Rare Special Editions available from ACC Art Books –  More Information

Italian artist Ugo Rondinone was invited by the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire (MAH) in Geneva to curate a show that invites a dialogue between his work and the works in the permanent collection. The show he created centres around two emblematic figures of 19th and 20th century Swiss art – Felix Vallotton and Ferdinand Hodler – and considers the importance of love and desire in our relationship with art and creation. This book documents the museum’s halls and the exhibition, which includes works by Rondinone and art from the MAH Collection.

Text in English and French.

A Sino-Chinese family find their destiny is inseparably entangled with that of the country they have adopted as a home. Not long before the Communist revolution, Tong, sent by his peasant-parents in impoverished rural China to work with a relative in Siam, has risen to become a rice-trading tycoon in Bangkok’s Chinatown, married a former palace cook and built a large family in the town of Pad Riew. Haunted by the dream of returning to his true home in China, Tong, along with his wife and their five children, are swept along by the torrents of history as World War II breakout and China turns red, while the military strongman in Thailand act out the interminable cycle of power struggle, rebellion and coup d’état.

Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat, the award-winning second novel by Veerapon Nitiprapha, is a generations-spanning family saga that explores the roots of the Chinese diaspora in Siam and how the tragedy of ruined love, maternal betrayal and futile ambition shape the lives of Tong’s clan members, each of them hounded by their own ghosts and burdened by their own sins. All of this is played out against the backdrop of Siam’s mid-century social and political history, the most chaotic period the formation of the nation.

The opening of celebrated British architect David Chipperfield’s extension building of Kunsthaus Zürich in the fall of 2021 will make this renowned institution Switzerland’s largest art museum. In the run-up to this milestone in the museum’s development, this new book looks back at its architectural history. It tells a lively story that starts in 1847 with the Zurich Artists’ Society’s initial gallery building and had its first culmination in 1910, when distinguished Swiss architect Karl Moser’s Kunsthaus was opened. Over the past century, three major additions were carried out in 1925, 1959, and 1976, and many attempts for a visionary large-scale extension were made. Illustrated with historic images, reproductions of plans and drawings as well as newly drawn floor and site plans, the book documents all stages of constructing Kunsthaus Zürich.

Scotland has produced an astonishingly high number of men and women whose lives have inspired and changed the world. This book, illustrating just over forty portraits, represents only a few of them, but with Robert Burns and Walter Scott, Eric Liddell and Alex Ferguson, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Queen Victoria, it represents the flavour of the collection at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

“My approach is simple. It is nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing…The result is something that other people decide.” – Rei Kawakibo, Interview Magazine, 2008

“Kawakubo’s will matches that of Coco Chanel and her influence goes perhaps even further; she is a designer who sees a bigger picture and has impacted the very shape of fashion, moving its foundations.” – Terry Newman

The Genius of Rei Kawakubo: The woman who founded Comme des Garçons celebrates a designer that is revered as the most avant-garde and experimental in the world. Having created a fashion label that is a global inspiration and one of the few independent brands still run by its founder, Kawakubo infuses her designs with the philosophies of Mu-Ma and Wabi-Sabi to create clothes that are truly special.

Beginning with Kawakubo’s early days when she began developing her brand in Japan, The Genius of Rei Kawakubo: The woman who founded Comme des Garçons goes on to look at her principles of anti-fashion and the art of imperfection, including seminal design details from some of her key collections. With chapters on Kawakubo’s collaborations with other designers, her shops, perfumes, and lots more, this book presents the brand and its founder in all its glorious detail.

Written by Terry Newman – the bestselling author of Marilyn Monroe Style – we learn just how canny a businesswoman and creative an artist Kawakubo is and how, through various avenues and alliances, she has created a vast Comme des Garçons empire.

