustrious art directors M/M (Paris), Kris Van Assche: 55 Collections is a visual compendium, gathered in a complete chronology.

Today, Dom Hans van der Laan (1904–91) is something of a cult figure of European post-World War II architecture. The Dutch Benedictine monk and architect dedicated his life to the search for fundamental principles of architecture, and his thoughts on numerical relationships and dimensional systems were highly influential in mid-20th-century architectural theory.

A House to Live With is the first book to comprehensively explore van der Laan’s residential buildings. Sixteen of them, built between 1966 and 1985, are featured in full detail through photographs and plans newly produced for this book, and analysed with regard to their compositional and design principles. Essays examine the mathematical relationships of numbers and volumes that are fundamental to van der Laan’s designs, alongside discussion of how he was influenced by ancient Roman architecture. Light is shed also on the interplay of house and garden and house and patio, and the positioning of the one large table in the house, which to van der Laan was of key significance.

Thoroughly researched and highly readable, this volume introduces Hans van der Laan’s architectural ideas and housing designs in full, thus forming a rich and useful source for contemporary architects.

The new scholarly series Van Gogh Studies offers an international platform for research into nineteenth century, West European art history. The contributions focus on Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries and are written by internationally acclaimed scholars and provide a richly variegated impression of this area of study. The first issue reveals the diversity of the Eminence grise series. Robert Herbert presents a major study about decorative arts; the nineteenth century French art market and the Salon system is the centrepiece of Robert Jensen and David Galenson’s contribution, while Elise Eckermann, June Hargrove and Caroline Boyle-Turner provide remarkable monographs about Gauguin as a painter and sculptor. Joan Greer elucidates in great detail on the publication of Van Gogh’s letters in the Flemish journal Van Nu en Straks (Today and Tomorrow) in 1893,while Louis van Tilborgh researches and dates Van Gogh’s stay in French painter Fernand Cormon’s studio.

Vincent van Gogh’s short, passionate life was driven by an almost unimaginable creative energy that eventually overwhelmed him. The outlines of his story – the early strivings in Holland and Paris, the revelatory impact of the move to Provence, the attacks of madness that led ineluctably to his suicide – are almost as familiar as the paintings. Yet it is more than possible that neither the paintings nor Van Gogh’s story would have survived at all if it had not been for his remarkable sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger. After Vincent’s death and that of her husband, his brother Theo, Jo devoted her life to preserving and exhibiting the paintings, and editing the letters. It is in her short and unaccountably neglected biography that we can come closest to Vincent the man.

“Inès van den Kieboom paints in a remarkably anticyclical manner. Through the calm, unassuming conviction with which she pursues her artistic goals, as well as through her archaic, supratemporal pictorial in­ventions, she shows the present what art really is – and what it has the potential to be.” — Markus Stegmann

Inès van den Kieboom (b. 1930 in Ostend; lives and works in Antwerp) has been painting since the 1960s, yet she only decided to exhibit her paintings in the last two years. Van den Kieboom mainly finds inspiration for her works in her everyday surroundings, but also in art history, popular culture and current affairs. She paints or draws her subjects through the filter of her memories or impressions, which she depicts figuratively, abstracted to their essence. Van den Kieboom’s self-assured, lively and energetic paintings offer new perspectives on the way we observe the world.
In collaboration with Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp, where the artist’s retrospective runs from 23 March to 20 May 2023.
With text contributions by Petra Maclot and Markus Stegmann.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

From the fringes of society to the envy-inducing images on social media, how and why has vanlife become more popular than ever before? What does this tell us about our love of travel and our ideas of home? And how do camper vans address issues of minimalism, freedom and sustainability? The creators of The Rolling Home journal bring you a timely, attractively priced paperback re-issue of The Complete Vanlife Book, with essays, interviews, illustrations, and photographs that tell you everything you need to know about vanlife culture. On a practical level, the authors impart the basics of compact interior design and van conversions, along with inspiring personal accounts of living and travelling by van.

This book showcases some unusual costume designs from more than two centuries of European fashion history ranging from Neo-Classicism and Biedermeier to the late 20th century and including cutting-edge creations by European fashion designers as well as aspiring young stars on the fashion firmament. These fashion designs show how ideals of beauty change, often defined by prevailing fashions and shaping the female silhouette in spectacular ways. Focusing on the aspect of moulding femininity , texts and more than two hundred illustrations not only trace the basic lines on which fashion history has developed but shed a sharp light on the relationship between the female body and the dress clothing it.

Besides numerous historical costumes the book shows creations from fashion designers such as Azzedine Alaïa, Walter van Beirendonck, Comme des Garçons, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Romeo Gigli, Eva Gronbach, Hermès, Ja! Jungs, Karl Lagerfeld für Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Moschino, Thierry Mugler, Dries van Noten, Paco Rabanne, Darja Richter, Strenesse Gabriele Strehle, A.F. Vandevorst, Vivienne Westwood, and others.

This beautifully illustrated book presents the permanent collection of Antwerp’s renowned fashion museum (MoMu), and offers an overview of the most important protagonists of Belgian fashion from the 1970s to today. It includes photographs of the exhibitions which took place at the museum between 2002 and 2018, and is supplemented by a selection from the museum’s historical collection of clothing from the 18th and 19th centuries.

