Search results for ""skira""

Kata Legrady (Hungary 1974) belongs to that long line of artists for whom an object offers the stimulus for artistic thought. Her approach takes the form of a symbolic encounter between objects associated with childhood with those associated with violence. In her work, an artillery shell, a bomb, a pistol, a Kalashnikov can be transformed from devices of death to works of art. The book gathers the work exhibited at Mudima foundation of the artist from the Guns and Candies of 2008, to the Gasmasks of 2009, Little Boy in 2009 and 2010, and the more recent works, from 2011: Mickey, Pearl Harbor; Government Balançoir; CatWoman; Cheval à Bascule, all the way to the Disney series. At first sight there is no precise message, no hidden aspect. We are not dealing with complex and stratified arrangements of images or objects but with restrained, frontal and simplified compositions. They are carriers that, as Jeff Koons put it so well, are there “to stimulate and activate the viewer’s mental and physical state”.

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The volume presents for the first time four seventeenth-century paintings commissioned by the Habsburg Ambassador Hans-Ludwig von Kuefstein after his diplomatic mission to Istanbul, accompanied by twelve gouache works from a collection in Austria. In spite of its diplomatic and political success in the Ottoman–Habsburg relations, the Kuefste in’s embassy is remembered first of all for its artistic legacy documented by the ambassador’s diary, the draft of a final report to the Emperor, diplomatic correspondence, a list of gifts presented and received, and last but not least, a series of gouaches, executed in Istanbul, and a series of oil paintings – which serve to illustrate various aspects of seventeenth-century Ottoman life, and provide a detailed account of the ambassador’s mission. The Orientalist Museum of Qatar curatorial and conservation departments, with the assistance of external scientific experts, have embarked upon a collaborative project to provide new insights in to the history of the Ottoman–Habsburg relations. The result is the exhibition and the volume Heritage of Art Diplomacy: Memoirs of an Ambassador– the culmination of two years’ restoration and research work aimed to provide a better understanding of the cultural heritage in respect to its aesthetic and historic significance and its physical integrity .

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A collection of ads selected by the Art Directors Club Italia. Swift by nature and by vocation, advertising provides clues on the mood of the time and place it appears in. So if we are bang in the middle of epoch-making changes, advertising becomes an effective mobile observatory, a radar that can tell us where we are, where we are going and what lies ahead. Creative Austerity investigates the relationships between economic austerity and the media, arts, fashion, technology, music, environment, social responsibility and the future.

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The first monograph conceived for the international market devoted to one of the most important Chinese contemporary artists. Wang Guangyi is considered one of the emblems of new China, because his work underlines, through new expressive language forms, the deep social changes the country is experiencing. This monograph reveals for the first time the entire oeuvre of the artist, whose works are classified in China under the genre of Political Pop, and are kept in the collections of the most important museums and foundations in the world. Born in Heilongjiang Province in 1956, Wang Guangyi became one of the great stars of contemporary Chinese art through his Great Criticism series. Through the juxtaposition of two definitely opposing ideologies, each represented through iconic symbols, Guangyi criticises Communism and consumerism while negating both by combining them skilfully. Stylistically merging the government-enforced aesthetic of Agitprop with the kitsch sensibility of American Pop, Guangyi’s work adopts the cold-war language of the 1960s to ironically examine the contemporary issues of globalisation. Through their critique, Guangyi’s paintings weave intricate narratives, implying the role of the artist as an active participant (both as subjugator and subservient) in economic and social policies. Guangyi treads a very delicate line between moral dictum and capitalist endorsement; the interpretation of his paintings alternates with the subjectivity of context. Amalgamating, confusing and blurring opposing ideological beliefs, Guangyi’s billboard-sized canvases readily sell out national valour, while simultaneously devaluing status symbol luxury for the proletariat cause.

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A detailed account of a fascinating journey through the Ottoman Empire from 1588 to 1589 Traveller and explorer, art patron and collector, benefactor and connoisseur, politician and Danzig mayor, Bartholomäus Schachman lived in a time of major political and religious changes in Europe, a time of grand geographical discoveries, a time when both religious and secular arts flourished, a time of great expansion of the Ottoman Empire. He was born on 11th September 1559 in Danzig (nowadays called Gda´nsk), then the autonomy’s trade city and member of The Hanseatic League, within the Kingdom of Poland. Danzig was one of the largest Hansa’s cities and one of the most important sea port and shipbuilding markets. Bartholomäus Schachman’s journey through the Ottoman Empire lasted two years from 1588 to 1589, and his album, conveying the tale of his adventures, became one of the greatest travelogues of the sixteenth century.

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The first complete monograph devoted to Luciano Rigolini's photography Alongside his work in cinema and documentary, Luciano Rigolini has also carried out intense and rigorous research in the field of photography. Between 1990 and 2002 he photographed the urban landscapes and architectural details of European and American cities. These black and white images are uniform in size (140 x 140 cm), and immediately reveal their aesthetic and conceptual roots in the historical avant-garde, especially constructivism and German objectivity. At the same time he began to collect vintage stereoscopic plates, nineteenth century photographic prints and anonymous amateur images dating from the eighties of last century. A synthesis of these elements gave rise to an exhibition entitled La forma dello sguardo held in Spring 2001 at the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano; a substantial catalogue was also published. This was followed in 2008 by the exhibition Fotostiftung Schweiz di Winterthur “What you see”, which was centred around anonymous works by 107 amateur photographers. This new work focuses in particular on the relationship between photography, painting and the role played by digital technology. Among other things, it presents a wealth of hitherto unpublished large format works, a reinterpretation of anonymous photographs and documents uncovered in forgotten archives, at flea markets or purchased from antique dealers or on the Internet. These images, originally created with no artistic pretensions, restored or re-elaborated using specific digital processes and printed in large format, reveal surprising sculptural, pictorial and formal qualities.

