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As an initiative by the Kinda Foundation for Contemporary Arab Art, Objects of Imagination is a unique collaboration of nearly forty artists from across the Arab World, in which both traditional and innovative techniques were used to create a body of ceramic artworks. Over the course of nine months, the Kinda Foundation invited a group of Arab artists to a dedicated ceramic workshop in Amman, Jordan, supervised by Delair Saad Shaker and Waleed R. Qaisi. The artists each created four artworks in a variety of techniques, often pushing their practice beyond traditional painting. Using the same base of a large earthenware plate, 52 cm in diameter, the techniques range from drawing with oxides and painting with underglaze to carving, relief and sculpture. Each plate was glazed and fired at a temperature of 1020°C. Throughout the project, the creative process was fully documented for the Kinda Foundation archive. Although originally conceived as a revival of functional Arab ceramic tradition, the results of this experiment are startlingly diverse, despite many of the artists¿ lack of experience in making ceramics. Without practical restrictions, the creative freedom that they enjoyed was further enhanced by the collective experience, which clearly demonstrates the impressive scope of unlimited artistic imagination in these works.

Itziar Barrio is a mid-career artist who is internationally recognized for her contributions to the intersections of art, film, and technology. Her interdisciplinary, boundary breaking work has been exhibited at art institutions across the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Itziar Barrio is an interdisciplinary artist producing long-term projects along with various collaborators. Her work aims to re-write dominant narratives about social contracts, identity, the construction of reality, as well as labor politics and ownership over means of production. Barriös work explores a wide range of cultural production, and questions the formal limits of film, technology, sculpture, and installation by deploying dissent as a tool to open future horizons. Johanna Burton (Director of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and former curator at the New Museum in NYC) has noted: ¿Barriös work point to the ways in which gender, race, sexuality, labor, desire, and more are the subtext of all negotiations, whether political or personal. Yet, rather than simply victims of circumstance, we may work to write, rewrite, or reroute the stories in which we play a part, whether small or large.¿ Barriös work has been presented internationally at PARTICIPANT INC (NYC), MACRO Museum (Rome), Matadero Madrid, MACBA Museum (Barcelona), Belgrade¿s Contemporary Art Museum, Museo del Banco de la República (Bogotá), Abrons Arts Center (NYC), Anthology Films Archives (NYC), Salzburger Kunstverein, Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk (Poland) and at the Havana Biennial among many others.

Wanda Czełkowska (1930-2021) was a key figure of the Polish avant-garde, whose oeuvre remained almost unnoticed by art history until recently. She started her career near the end of the 1950s in Kraków and played an important role in the development of conceptual art in Poland. Member of the famous Grupa Krakowska ¿ whose other fellows included: Tadeusz Kantor, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Jonasz Stern, Maria Jarema and Erna Rosenstein ¿ she kept her independent voice and never fully committed to the artistic discourse and social life of the group. Those who knew her, often refer to her as someone who treads her own, separate path. Unlike her contemporaries, Alina Szapocznikow and Magdalena Abakanowicz, her work remains largely unknown outside of Poland. This is despite her recent retrospective at Królikarnia (2016-2017), National Museum in Warsaw. In this fully illustrated monograph, a wide range of authors from different generations and backgrounds contextualise Wanda Czełkowskäs practice within post-war international discourses such as abstract and conceptual art, feminist practices, human body and its relation to space. The list of authors includes Emilie Bouvard, Mathieu Copeland, Amelia Jones, Charlotte Matter, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Agnieszka Tarasiuk, Matylda Taszycka and Sarah Wilson. These texts will be accompanied by a visual essay by Antonina Gugała. Her œuvre was driven by a profound belief in the intelligence and authenticity of art, which led her beyond formal or political considerations: `art uncovers truths of the world¿, she wrote in her notes. In this sense, the artist remained a worthy heir of avant-garde thought, never giving in to postmodern disillusion.

The Ibrahimi art collection is a living, growing body of work. The collection includes works that represent the Iraqi modern art movement, from its inception in the 1920s to the present. It reflects a vivid picture of the continuous creativity and growth in spite of the fact that most of the artists are now living all over the world. It clearly demonstrates that the communication between Iraqi artists of all generations contin ues, albeit on a personal level, or through exhibitions held in Amman, Beirut, and the Arab Gulf capitals. The collection as a whole portrays Iraqi modern art for over a century with its achievements at national and international levels. While it reflects the continuous interconnections between all the generations of artists, different styles and intellectual growth throughout, it varies in number and artistic value. The founder of the Ibrahimi collection is an Iraqi medical doctor and businessman Dr. Hasanain Al-Ibrahimi; the purpose of this collection is to contribute to preserving the rich heritage of Iraqi modern and contemporary art and raise awareness of its creativity without any tendencies or preference for specific artists or critics on the account of others.

