Search results for ""Silvana""

Published on the occasion of the first Italian anthological exhibition dedicated to her, the volume retraces the successful work of Lisette Model, an artist of Austrian origin who had great importance in the development of photography in the Fifties and Sixties. Parallel to her teaching activity - she had among her students authors who later became famous such as Diane Arbus and Larry Fink - Lisette Model was an ironic and irreverent photographer, able to capture in her shots the most grotesque aspects of post-war American society. Alongside the most famous series - such as Promenade des Anglais, created in Nice, or the photographs dedicated to New Yorkers or the very suggestive ones made in jazz clubs - the book also includes lesser-known projects, which account for her personal and sardonic photographic language. The close-up shots, the recurring use of the flash, the exasperated contrasts are the expedients that the author resorts to in order to accentuate the imperfections of the bodies and the coarse gestures of her subjects, transformed into the characters of a sneering human comedy: an approach to reality that made Lisette Model the forerunner of a way of using photography that would find full realisation only in the following decades. Text in English and Italian.

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Denim is a symbol of cultural globalisation. Democratic, versatile, resistant to the passing of time and to changing tastes and styles, it embodies rebellion and standardisation at the same time. Stefano Chassai, an established designer on the international scene, searches for new variations of the iconic blue fabric in the sphere of men’s wardrobe: mixed with other materials and ennobled with unusual techniques, between craftsmanship and new technologies, denim leaves the casual universe to enter the field of tailoring, as the raw material for a new concept of elegance. The result is Blue Tailoring, the story of an ideal collection, a creative laboratory and manifesto of the stylist’s poetics. With the collaboration of over 30 Italian companies, Stefano Chiassai tells his original interpretation of the most widespread fabric on the planet. The book is divided into 10 chapters in which the designer tackles different design methods and combinations of materials, exploring new concepts of form. It also includes an interview by Claudio Marenco Mores and critical texts by Paola Maddaluno, Bruno Casini, Antonio Mancinelli and Claudio Marenco Mores. Text in English and Italian.

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Gottfried Helnwein is known for his hyper-realistic images and his photo portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marilyn Manson and the band Rammstein. In his provocative images, he articulates themes of violence and abuse in ways that are as compelling as they are shocking. In particular, children, whose innocence, naivety and tenderness he brings into focus, are projection surfaces for him. From Wagner and Nietzsche, a stringent arc develops to Hitler’s propaganda machinery, the staged epic mass marches of the SS, and leads in Helnwein’s case not least to his great Carl Barks admiration, whereby he himself fits Mickey Mouse into the context of Nazi rule. This book is dedicated for the first time to this level of reflection in Helnwein’s work and first summarises those dark paintings in which the image is developed out of blackness and deep blue (as a romantic keynote) and leads over to the atrocities of the Nazi regime, in that in particular the experiments on imprisoned persons and those segregated into psychiatric wards underpin the racial ideology. Text in English and German.

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"The style that Jimmy Katz has developed over the years has become a distinctive feature in the iconography of jazz photography, comparable to the tone of Louis Armstrong's trumpet or the sound of John Coltrane's saxophone." - Michael Cuscuna (Blue Note) The volume, published on the occasion of Umbria Jazz 2019, collects 80 images by Jimmy Katz (New York, 1957), award-winning photographer of the most famous jazz musicians. Over the course of two decades, Katz has immortalised the main actors of the jazz scene against the background of New York: Cassandra Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Pat Metheny and many more. In the studio, in clubs, on the streets, at work or at rest, Katz portrays the musicians in their most intimate aspects, capturing the traits that unequivocally define their personality. The wise use of lights and the glimpses of New York locations make his shots iconic and unmistakable, a sincere testimony to his great passion for jazz. Text in English and Italian.

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he book tells the story of Arredoluce. The company produced lamps and furnishing accessories which, in the post-war industrial boom, helped to write the history of Made in Italy . Arredoluce was born in 1943 in Monza, and was heavily influenced by the entrepreneur and designer Angelo Lelii. Arredoluce's curiosity for innovations from abroad, combined with a love for traditional materials - above all, glass - and a maniacal attention to detail marked the production line of the company, producing modern and sought-after specimens. Arredoluce is best remembered for his numerous participations at the Triennale di Milano, his quotes on Domus, and collaborations with designers such as Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass Jr. He also enjoyed great success abroad, with orders from luxury hotels the world over. The company, however, underwent generational changes, and this combined with the new economic scenarios, led to its closure in the 1990s. This volume offers an important contribution to perpetuating the name of this glorious company, and ensuring it has its rightful place in the history of Italian industry. Text in English and Italian.

