Eccentric, perturbing and mannerist, the art of Rachel Feinstein (Fort Defiance, Arizona, 1971) has the ability to transport the audience into a dreamlike dimension that draws inspiration as much from classical art and Renaissance painting as from modern fairy tales and cartoons. Juxtaposing often contrasting genres, suggestions and styles, the artist shapes her works by proceeding by addition and juxtaposition, as in a modern pastiche with an almost grotesque and alienating result that does not intend to pursue beauty at all costs.
Through a wide selection of texts and images, Rachel Feinstein in Florence offers a journey into the artist’s creative universe, taking the reader inside the monographic exhibition dedicated to her in three historic museums in Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the Museo Stefano Bardini and the Museo Marino Marini, in dialogue with their art collections.
Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962) is an emblematic figure of Orientalism. The son of the cabinet-maker Louis Majorelle, he trained at the École nationale des Beaux-arts appliqués of Nancy then in Paris, at the Académie Julian.
Majorelle travelled through Spain, Egypt and Italy, starting from 1908. In 1917 he moved to Morocco. There, he developed a singular chromatic language which gave him a place divested of all influences among his contemporaries.
Landscapes, bazaar scenes, and portraits, he based his art around the city of Marrakech where he lived, as well as across the rest of Morocco. He gathered inspiration from his many trips to Sudan, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, amassing a considerable oeuvre of over 1,000 works in which light, colour and a certain viewpoint on exoticism played a decisive role.
The National Holocaust Museum tells the story of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of the Netherlands. Before the Second World War, Jews and non-Jews lived side by side. They had the same rights. But during the war, the Nazis and their collaborators killed around six million Jews in Europe. That was the Holocaust or Shoah. This is the first and only museum to relate the history of the persecution of the Jews of the entire Netherlands. Including the day-to-day life of Jews on the eve of the Second World War, the liberation as Jews experienced it, and how the Holocaust has been treated in our national culture of remembrance: all this is examined in the museum and this book.
Text in English and Dutch.
Bears All Things (from the Finnish “Kaiken se kestää”) is a lifelong art project by the artist couple Mammu and Pasi Rauhala. The project, which has taken place every year since 2013, comprises photographs of the artists going about their daily lives, from renovating their home, to gardening – always in the same getup: their wedding attire. Their gestures and appearance, always very serious, are a nod to the tradition of the family portrait. With a generous dose of humour, the works encourage the audience to reflect on the institution of marriage and issues of interpersonal relationships, both on the individual and the societal level.
2024 marks the centenary of the publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, and thus the birth of the Surrealist movement. This French language book celebrates 100 years of Surrealism, combining historical retrospection, interpretation, and the perspective of contemporary artists who explore Surrealist themes and forms in their work. It is based on the Surrealist literary magazine Le Grand Jeu, which was published between 1928 and 1930.
Games to which the Surrealists referred are a core theme of the volume: chess and the “Jeu de Marseille,” a special set of tarot cards created by the Surrealists in the south of France, where many had to flee from German occupation between 1940 and 1944. Alongside, the essays investigate topics such as identity, metamorphosis, esotericism, kabbalah, and magic, as well as speculation, abstraction, and automatism. Moreover, new light is shed on the female members and affiliates of the Surrealist movement, including Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Suzanne Duchamp, Leonor Fini, Gladys Hynes, Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea Tanning, and others.
The book is also an homage to the never-published fourth issue of Le Grand Jeu, which has been preserved as a maquette and is reproduced here in facsimile images.
Text in French.
The Middle Front is the first-ever monograph on La Dallman Architects, a Milwaukee-based firm with offices also in Boston and Miami. Lavishly illustrated, it articulates a profound architectural stance amid the extremes of radical innovation and banal convention. The firm’s founding principles Grace La and James Dallman explore this middle ground through designs that navigate between avant-garde aesthetics and pragmatic solutions.