Rome is a city of art, one that has seen an abundance of trades and crafts flourish over the centuries. Still today, a stroll through the city streets offers a wide variety of artisan workshops, especially in the oldest districts: the historic centre, Monti and Trastevere. It is no coincidence that many of the capital¿s streets proclaim the ancient trades previously established therein: Via dei Coronari (where artisans strung rosary beads), Via dei Funari (where ropes were coiled by hand), Via dei Balestrari (where crossbows were made and sold) etc. This precious heritage requires rediscovery, appreciation and safeguarding. This book of beautiful photographs is not only a fine publication but also represents a significant contribution to this aim. This is due not only to the artistic value of the images at the heart of the book but also to the atmospheres they evoke, reviving the memory of a Rome that, in many ways, no longer exists: a humble, authentic, working-class Rome, inhabited by artists and craftsmen with talented hands and passionate hearts. With an undoubtedly nostalgic eye, Roma: Tradizione che resiste captures moments and daily routines that still withstand the passing of time, through the work and craftsmanship of industrious artisans, restorers who preserve antique styles, artists who cherish bygone techniques, stall-holders at the market, shopkeepers who dispense ancient wisdom, mechanics, and bike shops where know-how is passed on from father to son. The Rome immortalized in the films of Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and convincingly portrayed by actors like Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Gigi Proietti and Enrico Montesano, has not disappeared; on the contrary, it sets its genuine beauty and authenticity against an increasingly fast-moving, technological, sterile world. The Rome redolent of tradition that knows how to adapt to the adversities of life is, in fact, imprinted on the faces and the hands of the artisans who meet up in the heart of the Eternal City.

An artist¿s choosing to engage with Dante Alighieri by illustrating The Divine Comedy is not only a sign of great courage and audacity, or the desire to carry on the tradition introduced by the Renaissance masters. Above all, it stems from an awareness that the Comedy is an unceasing source of reflection and inspiration, as only great literary works can be. Each new period, each historical and cultural context, is attentive to, rereads and interprets past sources, coming up with new readings and discovering novel, more or less valid and concrete exegetical keys, by acknowledging that the past can be productive and influence the present. Hence, what is important in this respect is the reflection that a contemporary artist like Cecco Bonanotte, with a profound knowledge and love for Italian culture, but also that of the Orient, offers us on a central chapter of our literary, linguistic, religious and artistic history. The execution of the plates revolves around guiding colours: black and red for Hell; grey and silver for Purgatory; cream and gold for Paradise. The complete text of The Divine Comedy is illustrated with 103 plates created by the artist using mixed media, pictorial interventions executed below the printed cantos and at the end of Purgatory and Paradise, and reliefs on the covers of the three canticas. The volume is complemented by texts by Micol Forti, which introduce each of the three parts, and others by Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani, Antonio Paolucci and Marzia Faietti.

Celebrated in the 1930s, controversial and forgotten during the postwar period, and finally rediscovered today, Piero Portaluppi was an undisputed protagonist of 20th-century Italian architecture. An eclectic and agnostic protagonist, who steered clear of specific styles and schools, a master of hydroelectric architecture, and a great bourgeois whose projects changed the face of Milan. But Portaluppi was not only an architect; indeed he played many other roles, with equal passion, in his life: caricaturist, traveller, collector, puzzler and amateur filmmaker, to name a few. He called them his 25 careers. Produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Piero Portaluppi, the book follows, 18 years later, the catalogue of the major exhibition at Triennale Milano that marked the beginning of the architect¿s critical rebirth. This new, exhaustive monograph comprises a large photo album with new colour images of Piero Portaluppi¿s architectural projects and interiors, taken by the wellknown photographer Ciro Frank Schiappa; three previously unpublished essays, illustrated with vintage photos by Antonio Paoletti; views and models of Portaluppi projects, and items documenting his personal interests (cartoons, diagrams, sundials, postcards, newspaper cuttings). There is also an interview with Portaluppi¿s nephew, the architect Piero Castellini, by the famous film director Luca Guadagnino; an unpublished essay by Paolo Portoghesi, based on the keynote lecture given by the architect on 10 April 2018 in the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; a biography of Piero Portaluppi by Jacopo Ghilardotti, and list of works and bibliography compiled by Ferruccio Lupi, conservator at the Fondazione Piero Portaluppi.