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Reflections on the landscape are the fulcrum of Franco Fontana's poetic imagery, whose work has always been aimed at revealing the mystery of the invisible that is hidden within the visible. Photography is the tool Franco Fontana uses to capture the inexistent of what is real - always hanging in the balance between representation of reality and so-called reality. Fontana's work, therefore, represents an analysis of seeing, meant as an imaginative and cognitive activity: his intentions are not restricted to documenting the appearance of the places and people he captures, nor to the idea of image exclusively as an aesthetic object. On the contrary, he proposes some food for thought that (while taking reality into account) also contemplates the re-evaluation of perception through photography. Text in English and Italian.

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Published on the occasion of the great exhibition staged at CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia - this volume retraces the history and legend of 'paparazzi'. 'Paparazzi' is a photographic and cultural phenomenon born during the years in which Rome was considered 'Hollywood on the Tiber River'. The 120 images portray the features of the protagonists of that season - especially the divas and stars of the silver screen, in addition to the photographs illustrating the wild nights in Via Veneto between the 1950s and 1960s. Photos by Tazio Secchiaroli, Marcello Geppetti, Elio Sorci, Ron Galella and many other prominent figures of the time make up (together with pages out of the magazines in which they were published) a fresco of popular communication from back then. Once the heroic season of paparazzi came to an end, that language became a sort of code used in different artistic and commercial contexts, as demonstrated in the final part of the volume by the images of the leading names in today's photography scene such as Alison Jackson, Armin Linke and Ellen von Unwerth. Text in English and Italian.

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Through meticulous research, this book explores the Italian twentieth-century jewellery and goldsmithing landscape. This is the first time this topic has been investigated in such a comprehensive manner, having previously only been dealt with limited to specific producers or production areas. Following the evolution of an art that has developed over thousands of years, this volume contains over three hundred images illustrating jewellery produced between 1900 and 1990. The chapters follow a chronological order and systematically look at the political and economic events influencing the fate of jewellery, as well as the fashion, the role of women, the artistic and architectural experiences, and the tastes of the time. Alongside the most prominent maisons feature less-known jewellers of doubtless creativity and artistic quality. Detailed biographies of each of the jewellers mentioned are included at the end of the volume.

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The year 1947 was a crucial one for Christian Dior. It was then that the fashion designer simultaneously founded his maison and his perfume factory in Paris. The success of Christian Dior's first essence, Miss Dior, was so outstanding as to leave its permanent mark in history. Ten years on from the founding of his perfume factory, on 24 October 1957, Christian Dior's untimely death conferred a new dimension to a decade characterised by an uncommon destiny. Text in English and French.

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This catalogue of the Andres Serrano retrospective presents the work of an artist from New York regarded as one of the major figures on the contemporary scene, tracing his creative trajectory in over a hundred photographs. The question of the portrait in the exploration of signs of the times, the dead body in a classical presentation of pictorial inspiration, the abstract space of the studio and the artist's recent immersion in the city, violence in the relationship with the other on the path from procreation to creation, poverty and its relation to place, religious feeling and the collective dynamics of the group portrait are some of the subjects Andres Serrano addresses. The questions he poses give rise to debate and sometimes violence. These freely chosen subjects are thus joined by themes imposed on the work, namely vandalism and censorship. Four experts develop an original discourse on Serrano's work: Nathalie Dietschy, PhD in art history at the University of Lausanne, a specialist on the figure of Christ in contemporary art; Jan Koenot, Jesuit, theologian, PhD in philosophy and specialist on contemporary art; Germano Celant, art critic and specialist on contemporary art, currently artistic director of the Prada Foundation in Milan; Quentin Bajac, curator of photography at the Musée d'Orsay and currently chief curator of photography at the MoMA in New York.

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What do we see when we observe? What do we see when we observe a photograph? Ghirri's work is distinguished by the tension between the object and its representation, and there is nothing that he loves more than those situations in which boundaries become permeable; his work has taught us a new way of seeing, giving meaning to what is seemingly obvious. This is not the landscape that is normally perceived, but the one that is supposed to be latent, inscribed on the reverse: landscape of memory and fairytale, the landscape of hidden figures and wonders. In this direction, Ghirri has always preferred common and familiar places, already seen, but for the first time 'observed' with different eyes, where everything is suspended between past and future and where, like in the countryside, the world can be imagined as a vision which still arouses wonder. A thought-landscape. Text in English and Italian.