Darwishi Ur-atum Msamaki Minkabh Ishaq Eboni, the son of an Egyptian pharaoh, is only nine years old when he dies. He is mummified and laid to rest in a tomb, with the powerful Golden Scarab of Mukatagara hanging around his neck. Thousands of years later, during a transport of three precious sarcophaguses, there is a terrible storm. Lightning strikes, the lorry plunges from a flyover and the sarcophaguses are hurled through the air. During all this, a little white shape escapes the wreckage unnoticed…

Angus Gust is ten and has a perfectly normal life. Then one night a little mummy appears in his room! Life changes completely. Angus and Dummie (short for his real name) become best friends. One dreadful day, Dummie’s scarab goes missing. Without the scarab Dummie falls terribly ill. Angus must now do everything he can to find the scarab, so Dummie doesn’t have to face death again. Can Dummie be saved in time?

In this second book in the Dummie the Mummy series, Dummie, Angus and Nick travel to Egypt. It’s Dummie’s great wish to return to his country to visit the grave of his father, Pharaoh Akhnetut. Unfortunately, Egypt has completely changed in four thousand years and Akhnetut’s grave seems untraceable. To make matters even worse, Nick falls ill and Angus and Dummie set off without him. Then something terrible happens – Dummie has to give everything he’s got to save his best friend. Yet he is also determined to find his father’s grave. Fortunately, he remembers more and more about his life long ago and this proves to be very handy!

The last work of Burne-Jones: a series of woodcut illustrations to the first chapters of Genesis, making a perfect epitome of his art. Reprinted from the original edition of 1902.

Reproduced from the finest surviving edition of a rare manuscript, The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido brings Hiroshige and Eisen’s portrait of daily life in nineteenth century Japan to Western audiences for the first time. Each of the seventy-one images teems with unique characters, from beggars and brawling men to boaters and finely clothed women. Behind these travellers loom castles, cities, powerful waterfalls and many other sites familiar to lovers of Japanese history. Comments by Sebastian Izzard, Ph.D., accompany each image, not only providing insight into their subject matter, but also discussing their survival during the dramatic social shifts and economic hardship of Hiroshige and Eisen’s time. This book tells the story of a landmark, two immortal artists, and an enduring masterpiece.

Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture is an exciting advance in the field of architecture offering multiple indigenous perspectives on architecture and design theory and practice. Indigenous authors from Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and the USA explore the making and keeping of places and spaces which are informed by indigenous values and identities. The lack of publications to date offering an indigenous lens on the field of architecture belies the rich expertise found in indigenous communities in all four countries. This expertise is made richer by the fact that this indigenous expertise combines both architecture and design professional practice, that for the most part is informed by Western thought and practice, with a frame of reference that roots this architecture in the indigenous places in which it sits.

We the Forest aims to ‘rewild the imagination’ by opening children’s eyes afresh to the wonder of forests through a meld of science and contemporary artwork. New scientific discoveries show that the interconnectedness of the forest runs deeper than we ever imagined. This title explores how all life in the forest is linked and our own human connection to and dependence on the forest.

Engaging text evokes the magic of forests – from how trees communicate to their superpowers of regeneration and protection of the planet – accompanied by commissioned illustrations. Interspersed throughout are arresting artworks inspired by forests from a wide variety of contemporary artists: learn to speak in ‘tree’ with Katie Holten’s tree alphabet, peer through Levon Biss’s lens to see what a giant beetle would look like, or witness the terrible beauty of forest fires in Jeff Frost’s photos. Interactive elements encourage the reader in their own creative projects.

The North Atlantic Cities by Charles B. Duff is a book on urban development and urban life masquerading as a book on architecture. It is the story of 400 years of architecture and urban development in four countries: the Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland and the United States, particularly cities like New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Savannah, to name a few. The author starts with a kind of building few others have considered – the row house, which could very well be the key to understanding why many of the world’s great cities look and function as they do. From the 1600’s to today as the author theorises, this innocuous-seeming housing type is perhaps the antidote to suburban sprawl, urban decay and the worst catastrophes of global climate change

In the Land of Fire and Ice: Horses of Iceland is photographer and explorer Guadalupe Laiz’s second book celebrating her love for Iceland, its people, and its horses. In this follow up to Horses of Iceland (2019), Laiz widens her lens to not only capture the undeniable beauty of the horses in their natural habitat, but to showcase the rugged, harsh, and unpredictable environment that has shaped their character. Her intimate colour and black-and-white images of the majestic Icelandic horses are pure poetry in motion.

