The artists Cy Twombly and Sally Mann may at first seem an unlikely pairing. He was a leading contemporary artist who defied easy categorisation, a painter and sculptor whose enigmatic work often referenced mythology and epic poetry. She is a photographer with an uncanny ability to tap raw human emotion, whether depicting members of her family or the landscape of the American South. What they had in common was place neighbouring properties in rural Lexington, Virginia, where Twombly kept a studio and produced some of his most important work up until his death in 2011 and where Mann has lived and worked all her life. Over the course of several years, Mann photographed inside Twombly's studio, the paint splatters on the floors and wall, the works in progress, the sculptures as they caught raking rays of light passing through Venetian blinds, the progression from order to chaos that so often characterises an artist's working place. The result is a rare insider's view of Towmbly's process we sense him in the room at every turn, although he is always just beyond the frame and a poetic dialogue between two artistic visions.

The work of German sculptor Isa Genzken is brilliantly receptive to the ever-shifting conditions of modern life. In this first book devoted to the artist, Lisa Lee reflects on Genzken's tendency to think across media, attending to sculptures, photographs, drawings, and films from the entire span of her four-decade career, from student projects in the mid-1970s to recent works seen in Genzken's studio. Through penetrating analyses of individual works as well as archival and interview material from the artist herself, Lee establishes four major themes in Genzken's oeuvre: embodied perception, architecture and built space, the commodity, and the body. Contextualizing the sculptor's engagement with fellow artists, such as Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman, Lee situates Genzken within a critical and historical framework that begins in politically fraught 1960s West Germany and extends to the globalized present. Here we see how Genzken tests the relevance of the utopian aspirations and formal innovations of the early twentieth century by submitting them to homage and travesty. Sure to set the standard for future studies of Genzken's work, Isa Genzken is essential for anyone interested in contemporary art.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a loosely affiliated group of Los Angeles artists--including Larry Bell, Mary Corse, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler--more intrigued by questions of perception than by the crafting of discrete objects, embraced light as their primary medium. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or playing with light through the use of reflective, translucent, or transparent materials, each of these artists created situations capable of stimulating heightened sensory awareness in the receptive viewer. "Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface," companion book to the exhibition of the same name, explores and documents the unique traits of the phenomenologically engaged work produced in Southern California during those decades and traces its ongoing influence on current generations of international artists.
Foreword by Hugh M. Davies
Additional contributors:
Michael Auping
Stephanie Hanor
Adrian Kohn
Dawna Schuld

Artists:
Peter Alexander
Larry Bell
Ron Cooper
Mary Corse
Robert Irwin
Craig Kauffman
John McCracken
Bruce Nauman
Eric Orr
Helen Pashgian
James Turrell
De Wain Valentine
Doug Wheeler

Robert Gober rose to prominence in the mid-1980s and was quickly acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation. Early in his career, he made deceptively simple sculptures of everyday objects--beginning with sinks and moving on to domestic furniture such as playpens, beds and doors. In the 1990s, his practice evolved from single works to theatrical room-sized environments. In all of his work, Gober's formal intelligence is never separate from a penetrating reading of the socio-political context of his time. His objects and installations are among the most psychologically charged artworks of the late twentieth century, reflecting the artist's sustained concerns with issues of social justice, freedom and tolerance. Published in conjunction with the first large-scale survey of the artist's career to take place in the United States, this publication presents his works in all media, including individual sculptures and immersive sculptural environments, as well as a distinctive selection of drawings, prints and photographs. Prepared in close collaboration with the artist, it traces the development of a remarkable body of work, highlighting themes and motifs that emerged in the early 1980s and continue to inform Gober's work today. An essay by Hilton Als is complemented by an in-depth chronology featuring a rich selection of images from the artist's archives, including never-before-published photographs of works in progress.
Robert Gober was born in 1954 in Wallingford, Connecticut. He has had numerous one-person exhibitions, most notably at the Dia Center for the Arts, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Schaulager, Basel. In 2001, he represented the United States at the 49th Venice Biennale. Gober's curatorial projects have been shown at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Menil Collection, Houston; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.

