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An exceptional selection of Lichtenstein’s sculptures from 1968 to the end of the artist’s life, from early ceramic sculptures to large-scale public works. The planned exhibition at the Fondazione Vedova in Venice (Biennale Arte 2013) will encompass Roy Lichtenstein’s sculptural production throughout his career, from the early 1960s through to the late 1990s, presenting his influential sculptural oeuvre in ceramic, bronze, wood, porcelain, steel and aluminium, as well as drawings, collages, and maquettes that describe the artist’s working processes. The catalogue, a major chronology of Lichtenstein’s sculptures, not only documents is production practice – from sketches and drawings to collages, maquettes, metal sculptures and large-scale interventions in urban contexts, but approaches Lichtenstein’s work from the perspective of fabrication methods and industrial techniques.

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The pivotal role played by speed in modern life: from art and architecture to graphics and design to the material culture. One hundred years ago, “The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism,” proclaimed that “the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.” A century later, the tempo of life continues to accelerate, propelled by the ubiquity of portable media and communications devices. Speed sports are as popular as ever, air travel continues to grow, and car culture is invading the most populous areas of the globe. Business books with titles like The Need for Speed, Speed is Life, Rev it Up, and The Age of Speed proliferate on bookstore shelves as never before. Yet speed seems anything but beautiful to a growing chorus of voices that has arisen to denounce its deleterious impact upon contemporary life: whether from the standpoint of environmental devastation, stressful lifestyles, urban sprawl, or the ubiquity of nutritionally deficient fast food.

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The catalogue, divided into two volumes, follows chronologically the development of Gauguin's work. Each painting is reproduced in color and is followed by commentary which analyzes the aesthetic qualities of his work and its relation to Gauguin's personal and professional life, bringing to light his tumultuous cultural, social and political world. Side-bars and inserts accompany the text reproducing photographs of family, friends and colleagues (which include other artistic greats as Pissaro and Van Gogh), and portions of letters they exchanged. The expositions of each painting and their history are carefully recorded in the catalogue. A final, vibrant chronology of Gauguin's life further enlivens the reading of this brilliant text, and opens the doors to a sensuous and pulsating world. The second volume is entirely dedicated to the works spanning from 1887-1888. 1888 was a year of artistic and intellectual upheaval in Europe, full of change and revolution. This volume closely follows and documents Gauguin's progressive escape from the boundaries of Western art and his search for freedom of expression, which he finds by mastering his formula on synthetism, a form of primitivism. This authoritative, and at the same time entertaining work, can be appreciated by both the novice and professional. It can be read chronologically or in order of interest. Ideal for the arm chair art traveler for it features paintings from over 40 museums and private collections worldwide, and includes 9 never before seen paintings by Gauguin.

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The first monograph of one of Norway’s most important contemporary artists to be published in English. The work of the Norwegian artist Marianne Heske falls outside conventional categories of art. A 1971 visit to Marché aux Puces near the Porte de Montreuil in Paris would prove important for the artist. There, she found a box of papier-maché doll heads with a look reflecting the glamour of early twentieth-century film stars. These were to become an important metaphor in her artistic development. Heske soon began to create works that involved the dolls—assemblages, photographs, videos, and graphic works—and dolls became a central part of her oeuvre.

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Art, history and culture from 1948 to 1986. Nine hundred extraordinary photographs recreate the atmosphere of the post-war international art scene in Venice. Featuring artists such as Léger, Ernst, Picasso, Mattisse, Dalí, Fontana, Beuys, Oldenberg, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg.

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Benetton’s story is a rather anomalous one. It arises from the dream of an industrialist – who has never made cars but pullovers – to race his cars in the Formula 1. It was a dream that became a reality in an extraordinarily effective manner. A phenomenon, a unique and probably unrepeatable event which overturned the parameters of the world of Grand Prix. Today, Luciano Benetton can look back with pride and mull over how good his team was during those 19 years on the track, first as sponsor and then as constructor, and remember the figures who took part in the adventure, recalling the major events in each season and the numerous drivers, at the top of which was Michael Schumacher, who was unknown when first hired.

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Simple, direct, and penetrating, the celebrated photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portrays his subjects like a painter from another age. Thanks to his 11x14” Fulmer & Schwing, an old wooden box dated 1905, which he uses as if he were using a palette and brush, he produces portraits that are rich in detail without being overly psychological. The poignant poses and expressions he captures in his straightforward images convey a sense of the person. Like Rembrandt and Velázquez depicting the great figures of their time, Greenfield-Sanders focuses his lens on today’s icons: artists, architects, writers, scientists, actors, directors, musicians artists, architects. Undoubtedly one of Greenfield-Sanders’s greatest merits is his being able to limit the distance that separates the portrait from the observer. This beautifully produced volume brings together an impressive selection of portraits taken between 1977 and the present with over 100 never published before. The juxtaposition of the portraits adds a compelling dimension to the individual portraits. The intensity of Elaine and Willem de Kooning or Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal multiplies as they appear next to each other on the page. William Wegman and Richard Hamilton lean toward each other, toward some kind of cosmic center. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg seem to confirm the notion that a director is in total control. And porn star Briana Banks, look every bit like a porn star.

