Italian photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri is renowned for his work in the field of fashion and for his sensitivity towards beauty. He had the chance to travel a lot, shooting unique places and extraordinary people, along with his greatest passion: flowers. Over the years he gathered an exceptional collection of photographs, only partially exhibited on some occasions. Very few know about the personal life of Gian Paolo, who decided to keep it to himself. A chapter in his private sphere regards his relationship with Evar, a young architect and model from Bergamo who was killed in a motorcycle accident 24 years ago. Flowers of My Life tells their love story through the pictures of flowers and the portraits of Evar captured by Barbieri’s lens, together with poems written by Branislav Jankic.
Howard Kanovitz’s landmark 1966 Jewish Museum solo exhibition is widely deemed to have launched the genre of photorealism.
“The book is absolutely wonderful. I have re-read your poetry several times and it is very thought-provoking. You have managed to capture some very complex ideas in a beautiful economy of words and I love the clear, ‘pared-down quality of your work. It works so well in dialogue with the sculpture, which I think is stunning. It is incredibly ‘human’ but at the same time conveys things that are timeless. Really beautiful, they are the kind of images which stay in your mind long after you’ve seen them. What a talented artist (and poet)!!” – Dr. Claire Nicholson. English Literature, University of Cambridge Katrin Dekoninck is an all-round artist, showing mankind in raw honesty and lonely separation. Though the focus of this book is on her life-sized sculptures in clay, she is also skilled in drawing, painting and traditional (non-computer generated) animation. Her technical strength makes her images breathe. Serenely and with simplicity, she shapes her universe of searching people. Themes such as ‘identity’ and ‘aging’ link her oeuvre to the poetry of Steven Van Der Heyden. With words, he tries to find a way to make connections, to start a dialogue. His poems were written in interaction with Katrin’s sculptures. Together they make an organic unity of words and images. A fascinating encounter artfully captured through the lens of photographer Stef De Belder. Text in English and Dutch.
A photographer stalks a writer after severely transforming and altering her portrait. Like a paparazzo he spies on her and observes her closely and intimately. He captures every single detail of her daily life through his lens while she writes the sci-fi story that is published in this book. However, he especially wants to find out how image manipulation affects her and her psyche, with fatal consequences. Next to the photographer, Dorya Glenn is the main protagonist in the sci-fi story. But who is she? The Picture of Dorya Glenn is a collaboration between photographer Filip Naudts and the Dutch-Chinese writer/visual artist Julie O’yang. It is a photographic romance noir, a dark surrealistic sci-fi photo novel in which the authors play the main characters: Julie in the shape of the extra-terrestrial Dorya Glenn, and Filip as himself. Text in English and Dutch.
Personal and private outdoor space is becoming ever-more elusive as urban areas become more crowded due to population growth and increasing development. Urban Oasis: Tranquil Outdoor Spaces at Home explores projects from London to New York and Sydney to San Francisco that reveal inspirational designs of rooftops, garden spaces, outdoor rooms, terraces and courtyards, and provide refuge from the modern world with private pockets of paradise. These outdoor spaces provide relaxing, sociable, and plant-filled settings for residents to savor peace and calm, and the company of family and friends.
Photo journalism plays an important role in public life: providing accurate, contextualised information through images. When the camera lens focuses on the most harrowing realities, the photographer becomes the link transmitting the subjects’ pain to all other people, thereby in a certain way becoming a spotlight taking some of the darkest sides of humanity out of the shadows. Upfront, both book and exhibition, was created precisely at a time when photo journalists in Spain and Latin America had begun to play an increasingly important role in the world. This book delves further into the work of twenty-three photo reporters from Latin America and Spain, not only the most highly acknowledged, but also others who, though having left behind a more modest mark and theories using more limited means, have helped to keep the their colleagues’ commitment and excellence alive. Text in English and Spanish.
“I like depicting sexy, strong women – the spirit of a dominatrix. Through my work I explore the part of my personality that enjoys teasing and provocation. In doing this, I’ve seen the change and growth of myself as a person, a woman, a lover, a critical open-minded thinker and, most important, as an artist.” – Alejandra Guerrero.