In the times when the Ukrainian art sphere was regulated by the Soviet institutions, local monumental and decorative arts existed at the frontier of the Party's propaganda and the artistic thirst to experiments. Nowadays, Ukrainian mosaics are wrested out of the architectural context of the country in both literal and metaphorical ways. The artworks are liquidated from the buildings they were specifically created for and indiscriminately despised as ideological pieces of no value. Furthermore, in legal terms mosaics are not defined as objects of art that makes them unguarded in the face of the decommunization process. Initially incepted as a guide, this book is an equally beneficial companion for the journey through space (in the context of the geographical area of modern Ukraine) and hitchhiking through time (in terms of Ukrainian cultural history). It incorporates the selection of Ukrainian mosaics which undermines the simplified perspective on the Soviet art heritage in Ukraine. The volume is generously supplemented with unique photographs of the documentary photographer Yevgen Nikiforov who continues the research, initially presented in the book Decommunized: Ukrainian Soviet Mosaics (2017). Together with the art historian Polina Baitsym who reveals striking linkages of the mosaics' plots with broader historical context, he will guide you through the testimonies of the genuine creativity of Ukrainian monumental artists which managed to flourish on the most infertile soil.

Since the debut of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Harry Potter film franchise has become one of the most popular and successful in the world. Beautifully crafted and presented in a deluxe, large-format with lavish production values, these pages present a visual chronicle of the work by artists and filmmakers to bring the wizarding world to life onscreen. Bursting with hundreds of rare and unpublished works of art, including production paintings, concept sketches, storyboards, blueprints, and more, this collectible book is the definitive tome on the visual legacy of the Harry Potter films. Fans will recognise beloved characters, creatures, locations, and more as they embark on a journey through the wizarding world, from Gringotts to the Quidditch pitch.

Trevor Paglen is an American artist, geographer, and author. What I want from art," says Paglen, "is to help see the historical moment we live in." His photographs make visible things we're not meant to see; he regards this invisibility as emblematic of that moment. Looking toward the earth, sea, or sky as earlier artists have, Paglen captures the same horizon seen by Turner in the nineteenth century or by Ansel Adams in the twentieth. Only in Paglen's images, a drone or classified communications satellite is also visible. "For me," Paglen observes, "seeing the drone in the twenty-first century is a bit like Turner seeing the train in the nineteenth century." Turner was less interested in the technology than its effects on perception, by its ability to accelerate human motion. Paglen is interested in our evolving perception in space. Standing in the Western landscape where Adams worked, Paglen photographs the drone as it photographs him. His images suggest that our conceptions of space and visuality are undergoing radical change; the physical limits of vision are no longer a reliable measure of what is visible to (often mechanical) others.Trevor Paglen: Sites Unseen is the first major career survey for the artist in the United States. it presents Paglen's key photographic series: Limit Telephotography; Tapped Underwater Cables and Cable Landing Sites; and The Other Night Sky and Untitled (Drones). Other works included are Code Names, NSA Triptych, 89 Landscapes, Trinity Cube, Autonomy Cube, and The Fence. The volume includes an essay by curator John Jacob; an essay by Luke Skrebowski of the University of Manchester; and a conversation between the artist and Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Katherine Crawford.

Michael Snow is one of Canada's greatest living artists, widely acknowledged as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century Canadian art. Early Snow focuses on the nascent stages of the artist's career-which is comparatively underexamined in art commentary and critical literature-and demonstrates how wide-ranging were his achievements in painting, drawing, sculpture, foldage, cinema, and photography. Snow's first achievements may serve as a blueprint for his later career, but they also give ample proof of the creative heights he had already reached by the age of thirty-three. This book reveals a young man whose catholic interests in art and literature contributed to his uncanny ability to create profoundly original works of art. Perceptive essays by James King argue that these artworks are best approached in the context of Snow's knowledge of modern European art (Paul Klee, Ben Nicholson, Alberto Giacometti) and contemporary American art (Willem de Kooning, Conrad Marca-Relli, Donald Judd, Marcel Duchamp), and that, ultimately, the work created during this era is about transformation.