With an impressive career of over 40 years that has resulted in the installation of large-scale art projects in numerous public spaces, artist/sculptor Luk Van Soom needs no further introduction in Belgium and the Netherlands. This beautifully designed art book is a first retrospective on his life and career. In a series of discussions and interviews with the artist, author Johan Pas sheds some light on the influences, philosophy, thinking and themes that have been vital for Van Soom’s artistic development: the relation between life and passion, travel and art, etc. Together, these texts present a kaleidoscopic image of Luk Van Soom’s life and work that is just as multifaceted and compelling as his art. At the age of seventeen Van Soom took his first tentative steps as an artist. Now 40 years later, he has an impressive curriculum including many exhibitions, commissions and projects both in his home country and abroad. Moreover, he created more than 50 monumental works for the public space in Belgium and the Netherlands, among which some very well know sights, such as Walhalla (1993, Antwerp), The Man from Atlantis (2003, Brussels), The Wharfinger (2005, Zwolle) and Walking to Magdalena (2012, Ostend). Text in English and Dutch.

An ‘atypical’ Flemish primitive unravelled: Hugo van der Goes

In this fascinating introduction to the work and life of Flemish Primitive Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440–1482/1483), several experts and researchers shed light on the virtuosity of the master himself. The Death of the Virgin is one of the most important works in Musea Brugge’s world-renowned collection of Early Netherlandish painting. After an intensive five-year restoration, the masterpiece has come into its own again, with many brilliant elements, a bright colour palette and newly uncovered details. Face to Face with Hugo van der Goes – Old Master, New Interpretation offers an insight into the timeless yet contemporary character of the masterpiece and pays attention to the iconic value of a work waiting to be discovered.

With text contributions by Matthias Depoorter, Lieven De Visch, Marijn Everaarts, Sibylla Goegebuer, Griet Steyaert and Anne van Oosterwijk.

The artist book Marcel van Eeden – 1898 is being published to coincide with the Hans Thoma Prize 2023. The prizewinner, Marcel van Eeden (b. 1965), explores Thoma’s little-known travels to the Netherlands in 1898. He reflects on Thoma’s analysis of Rembrandt van Rijn or Paulus Potter, under the problematic influence of the cultural theorist Julius Langbehn. Present-day gum bichromate images of the places Thoma visited alongside historical quotes by Thoma and Langbehn result in a multifaceted, critical consideration of nationalistic views on culture.

Text in English and German.

Edward van Vliet is an international design company specialising in conceptual interior and product design for the corporate sector. The company has a strong focus on hospitality, urban residential, and office sectors. With proven expertise in design and consumer behaviour, Edward van Vliet throws down the gauntlet to the status quo, bringing a fresh mindset to the process of destination design. Specialising in designing premium tailored experiences and products for leading brands, Edward van Vliet delivers unique concepts worldwide which are consistent with the location, culture, and experience desired.

Foreword in English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese.

Antwerp artist Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930) documents the pulsating life around the port of Antwerp at the turn of the twentieth century. Dockers, sack sewers, passengers, local communities and general labourers are the subjects of his lifelong fascination with Antwerp port. His affinity with his subjects makes his work direct and sincere and is unique in the genre of social realism. The port is one of the great gateways to the city, facilitating the constant movement of goods and people – migrations that are essential for the economy as well as for the evolution of people and society. Ports also are scenes of human tragedy, witnessing the forced emigration of families and communities fleeing persecution and poverty, as immortalised in the paintings and drawings of Eugeen Van Mieghem.

Antwerp has strong associations with Irish artists from the late nineteenth century. Many of these artists – including Roderic O’Conor, Walter Osborne and Norman Garstin – were attracted by the pioneering developments in art practice on the Continent, and travelled to Antwerp to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The result was light-filled fleeting images painted out of doors, en plein air – a radical departure from the official teachings of the established art academies.

It is not known if Van Mieghem and any of those Irish artists ever came into contact with each other, but this exhibition shows for the first time Van Mieghem’s oeuvre alongside that of his Irish peers, proving yet again how vital are ongoing migrations of culture and people in illuminating and understanding our contemporary society.

Rinus Van de Velde (1983) has built up an extensive oeuvre of drawings, sculptures, installations and film. He is best known for his monumental works in charcoal. At the start of his career, however, he also created small drawings in colour pencil, a technique he reintroduced into his work in 2018. With these drawings, Van de Velde returns to a very classical and direct style of draughtsmanship with colour pencil on paper. His technical qualities receive optimal expression, and the work is often characterised by a high degree of realism.

Van de Velde chooses his visual material from a variety of sources, ranging from images from books, film stills and his own photographic material, to home-made staged scenes and characters that are reduced to a single image. In the process he explores the meaning of an image and how the existing meaning can evolve within an alternative narrative. He plays a game in which he constantly hovers between reality and fiction. Real events are transformed into a carefully constructed alternative universe in which every existing image still has complete freedom.

This is the first publication in which the colour drawings of Rinus Van de Velde are collected and interpreted.