In the last twenty years, the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have accelerated their urban development, employing a forceful interplay of international influences. International architects, engineers, builders, designers, manufacturers, and energy companies ¿ many from Italy ¿ have grown their professional networks here on the global crossroads of the United Arab Emirates, a place of flux where ideas, people, and cultures meet and mingle. This book presents the seminal findings of an ongoing initiative to document the contribution of Italian companies in shaping the urban and industrial landscape of the UAE. This journey begins from the years prior to the official unification of the emirates and leads to the present day, including the UAE¿s recent Golden Jubilee and Expo 2020 Dubai ¿ the first International exhibition held in the MENASA (Middle East, North Africa, South Asia) region. This volume highlights the expertise and innovations introduced by Italian companies, and confirms the vital creative collaboration established between Italy and the United Arab Emirates.

The work of Grazia Varisco (Milan 1937) is among the most interesting and innovative on the contemporary European art scene, being bound up with research into Kinetic, Programmed or more generally ¿Exact¿ Art. The combinations of planning and chance, play and process, have produced a range of surprising and always coherent results. This book, edited by Marco Meneguzzo, gives an account of over sixty years of continuous achievement through new critical essays, a broad selection of works and a scholarly apparatus that make it a staple work for understanding the artist in depth. The monograph reveals the complexity of the research carried out by this prominent artist of our modernity and documents the themes of her research and experimentation beginning in the 60s. It features a broad selection of important works from her various artistic periods including Magnetic Tables (an invitation to play by attributing an expressive function to the elements of the work); a recreation of the artist¿s historic solo exhibition at the Galleria Schwarz in 1969 in Milan; Variable Light Screens, Reticoli Frangibili, Mercuriali e Variabili + Quadrionda from the 60s, Extrapagine, Spazi Potenziali, Meridiana and Gnomoni (a reflection on the essential, exalting Chance as an element to be investigated that finds its way into every occasion). Also featured are essential works aiming at simplification of form from the 90s and works from the 2000s that assume new forms but still revolve around the change and ambiguity of perception affecting the visitor, calling for continuous verification of Plan versus Chance.

The set of jewels, drawings, objets d¿art and glassware acquired by the Collector directly from the artist, with a single exception, between 1899 and 1927, is well representative of Lalique¿s work. René Lalique (1860-1945) and Calouste Gulbenkian (1869-1955) shared the experience of a time marked by the fascinating transition of the so-called Belle Époque ¿ with its particular end-of-the-century spirit, present mainly on the remarkable set of Art Nouveau works. Both men were tied by friendship and mutual consideration, well evidenced in the words of the Collector: ¿My admiration for his unique work increased throughout the fifty years our friendship lasted¿ I am proud to own, I believe, the largest number of Lalique¿s works¿¿.

Two hundred years after the death of Antonio Canova (1757¿1822), the catalogue accompanying the exhibition at Museo Correr in Venice celebrates the art and myth of the sculptor through Fabio Zontäs images. Intense photographs, whose lights and shadows, angles, and readings of the subjects¿ expressions are faithful to the originals, offer new points of view that accentuate the sculptures in the round, isolated in the space. Images full of feeling and admiration, mindful of the master¿s lesson of combining the ancient, classical world with a modern sensibility, which has come down to us intact. The photographer¿s images, from public and private collections, explore the supreme Neoclassical artist¿s sculptures and are complemented by essays by experts and curators, including Gabriella Belli, Camilla Grimaldi, Andrea Bellieni, Vittorio Sgarbi and Paola Bonifacio, as well as an interview with Fabio Zonta by Camilla Grimaldi.

JR (1983) is considered one of the most important street artists of the last 20 years. He has succeeded in perfectly combining photography and the concept of urban art, reproducing large-scale images and incorporating them in the urban landscape in ever-more complex ways, but always empathizing strongly with the public. Known by many as the Parisian Banksy, JR describes himself as a ¿photograffeur¿, that is a mix of photographer and graffiti artist. JR displays his images in the planet¿s largest art gallery: his work is freely presented in the streets of the world, attracting the attention of people who do not normally visit museums. Highly-original and unmistakable, his works meld art and action; they speak of commitment, freedom and identity. Photo collage is the characteristic technique of JR¿s style, which has exploded in public art in cities all over the world. As the artist himself says: ¿I have the biggest art gallery imaginable: the walls of the whole world.¿ His research is a blend of originality and appropriation, but always distinguished by its public character and empathic aspect, which has led him to create ¿engaging¿ works with a powerful visual impact in places and contexts that are always different: from the favelas in Rio de Janeiro to the large square of the Louvre Pyramid, Ellis Island in New York, the Tehachapi maximum security prison in California, and even the historic Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.