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With this book we invite the reader to discover List's multi-faceted work, by exploring many masterpieces and some lesser known work side by side. The elusive oeuvre of the German photographer Herbert List is hard to categorise. He worked in almost every genre that photography has to offer: architecture, still life, street-photography, portraiture, documentation and cataloguing. Yet he also blurred the demarcation between those fields: architectural shots seem like composed still lifes or surreal compositions, documentation of the Greek sculpture or African artefacts borders on portraiture, and when capturing the classical beauty of the male physique, one does not quite know if we look at painstakingly composed arrangements or a private photo-diary, shot spontaneously. With this book we invite the reader to discover List's multifaceted work, by exploring many masterpieces and some lesser known work side by side. The result is a visual journey leading from enigmatic night shots, surreal and dark compositions, to the Mediterranean sunlight on the bodies of young men and the ruins of ancient Greece. Text in English, Italian and French.

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Yuri Ancarani''s works are based on an original and careful blending of documentary cinema and video art.With the same lucid, impartial gaze that has always characterised the artistic point of view, this book endeavours to present the most authentic aspects of his production, composed of impalpable images that cross the established boundaries between visual art and cinema.Winner of the ACACIA 2023 Award, Yuri Ancarani has exhibited his work in the most prestigious museums and exhibitions, including the Kunstverein Hannover (Germany); the Castello di Rivoli (Rivoli Torino, Italy); Manifesta 12 (Palermo, Italy); the Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, Switzerland); the 55th Venice Biennale; the Centre Pompidou (Paris, France); the Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), and the Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), also receiving important recognition, such as the Special Prize of the Jury CINÉ+' Cineasti del presente, 69th Locarno Film Festival (Locarno, Switzerland); five nominations for t

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The history of jewellery manufacturer Corbella Milano, one of the most renowned excellences of Made in Italy. The Corbella company, 'the first Italian manufacturer of jewellery and weapons for the theatre', was founded in the heart of Milan in 1865. Through reproductions of weapons, jewels and accessories, it soon became one of the first official suppliers of the Teatro alla Scala, as well as signing contracts with prestigious institutions including La Fenice di Venezia, the Costanzi in Rome and the Colón of Buenos Aires. The industrious Milan after the Unification of Italy, of the National and International Expositions, of the years between the two world wars and of the economic boom has seen the owners of Corbella always acting as protagonists, first in the theatrical sector, with specific supplies to the great lyrical interpreters, from Margherita Carosio to Renata Tebaldi, then in the field of the great Italian producers of costume jewellery, up to the production changes due to the globalisation of the 21st century. Text in English and Italian.

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Ca' Pesaro opens the new 2024 exhibition season with a major exhibition dedicated to Armando Testa (1917-1992). Already present since December 2022 in the Venetian civic collections with 17 works, the creative genius from Piedmont will be the focus of a monographic exhibition that will allow people to discover and rediscover previously unseen aspects of his production.From his Turin beginnings at the Vigliardi Paravia Typographic School and with the teaching of Ezio D'Errico, the exhibition aims to reconstruct the artistic path of a protagonist of visual culture contemporary, creator of famous icons that have entered our collective imagination for years.His masterpieces are the offspring of a plurality of expressive languages, experimented during his more than 30-year career, whose modernity is today a source of inspiration for contemporary artists and which has led aesthetics scholar Gillo Dorfles to call him a global visualiser.Texts by Gemma Testa, Tim Marlow

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The 60th International Art Exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, which will be held from April 20th to November 24th 2024 in Venice, is titled Foreigners Everywhere. The exhibition takes its name from a series of artworks made in 2004 by the Claire Fontaine collective, and will be, as the Curator himself explained, a celebration of the foreign, the distant, the outsider, the queer, as well as the indigenous. It will focus on artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled, and refugees especially those who have moved between the Global South and the Global North (Adriano Pedrosa). The catalogue, published by Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia, is as always printed in two volumes, and follows the exhibition route to accompany visitors and art lovers through the exhibition spaces of the Giardini and the Arsenale. It also presents the other projects on display in various locations around the city of Venice and

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Alexandra Pirici's new, expansive work Attune explores the ways in which we and our more-than-human counterparts resemble, influence, and attune to one another to bring forth complex structures.Transforming the vast historic hall of Hamburger Bahnhof into a vibrant imaginary landscape, Pirici interweaves active sculptural elements with live performance and musical pieces of her own choreography and composition. In this immersive, at once archaic and futuristic environment, in which chemical reactions, mineral formations, and physical phenomena perform alongside living bodies, the wonder of self-structuring matter comes to the fore.This is the fifth in a series of publications accompanying solo exhibitions of contemporary artists at Hamburger Bahnhof Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. It comprises a curatorial essay by Catherine Nichols, an interview with the artist by Raluca Voinea, and a contribution by Cecilia Alemani that situates Alexandra

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This volume accompanies a major anthological exhibition that celebrates and pays tribute to Mario Nigro (1917-1992), a painter who left a lasting impression on the artistic panorama of our time. Mario Nigro’s art has deep roots in the principal artistic currents of the 20th century and is of the most astonishing originality. This has made him hugely appreciated internationally, as we can see in the presence of his works in the most prestigious museums and exhibitions in Italy and abroad. This volume contains an essay by Antonella Soldaini, an interview by Elena Tettamanti with Tommaso Trini on the work and figure of Mario Nigro, an essay by Francesca Pola dedicated to the work on paper, a detailed chronology and an updated bio-bibliographic apparatus. “At a certain point I need to sing, I need to paint, I need to do something; it is the reflection of a need for love, irrespective of any manifest tragedy or drama.” Mario Nigro Text in English and Italian.

