A century ago, northern Thailand (or Siam as it was then known) was home to small communities of Westerners, many of them British diplomats and foresters (like Reginald Le May and Reginald Campbell) or American missionaries (like Lucy Starling and Mary Lou O’Brien). Though few in number, they left behind a considerable written legacy. The writing is invariably personal and often vivid, describing their hopes and aspirations, the challenges they faced in their work and daily lives, and their attachment to this enchanted land. This book makes a selection of that writing accessible to a wide readership, much of it for the first time. The texts are illustrated by 65 evocative photographs, many of them contemporary.
Eliseo Mattiacci: Sculpture in Action in Rome is a fresh examination of the developments in Mattiacci’s sculpture from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, dates that embrace the two decades he spent living and working in Italy’s vibrant capital. New research by the contributors to this book reveal how the exceptional constellation of studios, galleries and institutional spaces as well as the architectural and landscape settings Rome offered were the crucial factor in Mattiacci’s rapid sophistication as an artist. In the mid-1960s the city was already a major centre for art, literature, theatre and cinema, and the setting for numerous avant-garde performative ‘actions’ and ‘happenings’. The Piazza del Popolo district was crowded with bars and galleries, and Mattiacci soon became warmly acquainted with various gallerists and artists, including the Arte Povera practitioners Jannis Kounellis and Pino Pascali. In this challenging and competitive environment Mattiacci sought to establish his own distinctive exploratory style, investigating materials, forms, sounds, presentations and actions in endlessly novel and inventive ways. The extraordinary Tubo, the long flexible yellow coil of metallic tubing that could be endlessly rearranged and even carried out of a gallery into the streets by files of admirers, was first exhibited in 1967, and made his name. The following year he staged Lavori in corso, a trio of very popular performances, in the Circo Massimo, which involved spinning huge umbrellas in imitation of the Earth’s rotations and revolutions. Percorso, in 1969, was Mattiacci again in action, this time driving a noisy roadroller into and around a gallery.
In the 1970s – a difficult decade of political violence in Italy – Mattiacci continued to explore both outwardly and inwardly. He was increasingly fascinated by archaeology, antique alphabets and non-literate cultures, notably the USA’s First Peoples, and he created actions and presentations that ranged from exhibitions of x-rays of his own inner organs to appearances encased in ‘bandaging’ and plaster. In 1981 he first showed the admired Roma, a collection of 50 large sinuous metal shapes inspired by the volutes of classical and Baroque architecture, once again an artwork that is endlessly rearrangeable, indoors or out. Sculpture in Action is the beautifully illustrated account of Mattiacci’s artistic creativity in those decades.
Young Architects 22: Value features work by the winners of the 2020 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. The competition theme examined the meanings of value in contemporary architecture — a concept that spans “numbers, colours, measurement, worth, and ethics,” in the words of the theme statement. From an open-source robotics laboratory producing new architectural forms and processes to a series of community gardens built from salvaged architectural models, the projects and practices featured in this volume represent a wide breadth of responses to the competition theme, refining and expanding the notion of value in contemporary design practice.
With contributions by David Eskenazi, Garrett Ricciardi, Julian Rose, Leslie Lok, Sasa Zivkovic, Isaac Michan Daniel, Ivi Diamantopoulou, Jaffer Kolb, Luis Beltrán del Río García, Andrew Sosa Martínez, Anna Puigjaner, Anne Rieselbach.
Where to go for the best pints of Guinness in Dublin? Or when you’re craving the ultimate sandwich? And what are the 5 shops you absolutely have to visit on Grafton Street? Shane O’Reilly knows! With lots of love and enthusiasm, he shares hundreds of his favourite places in his hometown of Dublin, like the wood-panelled and plush club serving as a multi-purpose arts centre, Ireland’s oldest reggae shop, or the stunning and family-run delicatessen serving up delicious seafood straight from the ocean half a mile away. The 500 Hidden Secrets of Dublin is the perfect book for those who wish to discover the city, but avoid all the usual tourist haunts, as well as for residents who are keen to track down the city’s best-kept secrets.
Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com
What are the best burger joints in San Francisco? Which local craft breweries are worth visiting? Where should you go to find the coolest surf gear? The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco is the perfect guide for anyone who’s keen to explore the city’s best-kept secrets. It guides the reader to the places not typically included in tourist guides. Like a secret fairy door in Golden Gate Park or the truly steepest hills in the city. At the same time, it also lists fantastic places frequented by San Francisco residents, like where to shop for local goods and antiques, or where to go for a fabulous brunch and the best craft cocktails in the city. Packed with hundreds of places to go, things to do, and good-to-know facts about the city, The 500 Hidden Secrets of San Francisco will help you make the most of your visit to one of the United States’ coolest towns.
Discover the series at the500hiddensecrets.com
“…unparalleled behind-the-scenes glimpse into life on the road with Duran Duran.” — Classic Pop
“Denis got to see a different side of the machine – he saw the cogs going around, and there were times when that wasn’t popular with everybody … Once we saw the photographs, however, we were able to appreciate the potency of it.”
Simon Le Bon
With chart hits charts like ‘Girls on Film’, ‘Hungry like a Wolf’, ‘Rio’ and ‘The Reflex’ and pioneering music videos, Duran Duran cemented their place as indisputable icons of the ’80s New Romantic music scene. Having sold over 100 million records, they continue to be one of the UK’s most popular bands. Eternally evolving, always innovating, their fanbase spans the globe.
Containing hundreds of exquisitely restored photographs taken mostly during the North American and Japanese legs of the band’s record-breaking 1984 Sing Blue Silver tour, Careless Memories provides an unparalleled visual history of Duran Duran’s ascent to the top, with commentary from the band members themselves.
Denis O’Regan joined the band in France, where they were filming their New Moon On Monday video, and stayed with them until the end of the tour. His unprecedented access to the band gives the Careless Memories book an insight into the lives of Simon, Nick, John, Roger and Andy as they won hearts around the world. It documents the excitement of the shows and the hysteria and mayhem that surrounded them. For Duran Duran fans, Careless Memories is a 224 page backstage pass that captures the band at the peak of their powers and their fame.
Georg Baselitz’s collected writings brings together more than 30 texts by, and interviews with, the artist – spanning the period 1961 to the present – including conversations with Michael Auping, Henry Geldzahler and Donald Kuspit. Known for his rebellious approach to Abstract Expressionism, Baselitz here discusses the impression his paintings convey, the act of painting, his biography and much more. The texts shift between these personal pieces – some of which have never before been published in English – to interviews conducted by a variety of respected critics and art historians. These conversations present a different voice as Baselitz responds to careful and critical questions about his work.
In 1954, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL was unveiled at the International Motor Sports Show in New York — the start of an unparalleled success story. Victories in the 24-hour race at Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana made it world-famous. It also possessed groundbreaking technology, including the first series-production fuel-injected engine. Its elegant shape and futuristic gullwing doors made it a coveted prize, symbolising exclusivity and freedom.
This volume has everything that is important about the legendary sports car: wonderfully aesthetic automotive photography by René Staud and archive pictures rich in patina, snapshots of racing successes and famous owners, and interesting facts from the model’s history to the colours of the paintwork.
This first monograph on Phillip Lai (b.1969, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) charts the artist’s sculptural development over the course of the last two decades. From a basement soy-sauce factory to the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, the publication surveys several of the artist’s exhibitions across London, Wakefield, Turin, Berlin and Hong Kong. The nine chapters explore an evolving oeuvre that finds form in materials like aluminium, pewter, concrete, resin, rice, cooking pots, textiles and film. It is through these technologies that Lai broaches the material limits of the everyday world, often working with casting processes that see the abstraction and changing stability of materials as they transition from fluid to solid. What comes into focus is a fascination with how objects can relieve or modulate primal human urges to food and water and how, by extension, a material world might be re-envisioned around concerns of depletion and survival. This publication includes an essay by critic and writer Jan Verwoert, with bilingual text in English and Chinese throughout.