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The second volume in the groundbreaking Great Masters of Bangladesh series of monographs. The only comprehensive survey of Zainul Abedin’s work to date and the second volume in a world first series dedicated to the ‘Great Master Artists of Bangladesh’. Zainul Abedin (1914-1976), reverently called the Shilpacharya or guru of art, is the architect of the modern art movement in Bangladesh, which began with the setting up of the first Government Art Institute in Dhaka in 1948. For his devotion to art education and his visionary and artistic achievements he has always been the undisputed protagonist of the Bangladeshi modern art scene. This book showcases Zainul Abedin’s work over a period of 40 years, with more than 200 colour and black and white plates illustrating his special relationship with his country, from various artistic, social, and political perspectives. This ground-breaking work retraces his personal vision and provides the best interpretative angles into a culture and reality that has been often overlooked and even misunderstood in the West. Abedin’s humanitarian stance and his commitment to art forged the way for an entire generation of Bangladeshi contemporary artists.

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Emotional photographs from the Far East to discover a product of excellence. The latest textile treasure discovered by Loro Piana grows in the waters of Inle Lake in eastern Myanmar: the fibre of the lotus flower. This extraordinary raw material of vegetable origin is obtained from the aquatic plant that was sacred to the Buddha. The Intha people, “children of the lake”, use ancient techniques passed down across generations to work the fibres into a very fine thread exclusively by hand. In six chapters of photographs, the volume leads the reader through the magic hills of the Shan plateau and among lake pile-dwellings, where the slow rhythm of a timeless existence in total harmony with nature is measured out in the harvesting of the lotus, the catching of fish and the cultivation of fruits and vegetables in floating gardens. Every year during the rainy season, the Intha harvest the stems of the lotus flower and extract the fibres that will be spun into thread, just over a hundred grams in a full day’s work, performed according to the slow rhythm of tradition, which now may become a source of livelihood for future populations as well.

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The first complete monograph devoted to the work of one of Britain’s most powerful and original contemporary artists. David Breuer-Weil studied at the Central Saint Martins School of Art and Clare College, Cambridge. From the late 1980’s until the late 1990’s he worked as a specialist in Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art at Sotheby’s, London and as a curator for de Pury and Luxembourg Art in Geneva. He subsequently embarked on the epic series of apocalyptic works now known as the Project, over three hundred monumental paintings, a cycle that is arguably one of the most profound and consistent achievements in recent British painting. His determination to produce an art that deals with momentous and challenging themes is a reaction to a world he knows well, in which “art often seems to be reduced to a commodity”: “In my own work I consciously avoided the high polish, commercial, slick look of much contemporary art. I wanted to produce colossal, un-commercialized images of existential doubt”. This lavishly illustrated monograph presents a collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and studio shots.

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A sophisticated wardrobe guides’ series for modern men. Uman. The Essays is a series of commentaries by contemporary connoisseurs (authors, journalists, and cultured men), who explore the sources of men's costume – sports, discovery, passions – to reveal the traditions and ethos at the basis of the ideal wardrobe. It is a project by Umberto Angeloni, former chief executive of Brioni, an Italian luxury lifestyle brand with global diffusion. The fourth Essay of the series is devoted to clothing designed for telemark (a term used for skiing using the Telemark turn. It is also known as “free heel skiing”). Its author Markus Ebner is the founder of Achtung, Germany’s directional fashion magazine and Sepp, a unique publication that brings together football and fashion. He is the men’s fashion critic for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “… what a man wears says a lot about him – first impressions always count. Even if we deeply believe in not judging a book by its cover, the old adage holds true: you only have one chance to make a good first impression…”

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The catalogue raisonné of the works on paper by Lucio Fontana (Rosario de Santa Fe, 1899 – Varese, 1968) is one the most complete and cutting-edge publications on this fundamental aspect of the work of one among the leading protagonists of twentiethcentury’s artistic development. Experimentation on paper was Fontana’s chosen means to test the richness and novelty of his inspiration. In fact, through his works on paper he would constantly verify his insights, both in the embryonic and defining stage of his formal and conceptual discoveries. This catalogue raisonné starts with the astonishing corpus of figural works and culminates in the artist’s original invention of “spatial” art, which led to the creation and development of the highly individual “holes,” “environments” and “slashes.” The catalogue raisonné presents more than 5,500 works executed between 1928 and 1968, with individual entries that include bibliographical and exhibition reference.

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The life, style and colours of the great master of the 16th-century Venetian painting. Tiziano Vecellio was a remarkably versatile painter, equally comfortable with a wide range of genres and subjects. Unlike many artists from history whose work has been appreciated only after their death, Titian enjoyed fame and success throughout his career, which spanned over seven decades. Based in Venice, Titian received commissions from many local patrons and the Venetian government, as well as many distinguished figures from further afield, such as the Pope, the German emperor and the King of Spain. This small book is a perfect introduction to the work of this original and influential Renaissance artist.

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