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Many urban projects realised during the Ventennio remain part of the Italian landscape and, together with architectural monuments and works of art, create a constellation of surviving images of Fascist visual culture in contemporary Italy. As part of the national cultural heritage these artefacts are protected by preservation laws. However, in the ambiguous process whereby Italy confronts its Fascist and colonial past, they have also become a nexus of critical debate and political struggle. The volume focuses on the material history of Fascist-era works of art, monuments and architecture in Italy, and examines their afterlife and reception in the longue durée. Probing the theoretical concept of ‘difficult heritage’ in relation to the peculiarities of the Italian case, and in a comparative perspective with other nations, the volume addresses issues of restoration, display, and critical preservation of Fascist-era artefacts located in public and institutional spaces. Texts by: Mia Fuller, Giuliana Pieri, Hannah Malone, Joshua Arthurs, Dell Upton, Liza Candidi and Davide Grasso, Franco Baldasso, Adachiara Zevi, Rosalia Vittorini, Lucy Maulsby, Pippo Ciorra, Luca Acquarelli, Alessandro Gallicchio.

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Photography Bound. Reimagining Photobooks and Self-publishing is essentially a portable library, where each book – selected by the most eclectic and vibrant voices working in the field today – is declared an urgent addition. The result is a multi-part manifesto that radically and intimately engages with photography and publishing. The book unfurls from a three-day conference organised by Antonio Cataldo and Adrià Julià in 2020 at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen and Fotogalleriet, Oslo. The conference found common but fragile ground amid a global health crisis. From there, it managed to catapult discussion and explore in depth the need to print and publish photobooks. Each contribution discloses a unique relationship to photobooks and publishing. Together, they are a trigger for social, political and cultural demands. This book makes a collective call to action – or actions – and asks each reader to reimagine where photography is bound to go. Contributors: Terje Abusdal / Heidi Bale Amundsen / Delphine Bedel / Paul Gangloff / Erik Gant / Hans Gremmen / Cosmo Großbach / Abdul Halik Azeez / Michele Horrigan / Sohrab Hura / Kay Jun / Aglaia Konrad / Moritz Küng / Silja Leifsdottir / Hailey Loman / Catalina Lozano / Sean Lynch / Niclas Östlind / Vijai Patchineelam / Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger / Mette Sandbye / Ursula Schulz-Dornburg / Ahlam Shibli / Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir / Reyes Sisternas / Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung / Ina Steiner / Anne-Lise Stenseth / Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa / Antonio Zúñiga.

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Enzo Mari was an inventor of languages, a constructor of grammars - intended as methods or sets of rules -, deeming these instruments necessary to “communicate knowledge with improved quality and efficiency”.It is impossible to define his discipline or his profession: he is an artist, an industrial designer, a graphic designer, an architect, but also a theorist, a pedagogue, an intellectual, possibly a philosopher, certainly a utopian who knew how to programme quiet revolutions which are, even today, often misunderstood when not totally unknown; these are some of the many facets of a complex and revolutionary personality. The root of his design methodology, which characterises the process of all the studies he later conducted, originates in his initial research into the field of visual arts, i.e. the research into the perceptual ambiguity of three-dimensional space that he undertook in the early 1950s, when he was still a scenography student at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. What characterises Mari’s design process is a “scientific” method made up of codes, theorems, theses, the construction of tools and instruments, tests, the comparison of models and the transcription of results deriving from his observations. This volume intend to return to the public a mnemonic atlas, a mapping system that can be used to explore and understand the complex nuances of the research conducted by Mari. Semantic research and verifications that have resulted in the programming of art, and which constitute the basis of the method that defines a process common to all the research, disciplines and utopias he pursued. Text in English and Italian.

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Cybèle Varela (born in Petrópolis, 1943) is one of the key figures of the New Figuration in Brazil. The essays and interview included in this volume shed new light on Varela’s emergence in the 1960s Brazilian and 1970s French art scenes. They examine her unique approach to the exploration of Pop Art visuality by considering the role played by mass culture, social and political issues, as well as transnational experiences in the making of the artist’s early production. The volume also explores Varela’s contribution to international artistic discourses, including Pop Art, Narrative Figuration, Photography and Video Art.