Their reflective book – born from their formative years and experiences at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and subsequent practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – rejects both the spectacle of the avant-garde and the ubiquity of conventional forms. It engages with architecture’s potential in a complex world, seeking a balanced, inclusive disciplinary approach. The Middle Front unfolds through essays and featured projects, demonstrating La Dallman Architect’s commitment to a nuanced, contextually responsive architecture that embraces the challenges and opportunities of urban and environmental complexities. It invites a re-examination of architectural practice, advocating for a responsive, thoughtful approach that values depth and connection over mere novelty or tradition.
The exhibition catalogue Three Hundred Mountains comprises a select one hundred paintings by the Chinese artist Haiying Xu (b. 1975). In her work, Xu, who came to Germany more than two decades ago, continues to explore issues of personal identity at the tense interface between heritage, homeland, and migration. Haiying Xu’s memories of the traditional cultures of southeastern China give rise to a reinterpretation of childhood fascination, imagination, and the experience of nature, though her paintings are also very specifically inspired by the colourful costumes of the Peking opera, classical Chinese literature, and the spatial concepts of shadow theatre. Despite its retrospective character, the main focus of this catalogue is her most recent work, which will be on display in 2024 as part of a solo exhibition at Galerie Andreas Binder in Munich.
Text in English and German.
This book explores the oeuvre of Belgian photographer Willy Vanderperre. His editorial work appears in magazines such as AnOther Magazine, Dust, i-D, Perfect, Vogue and W Magazine. He also photographed campaigns for fashion houses such as Dior and Prada. Willy Vanderperre, Prints, films, a rave and more… highlights how the photographer’s fascination with youth has driven him for almost three decades. In addition to the evolution in visual language, this overview of his photographic work also considers his many years of collaboration with Olivier Rizzo and Raf Simons.
The numerous items of everyday material culture that we employ in housework, cleaning, office work and entertainment are more than mere disposable objects. In a sense, they represent one of the ways for us to understand the idiosyncratic lifestyles and traditions of various places and peoples. A great number of these household items and daily necessities come from the handiwork of anonymous craftsmen, who have learned their skills through family inheritance or apprenticeship.
This book presents 120 selected items of everyday use, currently available in Shanghai in one way or another. Alongside photographs and illustrations, the book also includes interviews with craftsmen living in Shanghai, who specialise in bamboo, wood, straw, iron, and cloth, to portray and share the endeavors of craftsmen as a whole, as well as the intimate details of their lives in Shanghai. Hopefully, this book will help to introduce the ideas of environmental friendliness and resource preservation to readers looking for novel concepts, and to people who care about the development of Shanghai.
Text in English and Chinese.
A visit to a museum is an extraordinary opportunity for imagination, liberation from the mundane routines of daily life, and opening the door to a world of diversified perspectives. In the last two decades, an artistic network has flourished along the scenic banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek, both prominent waterways in the city. As of 2023, the 6.3-kilometre waterfront along Suzhou Creek has been transformed into an awe-inspiring canvas housing more than 100 vibrant art spaces. Meanwhile, the Huangpu River has become a hub of artistic expression, featuring renowned cultural areas like the Bund, the “West Bund Cultural Corridor” project, initiated in 2010, and the post-Expo venues.
Roaming Shanghai’s Art Museums guides readers through every path that leads to the most important 15 art museums in Shanghai. This book unveils a comprehensive treasure trove of art museum insights, accompanied by precious photographs, and engaging dialogues with directors and architects. From industrial relics to architectural masterpieces by Pritzker Award winning architects like David Chipperfield, Jean Nouvel, and Tadao Ando, it takes readers to a world of art. Embrace the journey of artistic exploration, where each museum visit becomes a transformative and enriching encounter with creativity and human expression.
Text in English and Chinese.