In diesem Band stellt der Autor, der seit den fruhen 60er Jahren empirisch auf dem Gebiet der trivialen Lesestoffe gearbeitet hat, seine Ergebnisse aus der Trivialliteratur- und Popularkulturforschung zusammenfassend dar. Gegenuber germanistischen, primar literaturwissenschaftlich orientierten Arbeiten zeichnet sich diese Studie dadurch aus, dass Leserprofile, aber auch die Produktionsbedingungen genauer beschrieben werden, als dies bisher der Fall war. - Ein gutes Lehrbuch, das sowohl fur Literatur- wie auch fur Sozial- und Kommunikationswissenschaftler ein Muss ist."

The seminal writing of Carlos Cruz-Diez, best known for his experiential works exploring color and its properties Trained as a painter, Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923-2019) developed a conceptual platform for his work based on optical and chromatic phenomena, which led him to take a revolutionary new approach to his work beginning in 1959. Building on the chromatic experiments of figures like Sir Isaac Newton, the impressionists, and Josef Albers, Cruz-Diez explored the perception of color as an autonomous reality evolving in space and time, unaided by form or support, in a perpetual present. Originally published in Spanish in 1989, Reflection on Color details Cruz-Diez's theories of color and traces the aesthetic and conceptual evolution of his practice. Though the book was translated into English in Cruz-Diez's lifetime, it never saw broad distribution. In this text, Cruz-Diez explores eight of his major investigations into color phenomena, including his signature Physichromie and Chromosaturation series. Generously illustrated with examples of Cruz-Diez's work, this important text introduces Cruz-Diez's writing and thinking to a new generation of artists and scholars. Distributed for the Cruz-Diez Foundation

Tinka Pittoors (b. 1977) is a Belgian visual artist, who regularly exhibits her work in Flanders, Wallonia, the Netherlands and France. Anyone who crosses the threshold of her studio will feel as if they've stepped into an artificial secret garden. An explosion of shapes and colours awaits in a place where everything has the potential of becoming an artwork. In her sculptures and objects, Pittoors examines the utopia of a malleable world, often using the nature-culture divide as her starting premise. Each presentation is a moment in time, a snapshot, that is tailored to the venue. Les Voyageurs is published on the occasion of her eponymous exhibition in the gardens of Chateau Seneffe. Many people in Flanders have yet to discover this hidden gem. And yet the castle and gardens of Seneffe are Wallonia's equivalent of Versailles, with fountains, pavilions, pristine nature, and dreamy paths on 22 hectares of land. For this exhibition, Pittoors created a trail that reflects on the various possibilities of travel, displacement and detachment, arriving and leaving, escapes and quests. The introduction was written by Pieter Vermeulen. Other contributors include Marjolaine Hanssens, Veronika Pot, Carine Fol, Isabelle Pouget, Dominique Legrand, Stijn Tormans, Marc Ruyters, Jan Braet and Saskia De Coster. Text in English, French and Dutch.