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In March 1985, the National Museum of Luxembourg unexpectedly received a generous bequest from the estate of Edward Steichen, the Luxembourg-born and world-renowned American photographer. The bequest comprises a total of 178 prints, including 175 photographs by Steichen himself that cover almost all aspects of his photographic oeuvre — from the pictorialist images of his early years to portraiture, fashion, advertising, landscapes, and family photographs. For the first time, this extraordinary collection is presented in a comprehensive scholarly manner, with full-page illustrations of all 178 photographs. In addition, the publication includes six new essays by five authors that deal with questions of identification, techniques, and dating of the prints as well as their conservation and preservation. They examine the provenance and impact history of the collection and compare the significance of the Luxembourg donation with other bequests made at the same time to institutions in the United States and overseas. The significance of the astonishingly large number of family photographs in the Luxembourg bequest and Steichen’s special role as a mediator of Modernism between Europe and the New World are also explored. Texts by: Kerstin Bartels Gerd Hurm, Julia Niewind, Malgorzata Nowara, Michel Polfer, Françoise Poos, Gilles Zeimet

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The book retraces the inventive richness of Pietro Consagra (Mazara del Vallo, 1920 – Milan, 2005), one of the most seminal figures on the international art scene of the 20th century. It proposes a comparison between different moments in the artist’s creative path, thus making it possible to emphasise both the elements of continuity in his work, but also and above all the specificities of the individual periods, offering a varied panorama of his continuous reinventions of forms and his experimentation with materials. Francesca Pola identifies Consagra’s path not in a purely chronological sense, but rather according to a reading key highlighting the importance of the relationship between sculpture, space and observer: a specific focus on the “location” of the plastic presence in relation to the observer, the fulcrum of the characteristic “frontal sculpture” codified by Consagra starting from his famous Colloqui of the early 1950s and contextually theorised as early as his book Necessità della scultura (1952). Text in English and Italian.

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The volume offers a historical-critical study on the entire career of Marco Tirelli (Rome,1956). His production - surprising and enigmatic - includes works on paper, works on canvas or wood, sculptures, installations, whose subjects always appear poised between recognisability and abstraction: the figures and scenes represented are made up of a densification of microscopic particles of colours that from a distance seem well defined, but which, when viewed from a short distance, break down. A subtle, intellectual painting, therefore, the result of an introspective investigation carried out with dedication. The same tension between illusion and reality, between light and shadow, also characterises the sculptures and installations, as documented in these pages. The volume includes a historical-critical essay by Antonella Soldaini, a conversation with the artist, a biographical note and a documentary summary. Text in English and Italian.

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“A pagan happiness entered my paintings in the spirit of both my subjects and work, which became freer and more lyrical”. These are the words used by Massimo Campigli himself to describe his visit to the Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome in 1928. He attributed to this event a fundamental value for the development of the mature phase of his artistic production. This catalogue compares a specific selection of Campigli’s works with Etruscan finds, with which they naturally share atmospheres, signs and colours. This innovative and learned analysis brings about the opportunity to present for the first time to the public valuable archaeological items, mostly unpublished and to date preserved in the deposits of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria Meridionale. Text in English and Italian.

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Self-Portrait explores 30 years of artistic research by Paolo Canevari (Rome, 1963), proposing a series of sculptures, drawings and installations ranging from the first creations in the wake of Arte Povera, to those made of rubber from the 1990s, up to the more recent series Monuments of the Memory: Landscape and Constellations. The works tell of Canevari’s vision of art-making, which moves from a classical training combined with a profound conceptual research, while also animated by a strong political character. Through the use of different media and materials – with a predilection for the rubber of inner tubes and tyres – Canevari adopts a language that is sometimes brutal, often ambiguous, certainly evocative, to bring light into the dark territories of man, understood both as an individual and as humanity. His radical and subversive approach aims to stimulate a reaction in the observer, with the intention, on the one hand, of breaking prejudices and clichés, on the other of investigating personal, intimate and inner aspects in relation to the work of art and its universal meaning. The volume includes a critical text by Robert Storr, two interviews with the artist collected respectively by Robert Storr and Francesca Pietropaolo and by Shirin Neshat, and a tribute to Canevari written by late Sicilian novelist Andrea Camilleri. Text in English and Italian.