Wine has been considered a luxury product since the time of the ancient Egyptians, and today is coveted by collectors and wine enthusiasts from around the world. Yet little has been written about the world of luxury wine marketing, explaining how a wine brand can enter that special realm. This book helps to demystify the process by describing how to craft, implement, and maintain a luxury wine brand. Beginning with a definition and history of luxury wine, the authors then explain the unique business model and consumer segments for luxury wine, before outlining industry best practice in the building of luxury wine brands. Each chapter is supplemented with a vignette of a successful luxury brand producer, and provides beneficial advice on the long-term vision and passion that is necessary to create a successful luxury wine marketing strategy. This book also contains original research conducted by the authors on the size of the luxury wine market and analysis of its segmentation by region, allowing for new and unique insight into the world’s top wine regions. Written as both a practitioner’s guide and as a wine business textbook, Luxury Wine Marketing is a cornerstone reference resource for the business of wine.
The Veronese wine regions of Soave and Valpolicella – home to Amarone – are currently producing some of the world’s most drinkable quality wines. But both regions still struggle with a reputation for cheap, poor-quality wines brought about through industrial-scale production during the economic depression following the Second World War. In Amarone and the Fine Wines of Verona, Italian wine specialist Michael Garner traces a shift in focus towards new levels of quality driven by a generation of producers inspired by the area’s outstanding potential for producing fine wine.
Both regions produce versatile wines which, as well as being both deliciously drinkable and relatively affordable, have the flavour and structure to accompany a wide range of foods. In Valpolicella an appassimento wine, the famed Amarone, has gained comparable status to Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino, while Soave overlaps with the tiny denomination of Lessini Durello, where sparkling wine is produced from the rare, local white grape Durella.
Garner begins Amarone and the fine wines of Verona with a summary of the region’s history, before detailing its geography, grape varieties and approach to both viticulture and winemaking, leading into a discussion of each denomination’s character and wine styles. A cross-section of around 100 producers provides a capsule profile of each, along with analysis of some of their best and most distinctive wines.
For students of wine, those in the wine business and wine adventurers alike, Amarone and the Fine Wines of Verona provides a gateway to a sorely misunderstood wine region.
The lavish five-volume set of Food for Architects is dedicated to the buildings and cooking of the renowned Zurich-based firm Steib Gmür Geschwentner Kyburz Partners. As enthusiastic housing designers, they have been searching for both the perfect floor plan and the perfect spaghetti for three decades.
Volume 1 of this first comprehensive monograph on the firm’s work brings together brief personal texts on the various types of rooms in a house or apartment as well as other aspects of living. Volume 2 offers insights into the evolution and design methods of Steib Gmür Geschwentner Kyburz Partners, documenting 65 key buildings and projects from their portfolio. Volume 3 features floor plans of a total of 168 furnished apartments with concise comments, interspersed with recipes for 12 spaghetti dishes. In a photo essay, volume 4 introduces the inhabitants of 11 apartments from various realised buildings, who also speak about their homes in brief interviews. The dessert of this five-course menu is the concluding volume 5, featuring a conversation with the firm’s four partners — Jakob Steib, Patrick Gmür, Michael Geschwentner, and Matthias Kyburz—as they discuss topics that are key to their architectural work.
Inspired by poets, draftsmen and printmakers, painters also discovered Haarlem and its beautiful surroundings as rewarding subjects for their work. Jacob van Ruisdael and Gerrit Berckheyde both repeatedly pictured the city – the former with his ‘Haerlempjes’, where heavy cloudy skies dominate the landscape and the unmistakable St Bavo’s Church stands on the horizon. Berckheyde is known for his atmospheric cityscapes: the Grote Markt, with St Bavo’s as the focal point, the Weigh House on the River Spaarne and the city gates.