George Floyd is an African American who died during his arrest on 25 May 2020 when a policeman suffocated him by pressing his knee onto Floyd¿s neck for nine minutes to immobilize him. ¿I can¿t breathe...¿ Seeing those images, Giangiacomo Rocco di Torrepadula instinctively shot a candle deprived of its flame in a sequence of nine photographs, one for each of the nine minutes of the tragedy. With the hope of generating a collective reflection on the problem, the author sent postcards of one of these images, asking for a response with whatever sentence, image or idea may have been suggested by their emotions. The reaction was surprising, with more than 300 responses from well-known cultural figures, artists and creatives, as well as the general public. Their postcards were full of emotions, thoughts, personal reflections, drawings, photographs and even musical compositions and videos, all published in this book. Among the many who participated are photographers Oliviero Toscani, Maurizio Galimberti, and Francesco Cito; actors Cristiana Capotondi, and Giuseppe Cederna; musicians Giuliano Sangiorgi (Negramaro), Max Casacci (Subsonica), and Andy (Bluvertigo); journalists Carlo Verdelli and Michele Buono; curators Denis Curti, Fortunato D¿Amico and Roberto Mutti; writer Maurizio De Giovanni; artists Ercole Pignatelli, Yuval Avital, and Max Marra; rapper Amir Issa and writer Flycat; architects Italo and Margherita Rota and Massimo Roj; conductor Riccardo Chailly, and illustrators Emilio Giannelli, Beppe Giacobbe, and Sandro Fabbri.

The so-called Edo period (1603¿1868) was extremely productive for Japan from a historical and artistic standpoint; later its influence would extend beyond the archipelago, as far as the West, where it gave rise to a real passion for Japanese aesthetics and culture. The term ukiyo-e, which translates as ¿pictures of a floating world¿, refers to the woodblock colour prints that were first created in the Edo period, by combining the talents of painters like Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige with the absolute mastery of block carvers and printers. Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige: Geisha, Samurai and the pleasure society offers us a chance to discover the world of Japanese ukiyo-e prints through 250 works by some of the most important artists, and the themes that characterize them: from elegant female beauties to delicate flowers and birds, famous Kabuki actors, valiant samurai and even erotic prints with their insouciant celebration of love. The nine thematic sections bring together around 30 preparatory drawings; 20 or so landscapes and as many scenes with flowers and birds; about 40 portraits of Kabuki actors; 40 or so prints of female beauties; around 50 erotic prints and books, and 20 or so prints of warriors and heroes. They present a portrait of a world that cultivated beauty in every form and pursued pleasures that were sophisticated yet fleeting ¿ as fleeting and fragile as life itself.

In-between territories is a collection of 131 photographs, most of them previously unpublished, produced by Gabriele Basilico over the course of his career, from the late 1980s up to the first decade of the 2000s and beyond. The book, edited by Filippo Maggia, approaches the extensive artistic body of work left by this Milanese photographer from an angle that has received little consideration until now. Basilicös in-between territories are physical spaces and seem almost tangible to the gaze, but they are also mental spaces, induced in the observer by the voids, the absences determined by pauses and silences in the visual construction of the image. The depth of the light and the choice of perspective adopted by Basilico help to determine the equilibrium of shape between the volumes, inducing the right interpretation of the image, through that act of suspension and contemplation that the photographer often emphasized as a fundamental moment in observing the landscape, of whatever kind it may be and however it presents itself.

After Conrad Marca-Relli, a new chapter devoted to the great Italian and international masters of the 20th century The book Giorgio Morandi. Il tempo sospeso (The Suspended Time) shows how, as a man and an artist, Morandi (1890-1964) was firmly anchored to the 20th century: he lived through two world wars and experienced the full impact of the consequent disillusionment, loss of certainties, and collapse of all beliefs. To stem such loss of human direction, he sought a mental order, a harmony of form, a material that could become light. And yet he never lost the thrill of uncertainty, which we see in his every work in the form of expectancy and suspension. The book presents a selection of paintings and works on paper from the ¿20s to the ¿60s, retracing Morandi¿s artistic career and helping expand our understanding of his ¿difficult and secret¿ art, to paraphrase Cesare Brandi. The intense juxtaposition of some of Morandi¿s ¿variants¿ points to some new critical insights, as does the display of some unpublished documents that have recently emerged from the family archives.