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This book covers the last 20 years of artistic research by one of the leading contemporary Italian photographers: Walter Niedermayr. Through the recurring themes of his work such as Alpine landscapes, architecture and the relationship between public and private spaces, the artist’s interest in investigating places not only from a geographical but also from a social point of view is highlighted. Although in continuity with the legacy of the Italian photographic tradition, which views the landscape as the key to interpreting society, Niedermayr’s visual research is significant in terms of its ability to reinterpret this subject and renew it from both a conceptual and a formal point of view. For the South Tyrolean photographer, physical space today cannot be approached with an exclusively documentary intention, but as the pivot of a transformative relationship between ecology, architecture and society. In some of the works in the Alpine Landschaften (Alpine Landscapes) series, for example, the presence of man in the depiction of the landscape is interpreted as a parameter for measuring the proportions of Alpine panoramas, and at the same time as a political yardstick for his intervention in the metamorphosis of the natural equilibrium. This topic is also underlined in works such as Portraits, where the snow cannons filmed during the summer season – and thus inactive – become ambiguous presences residing in the landscape. Text in English and Italian.

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This volume is dedicated to the phenomenon of staged photography, the trend that has revolutionised the photographic language since the 1980s. Through over 100 works, the catalogue tells how photography was able to reach the heights of fantasy and invention between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st-century, previously almost exclusively entrusted to cinema and painting. Goldfish invading bedrooms, icefalls in the desert, imaginary cities, Marilyn Monroe and Lady D shopping together: all of this can happen thanks to veritable stages set up in order to build a parallel reality, or thanks to new technologies and, in particular, through the increasingly sophisticated use of Photoshop, released in 1990. Photography, the realm of documentation and (presumed) objectivity becomes the realm of fantasy, invention and subjectivity, completing the last decisive evolution of its history. Works by: Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, James Casebere, Sandy Skoglund, Yasumasa Morimura, Laurie Simmons, David Lachapelle, Bernard Faucon, Eileen Cowin, Bruce Charlesworth, David Levinthal, Paolo Ventura, Lori Nix, Miwa Yanagi, Alison Jackson, Julia Fullerton Batten, Jung Yeondoo, Jiang Pengyi. Text in English and Italian.

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This volume presents a rich survey of the first Golden Age of European printmaking and reveals important artistic and cultural innovations spurred by the proliferation of etchings, engravings, and woodcuts. Featuring many of the era’s most extraordinary and influential prints, Renaissance Impressions includes examples in all graphic media from Europe’s major printmaking centres, which disseminated images by the period’s greatest artists, among them, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. Through absorbing thematic essays and lively entries on more than 80 prints by master printmakers including Albrecht Dürer, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Hendrick Goltzius, this lushly illustrated catalogue explores the pivotal role that prints played in shaping visual culture throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Essays by Arthur J. Di Furia, Jamie Gabbarelli, Sharon Gregory.

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This exhaustive monograph, published on the occasion of the first anthological exhibition dedicated to him, retraces the intensely lived, brief artistic career of Alfonso Leoni (Faenza, 1941-1980). An extraordinary talent, he was the protagonist of a research constantly against the mainstream, to set ceramics free from the mere technical and functional aspects and elevate it to sculptural matter. His activity - recognised with numerous prizes in the main national and international events dedicated to ceramics, such as the competitions in Faenza (first prize in 1976), Gualdo Tadino, Cervia, Gubbio, Rimini, Castellamonte, Vallauris, Nagoya-Kanazawa - was a continuous search for new stimuli and experimentation with different languages: Leoni wrote, argued, drew, painted, reused materials, designed jewels, moulded sculptures, created installations, undertook performances, worked for the ceramic industry. The text draws the figure of a “rebellious genius”, son of his time, a time of protest and avant-garde movements of the Sixties and Seventies. The result is the portrait of a worried soul, always aiming at going beyond stereotypes. Text in English and Italian.

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The art of metalworking has been practiced continuously ll over the world. In this, the Islamic world is no exception. But if we look at the objects unearthed at archaeological digs or in the museums and private collections that have patiently collected them over the centuries, one cannot help but be surprised by the almost infinite quantity of materials, shapes and decorations created both by renowned artists and anonymous craftsmen. Metalworking is a highly important and characteristic sector of Islamic art, and the diffusion of these works in contexts other than where they originated is highly significant evidence of this fact. There can be no doubt that these artefacts were produced by a highly-advanced and structured society whose boundaries and remarkable technical expertise we are still unable to place in wider contexts, most notably historical and social. Prof. Giovanni Curatola took the objects in the Aron Collection as a cue for a meticulous comparative study of medieval Islamic metalwork, making this book a fundamental addition to the literature on the subject.