Undertaking a more ambitious production, Laiz collaborated with local horse breeders and with Icelandic photographer, filmmaker, and artist Thrainn Kolbeinsson to capture the magnificent animals in iconic and breathtaking locations—from the famous Skógafoss blanketed with snow to the active Fagradalsfjall volcano; and galloping across beaches, frolicking amid glaciers, and with waterfalls, tundra, and fierce ocean backdrops. Kolbeinsson’s powerful drone photography featured throughout the book showcases the aerial perspective of these epic landscapes that have shaped the horses of Iceland.

Laiz’s photographs are testament to her passion for the Icelandic horse and wildlife photography. She shares this collection to reveal the beauty and importance of the remote corners of our planet and the unique animals that call it home.

In 1967, a 17-year-old aspiring photographer named Ed Caraeff found himself front row at the Monterey Pop Festival, California. Caraeff had never seen Hendrix before, nor was he familiar with his music. But Caraeff had his ever-present camera and as Hendrix lit his guitar, he snapped a photo. That picture – Hendrix burning his guitar at Monterey – has become one of the most iconic images of rock and roll. A photo that defined Hendrix as an artist, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine not once, but twice, and launched Caraeff’s photographic career. Timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Monterey Pop Festival, Burning Desire reveals never-before published images from the magnificent, Hendrix-dedicated archive that Caraeff has compiled. From onstage to backstage, Jimi Hendrix was as electric in front of the camera as he was when he strummed his guitar. In Burning Desire, Caraeff showcases more than 100 images, including rare shots and contract sheets, and discusses his experiences with this incredible musician. Contents: Monterey International Pop Music Festival: June 18, 1967 Hollywood Bowl: August 18, 1967 Anaheim Convention Center: February 9, 1968 Ackerman Union Ballroom: February 13, 1968 Hollywood Bowl: September 14, 1968 Whiskey-A-Go-Go: October 1968 Newport ’69: June 20-22, 1969

Over the last few years, the oeuvre of Mary Bauermeister (*1934) has been extensively rediscovered and celebrated. Today, she is considered to be one of Germany’s leading female post-war artists. In the early 1960s, her studio in Cologne, located at Lintgasse 28, was the meeting place for artists, poets and composers such as Nam June Paik, Christo, Joseph Beuys, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, her future husband. They all used experimental music, readings, exhibitions, performances and happenings to explore the limits of social norms. Soon afterwards, Bauermeister moved to New York for a time, where she gained international acclaim.

This book is the first to take a close look at those works in which Bauermeister privileges language as a means of artistic expression. She uses cyphers, symbols and textual fragments from nature, science, academia, philosophy, mathematics, music and art to create sensual, poetic drawings, collages and objects. Bauermeister first won fame with her celebrated ‘lens boxes’ in which convex glass, magnifiers and prisms merge with optically distorted images and words, forming magical cabinets of wonder.

Text in English and German.

“Architecture shapes the monuments, the memories, and the expressions of societies and groups, creating a common language with which they debate and communicate their experiences and cultures.” – Hashim Sarkis

For the Biennale Architettura 2021, in addition to the Exhibition Catalogue and the Short Guide, the curatorial team has put together two distinct volumes, entitled Expansions and Cohabitats, in order to further elaborate on the theme of ‘How will we live together?.’ These books will appeal to a wide range of readers both from architecture and art communities and beyond, to include anyone who is interested in the role that creative practice can play in collectively answering the complex challenges posed by today’s unstable world.

Conceived as a record that delves deeper into a special section of the exhibition, Cohabitats comprises essays and visual material that look to the theme of the Biennale Architettura 2021 from the lens of a specific geographic location. While the main exhibition is primarily organised in five parts that contemplate a new spatial contract at five scales – as diverse beings, as new households, as emerging communities, across borders, and as one planet – this volume as well as the section of the show it is associated with, present analytical examples that speak to all five of them at once. The essays examine past and current practices of coming together in and around Venice, as well as in Addis Ababa, Beirut, India, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, New York, Prishtina, and more.