Born in 1985 in Shanghai, where she currently lives and works, Zhang Ruyi has been able to create a highly cohesive yet diverse body of work. Over the past decade, she has developed a precise and delicate sculptural material language, responding to the multiple changes undergone by the micro and macro urban texture and thus becoming one of the most original voices of the con-temporary Chinese art world. This bilingual monograph (in English and Chinese) will be the most complete publication on the artist to date, and will focus on the main steps of the artist's creative path. The monograph will include an introduction by the curator of the publication Manuela Lietti, and two critical essays by leading scholars on Chinese art. The iconographic sources will span a wide array of solo and group exhibitions that will highlight Zhang's specific use of materials, found objects, urban debris, artefacts related to the urban and industrial experience transformed by her personal perception of them. Devoid of any stereotyped sense of Chinese-ness, the work of Zhang Ruyi is a subtle yet powerful reflection on the interlacing of the collective and individual realms in the fast-forward context of an urban metropolis in a constant state of change. Zhang Ruyi, whose work has been presented extensively in China and abroad, is part of the upcoming Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale Fragility; Zhang Ruyi: Speaking Softly is her future solo show at UCCA in Beijing, opening in December 2022.

The history and art of one of the most important suburban aristocratic residences of the 16th century, among the oldest and most beautiful in the Alps Illustrated by spectacular images, which are the result of a special photographic campaign conducted by Massimo Listri, this volume documents the architecture and rich artistic treasures of the famous residence, which is the only example in the Trentino region of a suburban villa from the Council period of the mid-16th century characterized by a portico and loggia arrangement, typical of Veronese architecture of the time. Inside the villa, Italian, Flemish, and German artists created frescoed decorations of the highest quality, including the cycle of 12 frescoes dedicated to the victories of Charles V, those depicting episodes from the Old and New Testaments, and those depicting the 12 months of the year. Alongside these extraordinary frescos, the book presents sculptures and furniture, mainly from the Flemish and German area, and wooden metopes painted with grotesques and male and female portraits that can be traced back to specialists in this type of decoration, influenced by the engraving art of the time.

Lighting, whether for domestic use or for the grander areas of public or private spaces of ministerial buildings or post offices, of theatres or hotels, represents an important constituent of Murano glass production. The Venini firm distinguished itself with significant results also in this sector, particularly because of its constant ability to modernise and its characteristic openness to the world of design, aspects which made it a reference point for the foremost national and international architects. This volume, which covers a period from 1921 to 1985, illustrates the work of the glassworks in the area of lighting, on the larger or smaller scale, giving an overview of the most significant projects. More than five hundred cards, accompanied by a considerable body of hitherto mostly unpublished iconographic illustrations, document an unremitting activity made up of numerous projects of historical and cultural importance, among which those carried out in collaboration with Angiolo Mazzoni in the 1930s, the production of the velarium of Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 1951, the large installation by Carlo Scarpa for Italia 61 in Turin, the Fulda theatre in Germany in 1978 etc. A careful selection of works tells of the transformation of Venini lamps, their form and their material: from the elegant reworking of the traditional chandelier with arms to the new fixtures with modular elements, from Vittorio Zecchin to Carlo Scarpa, from Massimo Vignelli a Ludovico Diaz de Santillana. The volume, with material coming from the historic Venini archive and for the greater part unpublished previously, is also accompanied by a rich documentary apparatus made up of a substantial corpus of graphic illustrations (catalogue drawings, preparatory drawings for the Blue Catalogue and the pages of the Red Catalogue) for a total of more than four hundred images that contribute to telling the extraordinary story of the Venini company and light.

Luciano Ventrone (1942-2021) was discovered in 1983 by Federico Zeri, who defined him as the "Caravaggio of the 20th century" and encouraged him to apply his talent to still life. Thus began his long research into various aspects of nature, as he captured more and more details which are otherwise almost invisible to "eyes bombarded by millions of images", such as those of people of our era. In each of his exhibitions, Ventrone's paintings are seen by tens of thousands of people who come to be astonished. He established himself as a true master of figuration, displaying an extraordinary virtuosity with few precedents in the history of art. He is a painter of hyperbole, and indeed, more than hyper-realistic, his iconic still lifes - renowned in all five continents - are hyperbolic, exaggerated, and baroque. Over the decades, his work has commanded the attention of critics and art historians, including Federico Zeri, Giorgio Soavi, Roberto Tassi, Achille Bonito Oliva, Vittorio Sgarbi, Marco Di Capua, Antonello Trombadori, Edward Lucie-Smith, Angelo Crespi, Beatrice Buscaroli, Evgenia Petrova and Victoria Noel-Johnson. One year on from his death, in collaboration with the foundation that bears his name, the General Catalogue of Luciano Ventrone's works has been published. By identifying the Master's authentic works over more than fifty years of painting, the monograph will surprise his admirers, revealing pictorial periods and cycles rarely exhibited or published before now, with genuine "finds" coming from private collections around the world.