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The first extensive monograph dedicated to the work of Paolo Ventura (Milan, 1968). Ventura has established himself in the field of artistic photography, offering a singular and absolutely original interpretation of staged photography, an art form in which photography is the final product of a creative process which, in his case, involves the preparation of scenarios and mannequins: the latter, together with real characters among which the artist himself often appears, are the protagonists of his stories. In these three-dimensional settings Ventura recreates, and then fixes through photography, a mental space that refers to the atmosphere of “magical realism” and to the fairytale flavour of childhood, generating a deliberately surreal contrast with the depth of some topics involved (such as war, abandonment, memory, identity). The volume offers an overall look at the artist’s 15 years of activity, showcasing 21 series from 2005 to the present time, highlighting the evolution of his language which, in addition to photography, is also expressed through drawings. The monograph includes critical texts by Walter Guadagnini and Francine Prose, an interview with Ventura by Monica Poggi and biographical notes. Text in English and Italian.

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This book deals with the theme of landscape in a transversal way, by presenting a set of important works by Gustave Courbet (mainly from the collections of the Gustave Institute and the Courbet d’Ornans Museum) and other 19th century artists – collaborators or friends of Courbet – who have fully embraced nature and the landscape, putting them at the heart of their artistic approaches. Among other things, will be revealed the involvement of Saint-Claude’s George Besson (1882- 1971), who worked for the acquisition of Courbet’s birthplace – which would later house the museum – then that of Guy Bardone (1927-2015), donor of the collection preserved by the Abbey Museum, who would then be General Secretary of the Courbet Institute for nearly 15 years. Text in English and French.

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Formless\Form offers one of the first in-depth investigations on the birth of Italian experimental photography from the mid 1930s to the mid Fifties of the Twentieth century. This catalogue presents a selection of about 50 vintage and little-known original prints by 7 outstanding Italian photographers belonging to major Italian photo archives and prestigious international art collections, as well as a choice of rare photography books. The volume includes an annotated chronology of the main exhibition publications and photographic events from the mid Thirties to the end of the Fifties, an essay, as well as biographical notes on the photographers displayed in the exhibition. Photographers include: Piergiorgio Branzi (1928), Giuseppe Cavalli (1904-1961), Pasquale De Antonis (1908-2001), Franco Grignani (1908-1999), Nino Migliori (1926), Paolo Monti (1908-1982), Luigi Veronesi (1908- 1998). Texts by Antonella Russo, Silvia Paoli Text in English and Italian.

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Beginning with the establishment of the first ghetto in Venice in 1516, then followed by that of Rome and other cities, the Jews had to measure themselves against this circumscribed and ambivalent place, which included them in the urban perimeter and at the same time isolated them. For almost three centuries this was the space in which the Jews cultivated their identity, on the one hand preserving the characteristics of a millenary culture, while on the other drawing from the world that opened up beyond that border: the constant relationship between the “inside” and the “outside” of the ghetto walls marks the life of the Jews on the long road to emancipation. The volume is dedicated to this complex and articulated reality, availing itself of a very rich critical apparatus in dealing from every angle - historical, artistic, sociological - with a highly current problem: the concepts of resilience, integration, comparison between cultures, aspiration to being the same while remaining different.

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Man Ray, surrealist master and exponent of the Dada movement, managed to reinvent not only the photographic language, but also the representation of the body and face, as well as the genres of the nude and the portrait themselves. This book brings together around 200 photographs produced from the 1920s right up to his death in 1976, all featuring female subjects.Through rayographs, solarisations and double exposures, the female body undergoes a continual metamorphosis of forms and meanings, becoming an abstract form, an object of seduction, classical memory or realistic portrait, in endless playful and refined variations. Among the protagonists of his shots are Lee Miller, Berenice Abbott, Dora Maar and Juliet, a lifelong companion, to whom is dedicated the amazing The Fifty Faces of Juliet portfolio (1943-1944). But these women were, in turn, great artists: as evidence is presented here a corpus of works dating back to the time - between the 1930s and '40s - of their most direct association with Man Ray and with the environment of the Dada avant-garde and Parisian surrealism. This volume offers a wide survey of one of the most exuberant periods of the 20th century, with authentic masterpieces of photographic art such as the Electricité portfolios (1931) and the very rare Les mannequins. Résurrection des mannequins (1938). Text in English and Italian.

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The Time of Discretion is an intimate, slow and relational time. It is also an artistic project. Besides Italy, it has been developed in the remote areas on the southeast border of the Gobi Desert and in the Guizhou Province (South China), in search of rituals, ancient textile practices or together as one. The research documented here crosses experience and representation, dramatically compares East and West, advancing a dense theoretical scenario in relation to globalisation processes.