In the second decade of the twenty-first century we are witnessing an unprecedented exploration of female sexual power, while on the other hand reactionary cultural forces contrive to keep women as defenceless as possible. In this context, the work of photographer Alejandra Guerrero can be understood as a clarion call. Hers is a rarefied visual art that marks a turning point for female sexuality in erotica, her eloquent tableaux revealing the intricate ways in which women exert their erotic power. Here we see a future in which women dictate raw, yet refined desires. Each moment comes from the erotic fever dreams of the participants and the desires of the woman behind the camera. Sometimes, when Guerrero turns the lens upon herself, those moments are one and the same. Contents: We delight in wickedness by Violet Blue; Plates; Biographies; Credits.
Dreams, fears, projects, desires. Turning 18, with your future in front of you: it’s a special time, which the talented photographer, Anne-Catherine Chevalier, has tried to capture. Her sensitive lens is matched by the delicate writing of Geneviève Damas: the result is a selection of 50 exceptional portraits.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) moved from place to place from quite early on in his life, never staying in one spot for very long. In the Borinage distract of Belgium, he decided to devote himself to art. The photographer Karin Borghouts followed in Vincent’s footsteps, from his Dutch birthplace in Zundert to Auvers-sur-Oise in France where he took his own life. She has also reconstructed 25 of his still lifes and photographed them.
Text in English, French and Dutch.
Following on from the success of the exhibition Before Time Began, Fondation Opale is taking on a new challenge with a show that juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal art with prominent examples of contemporary art created in a Western and Asian tradition. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes more than eighty works by over 54 artists from two separate collections, both of which are outstanding in their own right: the collection of Aboriginal art belonging to Bérengère Primat and the contemporary art collection amassed by Garance Primat. The works play off each other with powerful effect. Insightful pairings suggest an underlying unity, a merging of mankind, heaven, earth, and the whole cosmos.
The Aboriginal artists represented include: Rover Thomas, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Judy Watson, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and John Mawurndjul. The artists working in the Western and Oriental traditions include: Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Anselm Kiefer, Sol Lewitt, Yayoi Kusama, Giuseppe Penone, and Anish Kapoor.
Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Opale, Lens – Crans Montana, 14 June 2020 – 4 April 4 2021.
Architecture Beyond Experience
is an interdisciplinary work in the service of one goal: the bringing about of a more relational, ‘posthuman’ and yet humanist strain in architecture. It argues against the values that currently guide much architectural production (and the larger economy’s too), which is the making, marketing, and staging of ever more arresting experiences. The result, in architecture, is experientialism: the belief that what gives a building value, aside from fulfilling its shelter functions, is how its views and spaces make us personally feel as we move around it.
This thought provoking essay argues it’s time to find a deeper basis for making and judging architecture, a basis which is not personal-experience-multiplied, but which is dialogical and relational from the start. In this context, the word relationaldescribes an architecture that guides people in search of encounter with (or avoidance of) each other and that manifests and demonstrates those same desires in its own forms, components, and materials. Buildings are beings. When studying architecture, they teach as well as protect; they tell us who we were and who we want to be; they exemplify, they deserve respect, invite investment, and reward affection. These are social-relational values, values that both underlie and go beyond experiential ones (sometimes called ‘phenomenological’). Such relational values have been suppressed, in part because architects have joined the Experience Economy, hardly noticing they have done so. Architecture Beyond Experience provides the argument and the concepts to ultimately re-centre a profession.
The spectacular close-up images contained in this book show nature in a new light. The curious and inquiring photographic lens of Giovanni De Sandre reveals unexpected details, an amazing world hidden in well-known plants, some of which we use in the kitchen every day.
Naturalis fons
delivers a clear message to its reader: to appreciate the wonders of nature by learning to look with new eyes at the most common and apparently insignificant plants.
Text in English, Italian and French.