The Fondazione Henraux collection is dedicated to modern and contemporary art, featuring works by Italian and international artists of the calibre of Henry Moore, Jean (Hans) Arp, Isamu Noguchi, Joan Miró and many others. The original core of works was created in the 50s and 60s when Henraux decided, thanks to the insight of the administrator at the time, Erminio Cidonio, to focus on non-figurative statuary. In that process, she forged a close collaboration with the English sculptor Henry Moore, which gave rise to a highly-respected centre for contemporary sculpture. In only a few years, the company's factories began projects with artists such as Henri Georges Adam, Jean (Hans) Arp, Emile Gilioli, Georges Vantongerloo, Pablo Serrano, Joan Mirò, Alicia Penalba, François Stahly, Costantino Nivola, Isamu Noguchi, Maria Papa, Pietro Cascella and Giò Pomodoro. The collection was comprised of a number of large and medium format works some of which, once Cidonio was no longer administrator, were taken over by the Banca Commerciale Italiana, owner of the company. Since 2011, with the establishment of the Foundation, the collection has been steadily enriched by new acquisitions, activities associated with the Premio Henraux and initiatives to support artists and institutions with which the Foundation collaborates. There is also a plan to create an exhibition space and a museum of the business that displays the collection and documents the history of the company, from its founding in 1821 up to today, through the events and major works created in Italy and abroad over the course of nearly two centuries. Currently an industry leader for the extraction and processing of marble products, Henraux began in 1821 when Marco Borrini of Seravezza purchased part of the marble field on Monte Altissimo (a site explored around 1518 by Michelangelo) and founded a company to re-open and exploit the quarries with the French Jean Baptiste Alexandre Henraux. The company enjoyed an extraordinary, rapid success, receiving numerous prestigious orders, including one in 1845 from the Tzar of Russia for the St Petersburg Cathedral, another between 1945 and 1962 for the grand reconstruction of the Abbey of Montecassino and, beginning in the 60s, the fruitful, long-lasting relationship with the famous sculptor Henry Moore.

Andrea Bianconi's Stupidity Exercise Manual is a collection of drawings that describe actions which no rational person would ever think of performing. "Bark like a dog in the presence of a dog", "Take a big, empty box and put it over your head", "Beg a door to open", "Look at the rainbow with someone who's colour-blind". Bianconi recommends doing one of these exercises every day for at least 10 minutes because, he explains, stupidity training is easily lost. Designed to take its place in anyone's home, the manual is a genuine artist's book in the form of spiral-bound postcards with a free-standing cover (like a table calendar) so that it can be displayed as a work of art. The rationale for this operation fits into a long-standing artistic tradition. Paraphrasing David Byrne, "The Dadaists used nonsense to make sense of a world that didn't make sense", Bianconi enthusiastically and optimistically declares, "Doing meaningless things is great because it imbues the meaningless with meaning." The purpose of the actions described in Bianconi's drawings is not so much to become stupid (perhaps we're already there), but to do so in the right way. The book is curated by critic and journalist Luca Fiore.

The art of Arabic calligraphy originates in the transcription of the Quranic revelation, an expression of faith in God, as well as the beauty and harmony of Arabic script. Over the course of a millennia, it has been enhanced, codified, stylized, and lent itself to abstraction. In 2022, following an initiative led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in a collaboration between a total of 16 Arabic speaking countries, Arabic calligraphy was inscribed on UNESCO¿s Intangible Cultural Heritage List, thus testifying to its immense value for humanity. Organized by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, the second edition of the Scripts and Calligraphy: Paths to the Soul exhibition and catalog focus on four complementary themes: Light, Letter, Space, and Poetry, all of which shed light on the spirituality that infuses both the reflection and techniques of the calligrapher, and the emotion that Arabic calligraphy arouses in those who read it and contemplate it. The exhibition gracefully interlaces classical and contemporary artworks, thus creating a constant dialogue between past and present. It casts light on Arabic calligraphy as both an ancient craft and a modern art. It will be presented initially in Qasr Khuzam, a palace in Jeddah dating from the first quarter of the twentieth century (23rd February ¿ 23rd May 2023), and then in JAX, Diriyah ¿ a contemporary exhibition space in Riyadh (23rd June ¿ 15th September 2023). Scripts and Calligraphy: Paths to the Soul catalogue is an invitation to embark on an intimate journey of discovery and reflection on Arabic calligraphy, which represents an inherent part of the culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It constitutes a personal encounter with calligraphy as a sublimation of the cultural treasure that the Arabic alphabet embodies.