Also available: Expansions ISBN 9788836648610

This finely printed and bound volume is an expanded, more personal version of Ira Resnick’s critically acclaimed photo book The Seventies: A Photographic Journey, featuring twice as many celebrity photos and anecdotes.

In images and words, Resnick re-creates his path through a decade of tremendous change, in the world and in himself – from film school at NYU, through travels in Israel and Canada, to the cultural ferment of Mill Valley and the glamour of Hollywood. Along the way, Resnick’s work as a professional photographer brought him in contact with the leading personalities of his time:

Resnick’s photographs of these iconic figures – many never seen since their original publication in magazines like Rolling Stone, People, and Us – will fascinate anyone with an interest in popular culture. And his personal journey will resonate with anyone who came of age in the 1970s.

This second book in the Aboriginal Arts and Knowledge series documents a body of work created cooperatively by 4 artists: Ted Egan Tjangala, Dinny Nolan Tjampitjinpa, Johnny Possum Tjapaltjarri and Albie Morris Tjampitjinpa. Wamulu, a yellow flower, has traditionally been used during ritual ceremonies in the western desert of Australia. The wamulu flower is gathered, dried, cut up, and mixed with ochre and binders before being applied to the ground. This catalogue for an exhibition at the Fondation Opale showcases an exceptional project that took place near Alice Springs between 2002 and 2005, where this collective of artists used paint made from the wamulu flower, which is most often associated with impermanence, to create contemporary and permanent works of art. At the same time, they honoured the traditional Aboriginal process of communal performance, participation, and song that emphasises the link between the present and the past. Includes an interview with the noted Aboriginal art expert Arnaud Serval, who facilitated the work of the collective.

Text in English and French.

The famous Lion Monument in Lucerne, located in a park in the heart of the city, commemorates the Swiss Guards in the service of the French King Louis XVI who fell in the storming of the Tuileries Palace in Paris on August 10, 1792. The monument, hewn directly into the rockface according to a design by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, was inaugurated on August 10, 1821. Together with the nearby Glacier Garden, it is today one of the Swiss city’s major tourist attractions.

To mark the memorial’s bicentenary, the Kunsthalle Lucerne launched the Lion Monument 21 program of exhibitions, performances, podiums, and interdisciplinary events. Between 2017 and 2021, they considered the monument from an artistic standpoint. The art projects demonstrated a wide range of artistic stances and related the monument to a variety of themes.

This book documents the entire project through some 400 images, texts, and conversations. It also constitutes a socially committed reference book for the artistic contextualisation of monuments, which records and reflects on the insights of the Lion Monument 21 project.

Text in English and German.

“Terry was everywhere in the ’60s – he knew everything and everyone that was happening” – Keith Richards

Terry O’Neill (1938-2019) was one of the world’s most celebrated and collected photographers. No one captured the front line of fame so broadly – and for so long. Terry O’Neill’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Album contains some of the most famous and powerful music photographs of all time. At the same time, the book includes many intimate personal photos taken ‘behind the scenes’ and at private functions.

Terry O’Neill photographed the giants of the music world – both on and off-stage. For more than fifty years he captured those on the front line of fame in public and in private. David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Amy Winehouse, Dean Martin, The Who, Janis Joplin, AC/DC, Eric Clapton, Sammy Davis Jnr., The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry and The Beatles – to name only a few. O’Neill spent more than 30 years photographing Frank Sinatra as his personal photographer, with unprecedented access to the star. He took some of the earliest known photographs of The Beatles, and then forged a lifetime relationship with members of the band that allowed him to photograph their weddings and other private moments. It is this contrast between public and private that makes Terry O’Neill’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Album such a powerful document.

Without a doubt, Terry O’Neill’s work comprises a vital chronicle of rock ‘n’ roll history. To any fan of music or photography, this book will be a must-buy.