At the end of the late 1970s, art theorist and critic Rosalind Krauss had written a seminal text entitled “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”, in an attempt to both locate and analyse vanguard sculptural practices of the time such as the work of Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Mary Miss, and Donald Judd whose practices crossed outside of the limits of traditional sculpture and entered into the realms of architecture and landscape through the production of works that she classified as site constructions, marked sites, earthworks and axiomatic structures. Over the past three decades, the boundaries between art and architecture have continued to blur, giving rise to a series of works known as installations whose conceptual, spatial and material trajectories have generated a new and expanding network of relations between the domains of architecture, interiors, sculpture and landscape. At the same time, the range of institutional venues advancing architectural installation practices have provided platforms to intensify the production and reach of contemporary installations. Following the legacy of Rosalind Krauss, Expanded Field: Installation Architecture Beyond Art explores the realm of art and architecture across a broad terrain of installation practices, revealing a critical territory that, despite its exuberant proliferation, has been historically defined as a negativity: the progeny of that which is both not-architecture and not-art. Within this book, a wide range of art and architectural works are positioned and mapped as constellations within a newly expanded field suspended between Architecture, Interiors, Sculpture, and Landscape. These four terms are the initial reference points used to elaborate a more extensive taxonomical framework defining twelve distinct territories where the analytical drawings and photographic indexes of seventy-five installation projects are situated. The expanded field diagram is a conceptual framework that operates on many levels. It acts as a lens through which to theorise and classify the trajectories of current installation practices and serves as an infrastructure to organise the content of the book. Along the trajectory from interiors to sculpture, for example, one finds the immersive chromatic environments of Carlos Cruz-Diez, the thermal and radiant atmospheres of Philippe Rahm, the intensely graphic patterned surfaces of Jürgen Mayer and Yayoi Kusama, and the interactive mediated light landscapes of Ryoji Ikeda and Julio Le Parc. These are installations intent on foregrounding immersive atmospheric spaces rather than sculptural objects and that collectively define Chromatic/Graphic Immersion, one of the twelve typologies through which the book is organised. Based on an exhibition at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, the book Expanded Field guides one through the world of contemporary installation practice through drawings, images and text that simultaneously expose the techniques through which architects describe and analyse spatial production while providing a context for installation art and architecture that supports both its didactic understanding and immersive experience.
Today Santorini is visited by some 2.5 million people a year. But when Robert McCabe and his brother arrived there in 1954, they were the only visitors on the island. In this collection of stunning photographs from the 1950s and 1960s – reproduced as tritones of surpassing quality – McCabe has recorded the hardscrabble, yet often romantic, life of a vanished era. Picturesque whitewashed houses dug into the volcanic pumice; the harvest of the island’s famous cherry tomatoes; the winding road to the ruins of ancient Thera – all this was captured by his lens. McCabe’s photographs are complemented by two essays from the noted Greek journalist Margarita Pournara, one poetically evoking her grandmother’s childhood on Santorini and the other explaining the geological forces that have given this volcanic island its dramatic form. A companion to McCabe’s recent volume on Mykonos, this book will fascinate modern-day visitors to Santorini, as well as those who trace their roots to the Greek islands.
The Formula One book.
Art of the Race, V19
is book six in a series that encapsulates the very essence of Formula 1 motor racing through the lens of Darren Heath, one of the sport’s greatest ever photographers. Across 256 pages of stunning photography, Art of the Race, V19
captures the key moments and rarely seen images of each race as the 2019 season unfolds, culminating in Lewis Hamilton winning his sixth World title. And there is no person better placed to capture these moments than Darren Heath, a multiple award-winning photographer and Honorary Fellow of The Royal Photographic Society, who is now in his 31st year covering the sport.
In a fast-paced world with mega upheaval, including climate crises and a global pandemic, the allure of growing your own food, being self-sufficient, and living green is immense. This yearning for not being wholly reliant on the supermarket, and the growing concerns over pesticides and food miles has led to the resurgence in seeking old-world skills. As showcased in Urban Homesteads, the benefits of a productive garden on your doorstep or within arm’s reach, tending to chickens, harvesting your own honey, and using eco-friendly water-harvesting techniques are clear: fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruit on tap, fresh eggs, delicious honey; plus living at a slower pace, better value for money, and a more soothing and mindful existence. Of course, a healthy garden and environment also attracts beneficial insects and birds.