The art of Arabic calligraphy originates in the transcription of the Quranic revelation, an expression of faith in God, as well as the beauty and harmony of Arabic script. Over the course of a millennia, it has been enhanced, codified, stylized, and lent itself to abstraction. In 2022, following an initiative led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in a collaboration between a total of 16 Arabic speaking countries, Arabic calligraphy was inscribed on UNESCO¿s Intangible Cultural Heritage List, thus testifying to its immense value for humanity. Organized by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, the second edition of the Scripts and Calligraphy: Paths to the Soul exhibition and catalog focus on four complementary themes: Light, Letter, Space, and Poetry, all of which shed light on the spirituality that infuses both the reflection and techniques of the calligrapher, and the emotion that Arabic calligraphy arouses in those who read it and contemplate it. The exhibition gracefully interlaces classical and contemporary artworks, thus creating a constant dialogue between past and present. It casts light on Arabic calligraphy as both an ancient craft and a modern art. It will be presented initially in Qasr Khuzam, a palace in Jeddah dating from the first quarter of the twentieth century (23rd February ¿ 23rd May 2023), and then in JAX, Diriyah ¿ a contemporary exhibition space in Riyadh (23rd June ¿ 15th September 2023). Scripts and Calligraphy: Paths to the Soul catalogue is an invitation to embark on an intimate journey of discovery and reflection on Arabic calligraphy, which represents an inherent part of the culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It constitutes a personal encounter with calligraphy as a sublimation of the cultural treasure that the Arabic alphabet embodies.

Bologna-based painter Puglisi's "Il Grande Sacrificio"--a wood panel painting with strong, gestural strokes of white on black--is exhibited alongside "The Last Supper" in Milan as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci on the 500th anniversary of his death. This volume documents Puglisi's work alongside sketches and preliminary studies.y studies.

This highly anticipated monograph for celebrated British artist, Kate Malone (b.1959) abounds with beautiful illustrations of her exceptional works of art Renowned for her unique and highly skilled handling of clay, this publication demonstrates how Malone's pots distil the power and energy of nature. Personal observations and fantastical translations of growth patterns and natural abundance continue to inspire her whilst captivating an ever-increasing audience. The book also explores Malone's dedication to glaze research, illustrating a life's work in the treatment and development of her signature crystalline glazes. Step into her studio and witness how, with an alchemist's touch, pure forms in bisque-fired clay are transformed with an astonishing array of unique and magnetically coloured glazes. Critical essays from University of Cambridge-Art Historian and BAFTA-nominated broadcaster Dr. James Fox and Freelance Journalist, Writer and Editor, Emma Crichton-Miller explore Malone's background, inspirations and standing within her artistic field.

Georgy Frangulyan (b. 1945) creates monumental, classical figurative sculptures including many public works. This monograph is the first book to consider the life and work of this ¿Off-modern¿ artist; that is, one who exists on the margins of modern art history and at the margins of error of major philosophical, economic, and technological narratives of modernization and progress. It considers his work in light of the context of Social Realism, the Cold War, the avant garde. The core of the book is a survey of 30 monumental works and sculptures as well as a thorough exploration of craftsmanship in his work, his training at the Stroganov Academy, the oldest university of applied and industrial art in Russia, his use of bronze, and the way the work exists on the periphery of the global market. Frangulyan¿s sculptures are in many collections: the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, both in Moscow, at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Museo Dantesco in Ravenna, the Municipal Library of Colmar (France), the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, museums in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Berdyansk (Ukraine), the museum collections of Sochi, Tambov, and Kaliningrad (Russian Federation), as well as private collections in Italy, the US, France, Sweden, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. The artist is based in Moscow, working in a studio housed in an antique wooden villa, located in the center of the city, which features a foundry and a gallery of sculpture, paintings, and drawings. The book includes prefaces by two curators associated with the Garage in Moscow, Ruth Addison and Valentin Diaconov.

