In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars advances the theory that charisma may be a quality of art as well as of person. Beginning with the argument that Weberian charisma of person is itself a matter of representation, this volume shows that to study charismatic art is to experiment with a theory of representation that allows for the possibility of nothing less than a breakdown between art and viewer and between art and lived experience. The volume examines charismatic works of literature, visual art, and architecture from England, Northern Europe, Italy, Ancient Greece, and Constantinople and from time periods ranging from antiquity to the beginning of the early modern period. Contributors are Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Paul Binski, Paroma Chatterjee, Andrey Egorov, Erik Gustafson, Duncan Hardy, Stephen Jaeger, Jacqueline E. Jung, Lynsey McCulloch, Martino Rossi Monti, Gavin Richardson, and Andrew Romig.

Up in Flames is the first comprehensive study of the traditional Chinese craft of paper sculpture: the construction in bamboo and paper of human figures, figures of gods, buildings, and other objects-- all intended to be ritually burned. The book documents this ancient craft as it exists today in Taiwan. The fascinating fundamentals of the craft, the tools and materials, as well as the techniques used to construct houses and human figures, never investigated before, are described and illustrated in detail. The written material is augmented by many color photographs showing the objects and the men and women who make them.
Although the tradition of burning objects as a part of religious ceremonies is still strong, the traditional paper and bamboo objects are being more and more often replaced by plastic components and whole preprinted cardboard counterparts. The resulting changes in the personal, business, and especially the creative and artistic side of the craft are therefore also addressed.

You must read this book before buying any artwork – written by the world’s leading art-market economist

Navigating the world of collecting can be a tricky process, especially for one just starting out in the art market. The world’s leading art market expert Magnus Resch explains the core principles of the art market and reveals the secrets of how to build and grow an art collection.

He answers questions such as:

• What art should I invest in?
• Where do I start?
• Which gallery should I visit?
• How do I get VIP tickets for Art Basel?
• Where's the best place to sell my art?
• Is this price fair?

This book is a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in collecting art, novice or expert. Readers will learn:

• How the art market really works;
• How to navigate the art world;
• How to start and develop a sustainable collection strategy, for every budget.

Featured alongside Magnus’s advice for collecting are quotes and case studies from esteemed art world professionals, including mega collectors Shelley and Philip Aarons, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Jorge M. Pérez, Howard E. Rachofsky, and Komal Shah; museum directors Adam Weinberg and Heidi Zuckerman; art fair founder Touria El Glaoui; mega art dealers Marc Glimcher, Adam Lindemann, Jeffrey Deitch, and Simon de Pury; leading art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist; superstar art advisor Amy Cappellazzo; and artist Julian Schnabel. The book also features a foreword written by leading art collector Pamela Joyner.

No-nonsense, clear prose makes this the perfect primer for anyone who is interested in collecting art. This book is for:

• Art lovers who want to buy their first pieces;
• Collectors who want to understand more about investing in art;
• Advisors and gallerists who want to refresh their knowledge.

This book, with words of advice from the most accomplished experts in the field, is like carrying an art advisor in your pocket.

In Applied Emblems in the Cathedral of Lugo, Carme Lopez Calderon explores the emblematic programme found in the Chapel of Nuestra Senora de los Ojos Grandes (Galicia, Spain), consisting of fifty-eight emblems painted c. 1735. Making use of a wide range of printed sources, the author delves into the meaning of each emblem and provides an all-encompassing interpretation of this cycle, which can rightly be described as the richest and most complete programme of Marian applied emblematics in the Iberian Peninsula.

Engaging with the work of contemporary African and Chinese artists while analysing broader material production, the essays in this volume are wide-ranging in their analysis of ceramics, photography, painting, etching, sculpture, film, performance, postcards, stamps, installations, political posters, cartoons and architecture.

With China’s rise as the new superpower, its presence in Africa has expanded, leading to significant economic, geopolitical and cultural shifts. Chinese and African encounters through the lens of the visual arts and material culture, however, is a neglected field.

Visualising China in Southern Africa is a ground-breaking volume that addresses this deficit through engaging with the work of contemporary African and Chinese artists while analysing broader material production that prefigures the current relationship. The essays are wide-ranging in their analysis of ceramics, photography, painting, etching, sculpture, film, performance, postcards, stamps, installations, political posters, cartoons and architecture.

Richly illustrated, the collection includes scholarly chapters, photo essays, interviews, and artists’ personal accounts, organised around four themes: material flows, orientations and transgressions, spatial imaginaries, and biographies. Some of the artists, photographers, filmmakers, curators and collectors in this volume include: Stary Mwaba, Hua Jiming, Anawana Haloba, Gerald Machona, Nobukho Nqaba, Marcus Neustetter, Brett Murray, Diane Victor, William Kentridge, Kristin NG-Yang, Kok Nam, Mark Lewis, the Chinese Camera Club of South Africa, Wu Jing, Henion Han and Shengkai Wu.

On the southern end of the Grand Rue, a major thoroughfare that runs through the center of Port-au-Prince, waits the Haitian capital's automobile repair district. This veritable junkyard of steel and rubber, recycled parts, old tires, and scrap metal might seem an unlikely foundry for art. Yet, on the street's opposite end thrives the Grand Rue Galerie, a working studio of assembled art and sculptures wrought from the refuse. Established by artists Andre Eugene and Celeur in the late 1990s, the Grand Rue's urban environmental aesthetics-defined by motifs of machinic urbanism, Vodou bricolage, the postprimitivist altermodern, and performative politics-radically challenge ideas about consumption, waste, and environmental hazards, as well as consider innovative solutions to these problems in the midst of poverty, insufficient social welfare, lack of access to arts, education, and basic needs. In Riding with Death, Jana Braziel explores the urban environmental aesthetics of the Grand Rue Sculptors and the beautifully constructed sculptures they have designed from salvaged automobile parts, rubber tires, carved wood, and other recycled materials.Through first-person accounts and fieldwork, Braziel constructs an urban ecological framework for understanding these sculptures amid environmental degradation and grinding poverty. Influenced by urban geographers, art historians, and political theorists, the book regards the underdeveloped cities of the Global South as alternate spaces for challenging the profit-driven machinations of global capitalism. Above all, Braziel presents Haitian artists who live on the most challenged Caribbean island, yet who thrive as creators reinventing refuse as art and resisting the abjection of their circumstances.