Get inspired with this book’s range of eco-friendly possibilities from around the globe. With beautiful full-colour photos, gathered here are stories of people who have set up their own productive and abundant back yard or patio, as well as examples of great vertical planters, indoor gardens, and those who have reached into the urban community allotment. Use this book to start your own journey with an urban homestead lifestyle, with lots of generous tips, modern green concepts as well as a twist of modern, technically savvy know-how. All the practical guidance you need on how to be the change you want to see.
In Shaping Place, founding principals Turan Duda, FAIA and Jeffrey Paine, FAIA, are joined by the firm’s four studio leaders to discuss the evolution of their work and thematic underpinnings since publication of their previous volume, Individual to Collective, in 2013. This compilation of buildings spans diverse typologies to illustrate how the firm’s ideas on public space, outdoor environments, evolving working and learning models, and contextual sensitivity are universal to creating meaningful architecture. With chapters focusing on design for wellness, academia, the workplace and urban development, the volume presents the realisation of the thematic roots discussed in Individual to Collective across a diverse range of scales, material qualities, structural systems and architectural palettes. Steve Dumez, FAIA, of Eskew Dumez Ripple, provides perspective on the firm’s work within the larger lens of architectural practice.
And there’s much, much more in this book. We live in an era of photographic images, and Mr. Tekulsky has provided the reader with 83 of the best photographs of America that you will ever see. According to Wikipedia, Americana is defined as “any collection of materials and things concerning or characteristic of the United States or of the American people and is representative or even stereotypical of American culture as a whole.” As such, Mathew Tekulsky’s book Americana: A Photographic Journey is a piece of Americana itself.
A new volume in ACC Art Books’ London series, focusing on the capital’s vibrant LGBTQ+ scene. Queer London is a timely and accessible introduction to the city through a LGBTQ+ lens, and will appeal to anyone with an interest in London’s thriving queer landscape.
Celebrating the diversity and innovation of queer individuals in London, both historically and today, Queer London features a range of bars, clubs, shops, Pride events, charities, community organisations, saunas and sex shops that cater to the LGBTQ community.
Along with highlighted features on influential queer Londoners of the moment, this book delves into the cultural history of queerness in the capital, including events, organisations or venues that have sometimes been forgotten or overlooked, but which were of key importance to the community. From the long, illustrious queer history of Soho and the legendary drag balls at Porchester Hall, to the hottest clubs of the moment, Queer London is the go-to guide for anyone looking to engage with rich queer legacy of this nation’s capital.
“Bruce Springsteen in All His Rock Star Glory.” —Janet Macoska, The Daily Beast
“Two careers were born on that cold night in 1974. Macoska would blossom into one of the most notable rock ‘n’ roll photographers of the last 50 years. And Springsteen was on his way to becoming The Boss.” —Jay Crawford and Meg Hambach, wkyc3
“…Live In The Heartland covers almost five decades of touring from The Boss, and also includes set-lists and corresponding editorial content. The majority of the photos are previously unseen.” —Classic Rock Magazine
“There’s only one boss of rock ‘n’ roll.” —Tria Wen, Reader’s Digest
“… an energetic and moving visual tour that records the romance between The Boss and the Cleveland stages.” —GQ Mexico
Five decades of blue-jeans, down-to-earth rock ‘n’ roll. Five decades of poetic, authentic performances, political commentary, global tours and even a Broadway show. Bruce Springsteen hasn’t just left an impact on the surface of modern music, he helped shape its foundations.
From the early beginnings in 1974 to the seminal Born in the USA – one of the best-selling albums of all time – to the 2016 River Tour, the highest grossing tour of the year, Springsteen has a truly timeless appeal, captured here by lauded rock photographer, Janet Macoska. Macoska charts Springsteen through the ages. Through her lens we witness his enduring energy on the stage, from 1974 to 2016. Here is Springsteen at his finest: a down-to-earth superstar, whose powerful performances stand the test of time.