Hannah Villiger (1951-1997) was an extraordinary voice in late twentieth-century contemporary art, but her oeuvre came to an abrupt end with her untimely death. She became known above all for her photographic work based on the body. This publication traces a path from the sculptures she created in the 1970s and her little-known drawings to the black-and-white photographs and works with the Polaroid camera that Villiger started making in the 1980s. These fragmentary close-ups of her own body were enlarged via an internegative and mounted on aluminium, either individually or assembled into space-related blocks. The results were radical pictorial inventions that made a unique contribution to the artistic exploration of the self and are still relevant today. This volume presents the latest research on Hannah Villiger's work, featuring contributions by renowned authors and curators: Yasmin Afschar (co-editor), Emily Butler, Stefanie Manthey, Aïcha Revellat, Madeleine Schuppli (co-editor), Agnieszka Sosnowska, Wolfgang Ullrich; as well as artists and contemporaries of Villiger whose statements provide a personal and refined understanding of her work: Rut Himmelsbach, Daniela Keiser, Claudia and Julia Müller, Katja Schenker, Jürg Stäuble, Beat Streuli. Themes such as the female body, self-image and its perception by others, fluid identities, the fragmentation of the physical body, as well as psychological and aesthetic aspects of the human skin are addressed. This monograph is part of the series initiated by Muzeum Susch and Skira editore dedicated to the rediscovery of women artists who have been neglected by the main discourses and canons of art history.

This book provides insights on Farah Ossouli¿s artistic pursuits with miniature painting, explains the historical background of Iranian Contemporary and the challenges of contemporary image making in the new political and social climate. Farah Ossouli (born in 1953 in Zandschan, lives and works in Tehran) has explored innovative approaches to the medium painting, most commonly through juxtaposition of images and texts that scrutinize preconceptions about gender and race while undermining collective assumptions in post-revolutionary Iran. A hallmark of her paintings are exceptionally fine miniatures; her subjects are figurative but nevertheless not easily deciphered. Even through titles can identify what is portrayed, they often only hint at a possible interpretation of the picture. Through most of her works have a private character, Ossouli refers to historical events and occurrences with collective memory internationally, which still disturbs to this day. Ossouli can interpret history through an artwork, since the aesthetics of representation creates a challenge to the ethics of what is represented. The aesthetic quality of the paintings is what first allows the viewers to address his content. The dissolution of subjectivity and its rearticulation in miniature compositions is a major trope. Early on Ossouli began to use mirrors to facilitate this process ¿ as myth and metaphor doubling and redoubling a fragmented vision ¿ returning the viewer to that moment of ego formation described by Jacques Lacan as the mirror stage. Farah Ossouli¿s paintings, gouaches, conceptual miniature works, drawings, artist books and texts since the mid-1970s have been characterized by a keen awareness how the conditio humana is a product of its representation in mass media. She has developed a unique aesthetic practice committed to a metaphorical and feminist narration. For more than four decades, Ossouli has been delving into the violent peripheries of a society mediated by images, in genuine compositions whose fine surfaces contain an unsettling visual poetics, political allure, and hope. Her works are monumental sites of confrontation with ideologies that manipulate and often obliterate the individual. This corporal trauma is expressed in an almost documentary realism with the elements of classical Persian Miniature Paintings that presents little more than the bare facts, it is also reflected in every aspects of composition, from the projection of contemporary political issues and the removal of entire sections in the narration, to unnerving collapse of the figure with space it occupies.

Taking its title from a 2017 painting by the American artist Nicole Eisenman held in the collection, this publication brings together recent acquisitions that question the meanings and functions of figuration in contemporary art. As the very definitions of truth have eroded dramatically in recent years, many contemporary artists - especially those working in the United States - have proceeded to analyze, interrogate, and deconstruct the notion of realism. Dark Light brings together work from an emerging group of artists who are investigating new approaches to figurative imagery through autobiography, depictions of the body, and the influence of new technologies, along with contributions by important predecessors who have anticipated current discussions around representation and verism. The recent acquisitions featured in Dark Light include important works by established painters such as Etel Adnan, George Condo, Karen Kilimnik, Maria Lassnig, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Peter Saul, and Joan Semmel, presented in dialogue with an intergenerational group of artists including Louise Bonnet, Cecily Brown, Shara Hughes, Lucy McKenzie, Laura Owens, Christina Quarles, Henry Taylor, and Matthew Wong.