This catalogue accompanies the first exhibition devoted to a fascinating group of drawings by the Anglo-Swiss Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), one of eighteenth-century Europe's most idiosyncratic, original and controversial artists. Best known for his notoriously provocative painting The Nightmare, Fuseli energetically cultivated a reputation for eccentricity, with vividly stylised images of supernatural creatures, muscle-bound heroes, and damsels in distress. While these convinced some viewers of the greatness of his genius, others dismissed him as a charlatan, or as completely mad. Fuseli's contemporaries might have thought him even crazier had they been aware that in private he harboured an obsessive preoccupation with the figure of the modern woman, which he pursued almost exclusively in his drawings. Where one might have expected idealised bodies with the grace and proportions of classical statues, here instead we encounter figures whose anatomies have been shaped by stiff bodices, waistbands, puff ed sleeves, and pointed shoes, and whose heads are crowned by coiffures of the most bizarre and complicated sort. Often based on the artist's wife Sophia Rawlins, the women who populate Fuseli's graphic work tend to adopt brazenly aggressive attitudes, either fixing their gaze directly on the viewer or ignoring our presence altogether. Usually they appear on their own, in isolation on the page; sometimes they are grouped together to form disturbing narratives, erotic fantasies that may be mysterious, vaguely menacing, or overtly transgressive, but where women always play a dominant role. Among the many intriguing questions raised by these works is the extent to which his wife Sophia was actively involved in fashioning her appearance for her own pleasure, as well as for the benefit of her husband. By bringing together more than fi fty of these studies (roughly a third of the known total), The Courtauld Gallery will give audiences an unprecedented opportunity to see one of the finest Romantic-period draughtsmen at his most innovative and exciting. Visitors to the show and readers of the lavishly illustrated catalogue will further be invited to consider how Fuseli's drawings of women, as products of the turbulent aftermath of the American and French Revolutions, speak to concerns about gender and sexuality that have never been more relevant than they are today. The exhibition showcases drawings brought together from international collections, including the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand, and from other European and North American institutions.

Charlie's introduction to his blog put it best: "A lifetime in marketing actually equips a man for very little... Now pushing 58, I realise with some horror that it is a full half century since I last took cycling remotely seriously. If this trip does not go well, I might leave it as long until my next attempt. In September 2012, seven friends of varying fitness and circumference, accompanied by an elderly camper-wagon and driver, are cycling from France to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain." Despite being well past their prime they cycled up the equivalent of Mount Everest plus a bit as they crossed the Pyrenees, the Montes de Oca, the Montes de Leon, and the Cantabrian Mountains, in the process expending over 20,000 calories each (according to Susie's iPhone App), most of which were put back on each evening. They cycled in the footsteps of 1,000 years of history, marveled at the art and architecture accumulated over the centuries, and at times crashed into it. They visited the sites of miracles and pondered their meaning, and crossed the 200 meter bridge at Hospital de Orbigo which in 1434 was the site of a month long jousting tournament. They experienced the highs and lows of triumph and disaster, and felt compelled to test the efficiency of the Spanish medical system. Comment on the blog from Barnaby: "God, troops...it is epic reading and I am on the edge of my seat as I follow your progress on my map." The De-Caff Camino is in turn amusing, informative, easy reading and irreverent, and yet is imbued throughout with the greatest respect for the history and traditions of the Camino and those who have written their names into its lore. Improbably arriving at their destination after two weeks and 500 miles on the road, the author offers some forthright advice to the Vatican on how to enhance the experience for pilgrims at last achieving their goal after so much exertion, self-sacrifice and denial. The De-Caff Camino is an essential and most entertaining addition to the body of knowledge of The Way of St James.

Pirro Ligorio's Worlds brings renowned Ligorio specialists into conversation with emerging young scholars, on various aspects of the artistic, antiquarian and intellectual production of one of the most fascinating and learned antiquaries in the prestigious entourage of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The book takes a more nuanced approach to the complex topic of Ligorio's 'forgeries', investigating them in relation to previously neglected aspects of his life and work.

A Companion to Seals in the Middle Ages is a cross-disciplinary collection of fourteen essays on medieval sigillography. It is organized thematically, and it emphasizes important, often cutting-edge, methodologies for the study of medieval seals and sealing cultures. As the chronological, temporal and geographic scope of the essays in the volume suggests, the study of the medieval seal-its manufacture, materiality, usage, iconography, inscription, and preservation-is a rich endeavour that demands collaboration across disciplines as well as between scholars working on material from different regions and periods. It is hoped that this collection will make the study of medieval seals more accessible and will stimulate students and scholars to employ and further develop these material and methodological approaches to seals. Contributors are Adrian Ailes, Elka Cwiertnia, Paul Dryburgh, Emir O. Filipovi, Oliver Harris, Philippa Hoskin, Ashley Jones, Andreas Lehnertz, John McEwan, Elizabeth A. New, Jonathan Shea, Caroline Simonet, Angelina A. Volkoff, and Marek L. Wojcik.