“Bruce would rip his heart out and give it to his audience. He put everything into his performance. He was all over the stage, and the whole rest of the band was in lockstep, complimenting that energy. It was going out to the audience in bundles. We were sending it back , too, and that’s really electric. That energy, those visuals? Photographers love that. It’s perfect to have something like that to photograph.” – Janet Macoska
In Fine Bonsai: Art & Nature, the finest extant achievements in the art of bonsai are seen together for the first time, through the lens of renowned botanical photographer Jonathan Singer. This magnificent volume is the result of an extensive photographic campaign, in the course of which Singer was granted unprecedented access to the most respected public and private collections in Japan and the United States, including the mecca of bonsai, the Omiya Bonsai Village of Saitama, Japan, where photography is normally prohibited. Three hundred stunning full-page images and four lavish gatefolds present bonsai of all types, from quiet representations of nature to bold sculptural forms. The horticultural and aesthetic characteristics of each bonsai are concisely and authoritatively described in the narrative captions by William Valavanis, head of the International Bonsai Arboretum in Rochester, New York. And because the container is considered an integral part of any bonsai – indeed, the literal meaning of’ bonsai is tray plant – the book also includes some 25 photographs of traditional bonsai containers, with descriptions. A further sequence of 25 photographs is devoted to the related art of suiseki, or miniature stone landscapes displayed in the same manner, and often alongside, bonsai.
With his groundbreaking first book, Botanica Magnifica, Jonathan Singer established a new style of botanical photography, characterised by an exceptional clarity of detail and richness of colour, as well as a painterly chiaroscuro. These qualities are just as evident in the present volume; Singer photographs each bonsai with an artist’s – one might even say a portraitist’s – eye. Whereas most books on bonsai aim to instruct readers on techniques of care and cultivation, Singer’s book takes the reader on a visual journey. His images encompass many different species, from azalea to red maple, as well as a variety of blossoms and fruits. Alluring and serene, Singer’s photographs make the experience of leafing through Bonsai not unlike entering a real Japanese garden. Fine Bonsai: Art & Nature not only documents the masterpieces of an ancient horticultural art, but is a masterpiece in itself.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will benefit the Japanese Red Cross.
In Fine Bonsai: Art and Nature, the finest extant achievements in the art of bonsai are seen together for the first time, through the lens of renowned botanical photographer Jonathan Singer. This magnificent deluxe volume is the result of an extensive photographic campaign, in the course of which Singer was granted unprecedented access to the most respected public and private collections in Japan and the United States, including the mecca of bonsai, the Omiya Bonsai Village of Saitama, Japan, where photography is normally prohibited. 300 stunning full-page images and four lavish gatefolds present bonsai of all types, from quiet representations of nature to bold sculptural forms. The horticultural and aesthetic characteristics of each bonsai are concisely and authoritatively described in the narrative captions by William Valavanis, head of the International Bonsai Arboretum in Rochester, New York. And because the container is considered an integral part of any bonsai-indeed, the literal meaning of ‘bonsai’ is ‘tray plant’ – the book also includes some 25 photographs of traditional bonsai containers, with descriptions. A further sequence of 25 photographs is devoted to the related art of suiseki, or miniature stone landscapes displayed in the same manner, and often alongside, bonsai.
With his groundbreaking first book, Botanica Magnifica, Jonathan Singer established a new style of botanical photography, characterised by an exceptional clarity of detail and richness of colour, as well as a painterly chiaroscuro. These qualities are just as evident in the present volume; Singer photographs each bonsai with an artist’s – one might even say a portraitist’s – eye. Whereas most books on bonsai aim to instruct readers on techniques of care and cultivation, Singer’s book takes the reader on a visual journey. His images encompass many different species, from azalea to red maple, as well as a variety of blossoms and fruits. Alluring and serene, Singer’s photographs make the experience of leafing through Bonsai not unlike entering a real Japanese garden. Fine Bonsai: Art and Nature not only documents the masterpieces of an ancient horticultural art, but is a masterpiece in itself.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will benefit the Japanese Red Cross.