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Francesco Radino (Bagno a Ripoli, Florence, 1947) is one of the masters of contemporary Italian photography. Participating in the developments of research photography on the contemporary landscape, over the course of fifty years he developed an intimate way of exploring reality in its profound economic, historical, social and cultural transformations. The volume contains the most significant works of his rich production, accompanied by numerous critical interventions and writings by Radino himself. Contributions by: Roberta Valtorta, Giovanni Arpino, Giovanna Calvenzi, Paolo Cognetti, Eleonora Fiorani, Antonella Pelizzari, Urs Stahel, Fabrizio Trisoglio, Mauro Zanchi, Francesco Radino. Text in English and Italian.

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This book explores the great interest that Pablo Picasso had in ceramics, which he certainly didn't consider a minor art, but a means of artistic expression in its own right, like sculpture, painting and graphics. In Vallauris, at the Madoura ceramic laboratories, Picasso dedicated himself to working clay for a period of 25 years, from 1946 to 1971, producing thousands of unique pieces. This volume retraces this exceptional chapter of the Picasso's art, through 50 ceramics from the Picasso of the Musée National Picasso in Paris - a core of inestimable value, which represents almost half of the museum's large collection - placed in a fertile and unprecedented dialogue with the direct sources of his inspiration: classic ceramics with red and black figures, the Etruscan buccheri, Spanish and Italian popular ceramics, 15th century Italian graffiti, and examples of the Mediterranean area with iconographies of fish, fantastic animals, owls and birds, as well as terracottas from Mesoamerican cultures. A chapter is dedicated to the relationship between Picasso and Faenza through unpublished documents from the historical archive of the MIC, and to the historical video by Luciano Emmer of 1954 (Picasso a Vallauris). Text in English and Italian.

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The Dark Side is a project that solicits the public on the 'dark side' that is in each of us, which manifests itself in ancestral fears such as the fear of the dark ( to which this first volume is dedicated), the fear of loneliness, the fear of time. These fears require a pause, a reflection: they destabilise, but at the same time ignite new possibilities, new thoughts, new perspectives. This volume Who's Afraid of the Dark? investigates the theme of physical and metaphorical darkness, and consequently the relationship with its opposite, light. It includes works ranging from installations, multi-sensory experiences, mixed media and large scale-works from 13 of the most important international artists such as Gregor Schneider, Robert Longo, Hermann Nitsch, Tony Oursler, Christian Boltanski, James Lee Byars up to the new protagonists of the contemporary art scene such as Monster Chetwind, Sheela Gowda, Shiota Chiharu and, among Italian artists, Gino De Dominicis, Gianni Dessì, Flavio Favelli, Monica Bonvicini. The artistic perspective is countered with the interventions by theologian Gianfranco Ravasi, physicist-theorist Mario Rasetti, psychiatrist Eugenio Borgna and philosopher Federico Vercellone, who offer a polyphonic look of great intellectual interest on this theme. The Dark Side project inaugurates Musja, a new museum in the city of Rome, which is proposed as a reference for the most innovative trends in the contemporary art scene. Text in English and Italian.

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This volume is dedicated to Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780), grandson of Canaletto and protagonist of 18th century landscape painting. It explores the less investigated period of the Venetian painter's life, the one preceding the successful career undertaken in the European courts starting from 1747, the year in which he moved to Dresden. In the age of the Grand Tour, the eighteen year old Bellotto visited the great Italian art cities, leaving us with exceptional views that already reveal the peculiar characteristics and modernity of his painting. This book contains precious and rare works, among which are the ones related to the itinerary followed by the painter in Tuscany in 1740, and the series dedicated to the city of Lucca, coming from the British Library in London and the York Art Gallery, along with the views of Florence and Livorno. Edited by Bozena Anna Kowalczyk, one of the greatest scholars of Canaletto and Bellotto, the volume is divided into sections introduced by texts resulting from new and unpublished historical and archival research, and is completed by a documentary appendix, bibliography and indicies. Text in English and Italian.

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The thematic exhibition Walking Through Walls presents a contemporary panorama of the artistic responses made to the detrimental effects of human-made barriers, divisions and walls, showcasing works by Jose Dávila, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Christian Odzuck, Anri Sala, Regina Silveira, alongside many others. Acknowledging the location of the Gropius Bau alongside the former Berlin Wall, the exhibition offers a global perspective on the physical and psychological repercussions of coexisting in divided societies. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, the exhibition is a timely exploration of how barriers can articulate feelings of vulnerability and anxiety, and represent individual and collective identities. Artists: Jose Dávila, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Christian Odzuck, Anri Sala, Regina Silveira and others. Text in German.

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Based on the moving image and with an important profile in the international scene, the collective artist Flatform's expressive language defies simple categorisation, naturally thriving in the exchange of multidisciplinary language. This book includes a long interview and a series of short essays covering ten years of Flatform's innovative practice, in which landscape is seen as a paradigm of contemporary complexity, outlining its original activity at the intersection between art and cinema. Text in English and Italian.

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