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Dedicated entirely to the legendary Casa de Retiro Espiritual, this book accompanies the MoMA exhibition of Ambasz's award-winning project. Considered a minimalist idea for some and a deconstructionist fable for others, Emilio Ambasz's Casa de Retiro Espiritual in Spain is instead an unclassifiable statement about architectural essentials. Situated close to Seville, this vacation home reinterprets in a non-vernacular manner the prototype of the Andalusian house, with a central patio which all the rooms look out on, where the earth is also used as an insulation system against the heat of the sun. Seen from afar, the house disappears like an optical mirage, leaving a view on the horizon of only the two empty backdrops arranged at right angles resembling an open book. Designed in 1975, the house has won innumerable architectural awards including the Progressive Architecture First Award and an AIA award. It foretold of Ambasz's pioneering work seeking to reconcile architecture with nature. Faithful to his conviction that "a building should return to the community in the form of garden, accessible to the community, all the land the building has covered," Ambasz's "green buildings," integrating garden and building into one inseparable entity, have been the precursors of a whole movement towards an energy efficient architecture. The fully illustrated volume includes an essay by Peter Buchanan, over 60 stunning full-color photographs of the house and an interactive CD Rom including aerial views, exterior and interior shots taken in daylight and at night.

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A richly-illustrated monograph on recent works of the award-winning architect. The work of Eric Owen Moss is an intriguing mix between a sort of Los Angeles critical regionalism (most of his production is in Culver City - Los Angeles) and the highest level of formal and spatial experimentation. Considered one of the most interesting and innovative North American architects today, he is best known for reinventing spaces for commercial uses and performing arts facilities, breathing new life into a marginal area in the celebrated sequence of buildings in Culver City's Hayden Tract. Over the last decade Eric Owen Moss has built his critical fortune producing a series of masterpieces which represent one of the most advanced elaborations of the de-constructivist theories of the 1990s. Paola Giaconia essay introduces the themes of Moss's work including geometry and manipulation, typological and spatial features, wall as design element and uncertainty of the contemporary condition. The book features an array of his works in over 250 illustrations including the Wedgewood Holly Complex, the Beehive and the Box. Also included is an interview with the architect and a bio-bibliography. Eric Owen Moss opened his office in Los Angeles in 1973. In addition to practicing, he has held professorial chairs at Yale, Harvard, and appointments in Copenhagen and Vienna, in addition to Sci-Arc, where he is on the Board of Directors. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, and the Gold Metal from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2001. His work has been widely exhibited, most recently in the Russian Pavilion at the 2002 Venice Biennale.

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A compendium of the history of contemporary American art and a living testimony of a sincere and active protagonist. Victor Burgin, an artist and sophisticated theoretician of the image, both still and in movement, was born in Sheffield, England, in 1941. He established himself on the international art scene in the late sixties, as one of the fathers of Conceptual Art, working both with the photographic medium and with moving images in his films. His work draws its inspiration from and is influenced by great thinkers and philosophers such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Over the past 30 years, Victor Burgin has become both a highly influential artist and a renowned theorist of the still and moving image. His writings on general issues such as photographic, psychoanalytic and cultural theory are noted for their lucidity, compactness and reason. In contrast, the photographs and videos that Burgin creates as an image-maker are richly paradoxical and constitute an inquiry into the structure of meaning in contemporary society. This book is different from Victor Burgin's previous publications, which are either monographs of his visual work - with essays by other writers - or collections of his theoretical essays. Although Burgin is known equally as an artist and as a theorist there has so far been no book in which Burgin turns his critical attention to his own artistic production. The proposed monograph will fill this absence and will appeal to a wide audience interested in photography, film and media.

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“This is a book about the wall that separates Palestinians and Israelis. When I began photographing the new barrier, in December 2002, little was known about the construction, either within the Israeli public or abroad. Only the Palestinians whose land had been confiscated understood its importance. Now, more than four years later, 400 plus miles of electronic fencing combined with 5-8 meter high concrete wall slabs make up this Barrier. Although it is still not complete, the Barrier has affected the life of every Palestinian, separating them from loved ones, schools, land, markets, universities, jobs and medical services. Not only has the Barrier affected contact among Palestinians, it also has made the already difficult contact between Palestinians and Israelis nearly impossible.

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