“I love Belgian beer but until I picked up this book I never realized just how ignorant I was on the subject. The Belgian Beer Book grants you a ground floor view of Belgian Beer culture, Belgian Beer, and everything you might ever want to know about things related to Belgian Beer.” ― Nerd Rage News
“This massive 704-page book is packed with photos, stories, food pairing ideas, and beer and brewery guides that dig deep into one of the most storied beer cultures on the planet.” ― The High Five Archive
“This is the ultimate beer book, which, after reading, will have you packing your bags and getting on the first flight to Belgium.” ― Celebrator Book News
“This massive eight-pound, two-and-a-half-inch thick volume gives you what you would expect from its simple, straightforward title.” ― Cleveland.com
Belgian beer is famous throughout the world. Beer connoisseurs Erick Verdonck and Luc De Raedemaeker explain everything there is to know about Belgian beer culture. How does the brewing process work? How do you tap, serve, taste and conserve a perfect beer? What are the different styles and types of beer? Which beers are the best ones and how about the recent craft beers? This book explains it all!
The monumental 17th century Solebay Tapestry series captures the first major naval battle of the third Anglo-Dutch war (1672-1674), which took place off the coast of England. Of the 12 tapestries created after drawings by the artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (who witnessed the battle firsthand), two are in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. The first tapestry shows the burning of the flagship of the English fleet, the Royal James. The other depicts the two war fleets as they line up in a long line, ready to continue the battle the next morning. This is the first book in a series that highlights the objects in the National Maritime Museum of the Netherlands.
Roelant Savery (1578-1639) was among the large group of Flemish artists who arrived in the Northern Netherlands around 1600, during the Eighty Years’ War. There, they were at the cradle of the great flowering of art in the 17th century. Savery was a highly versatile draughtsman and painter, specialising in landscapes, animal scenes and flower still lifes. With encyclopaedic precision, he depicted countless different species: animals, flowers but also people from various regions, from Bohemian peasants to Jewish believers in the synagogue. Savery became the painter of the extinct dodo from Mauritius. For more than a decade, Savery worked in the service of the Habsburg emperor Rudolf II in Prague, who sent him out to capture the landscapes and people of his empire. Coming from the Low Countries, the waterfalls in the Alps must have made a deep impression on the artist. After returning to the Netherlands, Roelant Savery settled in Utrecht, where he created a garden with precious flowers and plants behind his house. This way, he did not have to leave home to find inspiration for his flower still lifes.
Few artists are so inextricably tied to their native soil as Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994). In the early 1960s, the born and bred man of Delft achieved international renown with his white reliefs of paper and cardboard, yet he always remained loyal to ‘his’ Delft. The German photographer Lothar Wolleh (1930-1979) admired Schoonhoven’s work and visited Delft for the first time in 1968. Jan Schoonhoven and Lothar Wolleh intended their 1971 artists’ book to be a calling card of their artistry. It was a project which often brought the photographer back to Delft. Schoonhoven showed Wolleh how the rhythms of the city recur in drawings and reliefs as ‘isolated realities’. Pavement, weathered walls of the alleys of Delft and windows along the canals: Jan Schoonhovens work is abstract and autonomous, but ‘breathes’ Delft nevertheless.
Text in English and Dutch.
Henry Moore (1898–1986) is undoubtedly one of the leading English sculptors of the 20th century. His work in museums, parks and on town squares can be admired throughout the world. How did Moore arrive at his unique and instantly recognisable visual vocabulary?
Henry Moore – Form and Material is not just a display of masterpieces from his oeuvre but also focuses on the evolution that he underwent as a sculptor and the influence that nature has had on his work. This dozens of objects and sculptures collected together in this publication reveal the vision and creative process that formed one of the most important innovators of modern sculpture. The selected works illustrate how the choice of materials shaped the form, dimensions and subjects of his sculptures.
Text in English and Dutch.
For more than two decades, artist Antonio López dragged his painting gear up and down a high tower to finish his panoramic painting of Madrid. It is typical of the Spaniard: the painting process is a way of getting to know the world better, he thinks. By measuring everything extensively and always staying close to his subject, López manages to flawlessly copy reality. But his work never becomes distant or cold.
Although López was once described as “the greatest realist artist” by American art critic Robert Hughes back in the 1980s, his fame in the Netherlands has not yet achieved anything. Until now. This book serves as a Dutch introduction to the life and work of López. We get to know him personally in an interview and find out more about his technique in articles by various Dutch and Spanish authors.