“Trusted by the stars to make them look good, O’Neill has captured the icons of music for over half a century… Terry O’Neill’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Album, collects a wealth of private moments and memories captured for eternity, with the likes of David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Dolly Parton, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, Amy Winehouse and even Elvis Presley all the subject of O’Neill’s immaculately placed lens. A life in pictures, a legacy in print. Pay heed to history!” – Simon Harper, Clash Magazine

Deceptively simple or fantastically intricate, ikat technique has been used for many centuries to create extravagant costumes and cloths of deep cultural meaning. The distinctively blurred, feathered or jagged patterns of ikat-dyed textiles are found across much of the world – from Japan in the east to Central and South America in the west, with vast areas of South-east Asia, India, Central Asia and the Middle East in between. The traditional patterns still hold cultural relevance today in significant parts of the long-established ikat-weaving areas. Textile artists and fashion designers in many and varied countries have taken ikat in new directions, respecting traditional forms and palettes while creatively diverging from them.
This is the first time all the different iterations of this textile have been comprehensively brought together in one volume, drawing from the wide-ranging collection of David Paly. It is a journey across the world through the lens of ikat. 

George Byrne’s photography depicts the gritty urbanism of Los Angeles in sublime otherworldliness. Arriving a decade ago, the Australian artist was immediately enthralled by the sprawling cityscape of L.A., mesmerised by the way the sunlight transformed it, into two-dimensional, almost painterly abstractions. In his Post Truth series (2015–22), Byrne reassembles his photos of the urban landscape into striking, ascetic collages of colour and geometric fragments, creating a postmodernist oasis in the metropolis. By masterfully harnessing the malleability of the photographic medium, the photographer situates his work in the space between real and imagined. Byrne’s compositions evoke associations with Miami Beach’s Art Deco, the Memphis Group’s designs, as well as the painting of David Hockney or Ed Ruscha, and at the same time tap into the aesthetics of today’s visual culture played out on Instagram.

The third brilliant volume in the Humanitas series captures the vibrant lives of the Burmese people.
Following the success of Humanitas and Humanitas II: The People of Gujarat, photographer Fredric Roberts now turns his lens to the captivating and controversial country of Burma. The result of eight years of travel throughout the region, the approximately 120 photographs in Humanitas III focus on the spiritually rich lives of the Burmese people. Featuring temples, portraits, scenes of everyday life, and incredible landscape, Humanitas III offers a rare view of a country that has been closed to —or avoided by— many photographers due to its social isolation and reputation for political repression.
Cicero coined the term humanitas (literally, “human nature”) to describe the development of human virtue in all its forms, denoting fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour—which contrasts with our contemporary connotation of humanity (understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy). The Latin term is certainly a fitting book title as we are struck with respect and awe for Roberts’s subjects’ individual fortitude and eloquence rather than pity for their plight: each photograph tells us a compelling story.
Curated by Britt Salvesen, the department head and curator of the photography department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, many of the images present subjects looking directly at the photographer and at the reader, effortlessly prompting a cross-cultural dialogue. Essays by Teri Edelstein and Emma Larkin, an expert journalist/author covering Burma, provide context for Roberts’s photographs by describing the lives of the Burmese peoples.

“Read And Destroy the book that is. After years of archiving photos, scanning slides and looking for funding, a hardcover publication about the seminal UK skate magazine from the late ‘80s to mid- ‘90s can be in your hands very soon.” — Free Skateboard Magazine

“… an important piece of British skateboarding history that demands a space on your bookshelf.” — Slam City Skates London

“It’s an invitation to grab your board, push the boundaries, and immerse yourself in a time when skateboarding was truly a way of life.” — NL Magazine

For British skateboarders in the mid-’80s, RAD (aka Read and Destroy) was more than just a magazine. Before the X Games, before the internet, a whole generation of this once underground subculture relied on RAD to provide a beacon, bringing them together in spirit and in person.

Under the guidance of editor and chief photographer, Tim Leighton-Boyce, RAD took on an experimental, irreverent approach with a vibrant, chaotic energy. The legacy of the magazine is an action-packed photo archive documenting a unique time, place and attitude, capturing the death and rebirth of skateboarding as it evolved into a mainstay of extreme sports and street culture the world over.

This book reveals that archive in all its glory, offering an inside view of skateboarding and youth culture from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, told primarily through the experiences of the British skate photographers at the core of the magazine’s original editorial team.