Anna Freeman Bentley’s paintings use architectural imagery to explore the emotive potential of space. Grounded in an interest in the baroque her source material includes junk shops, restaurants, private members clubs, flea markets and designed interiors. Central to her work is an investigation into surface, tension and the atmosphere evoked by these different interior surroundings. The spaces she depicts are empty, yet visual signifiers point to evidence of people and social happenings. This, Freeman Bentley’s third publication to date, is centred on the relationship between painting and cinema and is divided into sections dedicated to major paintings on canvas and panel, and a number of works on paper (all works 2021–22). Freeman Bentley’s work here is focused on sets from 'The Colour Room' (2021), a film that tells the story of the early career of celebrated British ceramicist Clarice Cliff (1899–1972). The foreword to the book is written by Rollo Campbell and Matt Incledon of Frestonian Gallery. An essay by writer and critic Thomas Marks draws out the importance to her work of historic and contemporary cinema and temporary architecture. Marks notes a change in palette in these new paintings, with Freeman Bentley embracing pastels and tracing parallels between the artist herself and Cliff. An interview with Georgie Paget, co-founder of Caspian Films, production company for 'The Colour Room', meanwhile, provides insight into the artist’s particular interest in the artifice of film props and of the film set as a layered space ‘steeped in meaning, purpose and potential.’ The two discuss the reciprocity of painting and cinema in detail, recounting Freeman Bentley’s experiences on the film’s sets and discussing her working processes, beginning with taking photographs on set, through to oil sketches and the later development of large-scale canvases. The publication is edited by Matt Incledon and Matt Price. It is designed by Joe Gilmore, printed and bound by Gomer, Wales, and co-published by Frestonian Gallery, London, and Anomie Publishing, London. The publication coincides with the second solo show by Anna Freeman Bentley at Frestonian Gallery, by whom the artist is represented. The exhibition, also titled ‘make believe’ is divided between two sites: the 2022 Armory Show, New York, and Frestonian Gallery, London. Anna Freeman Bentley studied Painting at Chelsea College of Art, Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee and the Royal College of Art. Awards and residencies include Palazzo Monti Residency, Brescia, Italy, 2019; The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant 2019 and 2017, and Artist in Restaurant residency at Michelin-starred restaurant Pied à Terre, London, 2012. Selected exhibitions (* denotes solo) include DENK Gallery, Los Angeles, 2019*, Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, 2018*; Space K, Seoul, 2017; 68projects, Berlin, 2017; the East London Painting Prize 2014 and 2015; Workshop Gallery, Venice, 2012*; MAC Birmingham, 2011; Prague Biennale, 2011, and the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 2009. Her work is part of the Hotel Crillon collection, Paris; Saatchi Collection, London; Hogan Lovells Collection, London; the Ahmanson Collection, California, and numerous private collections worldwide.

In Dragging Away Lex Morgan Lancaster traces the formal and material innovations of contemporary queer and feminist artists, showing how they use abstraction as a queering tactic for social and political ends. Through a process Lancaster theorizes as a drag-dragging past aesthetics into the present and reworking them while pulling their work away from direct representation-these artists reimagine midcentury forms of abstraction and expose the violence of the tendency to reduce abstract form to a bodily sign or biographical symbolism. Lancaster outlines how the geometric enamel objects, grid paintings, vibrant color, and expansive installations of artists ranging from Ulrike Muller, Nancy Brooks Brody, and Lorna Simpson to Linda Besemer, Sheila Pepe, and Shinique Smith offer direct challenges to representational and categorical legibility. In so doing, Lancaster demonstrates that abstraction is not apolitical, neutral, or universal; it is a form of social praxis that actively contributes to queer, feminist, critical race, trans, and crip politics.

As his personal circumstances move in constant flux, Ai Weiwei remains a cultural magnet. Renowned for his political activism and social media activity almost as much as for his social interventions, contemporary approach to the readymade, and knowledge of Chinese traditional crafts, Ai's fame extends throughout and beyond the art world. Drawn from TASCHEN's limited Collector's Edition, this monograph explores each of Ai's career phases up until his release from Chinese custody. It features extensive visual material to trace Ai's development from his early New York days right through to his recent practice. Focus moments include his international breakthrough in the early 2000s, his porcelain Sunflower Seeds at the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, his response to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, and his police detention in 2011. With behind-the-scenes studio pictures, production shots, and numerous statements derived from exclusive interviews with Ai, we gain privileged access to the artist's process, influences, and importance. The book includes texts from Uli Sigg, Ai's longtime friend and former Swiss ambassador to China and Roger M. Buergel, who curated the 2007 documenta and hosted the artist's Fairytale piece. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.