The volume provides an insight into the work of the Korean artist Lee Ufan (born 1936, lives and works in Kamakura, Japan and Paris), one of the most important representatives of the Mono-ha school in Japan and the Dansaekhwa movement in Korea, which developed in parallel to other minimal art movements.
Lee’s philosophical writings shaped the artists’ collective Mono-ha (School of Things), which was active in Tokyo from 1968 to 1975. Mono-ha is one of the most influential styles of post-war art in Japan. In their sculptures and installations, the artists combined raw materials such as stones, branches or earth with industrial materials such as steel or glass. In the Dansaekhwa movement, Korean artists began to explore abstraction and materiality in the mid-1970s, especially in monochrome painting.
Text in English and German.
LA+ Botanic explores our evolving relationship with plants with contributions that reflect on the many natures and relations that are being materialised in plant conservation, botanic gardens, and botanic art today. A wide range of topics is covered, including plant conservation efforts and the challenges posed by global heating and extinction, the limited plant choices imposed by the horticultural industry, and the many representations of plants found in visual, material, textual, and architectural works. Edited by Karen M’Closkey, contributors include Giovanni Aloi, Irus Braverman, Patrick Blanc, Xan Sarah Chacko, Sonja Dümpelmann, Jared Farmer, Annette Fierro, Matthew Gandy, Ursula K. Heise, Andrea Ling, Janet Marinelli, Beronda L. Montgomery, Catherine Mosbach, Katja Grötzner Neves and Bonnie-Kate Walker.
This is a clear, accurate, readable survey of the dramatic transformation of Chinese architecture from 1840 through 2020. It narrates the change from a predominantly timber-frame tradition to construction in twisted steel and ecologically sensitive local materials. The book places the buildings in historical context.
Modern Chinese Architecture: 180 Years tells the dramatic story of the transformation of Chinese architecture from a predominantly modular, timber-frame, single-story building system with ceramic tile roofs of anonymous, local craftsmen to skyscrapers designed by internationally acclaimed architects, from temple markets and itinerant peddlers to megamalls, and from open air stages to auditoriums and stadiums with cutting-edge acoustics. The architectural transformation occurs as China transforms from a dynasty ruled by emperors to a republic to a people’s republic, from a country in which fewer than half the male population, and perhaps 10 percent of the female population could read to at least 97% literacy, and from a population that was fewer than 5 percent to more than 60 percent urban.
The development of architecture in China is explained century-by-century through five generations of architects: foreigners, China’s first generation who study modern architecture abroad, their students who design in China during years of war with Japan, internal warfare, and the Cultural Revolution, the next generation who in the 1980s begin to study abroad again, and designers of this century from every continent who compete to transform the Chinese landscape. The buildings in this book come from every province.
Indonesia is one of the largest countries on Earth. The beauty and untouched nature of this unique island archipelago can now be marvelled at by tropical enthusiasts in the elaborate photo book Tropics & Traditions – Tales of Indonesia by Manolo Ty.
The photographic artist takes us on a journey to the most remote indigenous peoples, who live far from the civilisation we know, leading a life rooted in tradition and harmony with nature. In impressive shots, some taken from unusual perspectives like from the air with drones or underwater, we see unexplored jungles, solitary islands, mighty volcanoes, and dreamlike coral reefs.
Ty also bridges the gap to the bustling metropolises of the country, which could hardly contrast more vividly with the breathtaking beauty of nature. He shows us Bali and Jakarta, which gleam with imposing buildings that snugly intermingle with traditional structures and the temples of Buddhism and Hinduism.
In the impressive coffee table book Tropics & Traditions, Manolo Ty always tells fascinating stories. About astonishing encounters with archaic peoples, majestic natural landscapes, solitary places, and imposing cities.
For all Southeast Asia enthusiasts who crave a high-calibre photo book that provides a visually stunning deep insight into this partially untouched island nation, Tropics & Traditions is a true wellspring of inspiration.
Text in English and German.