Parvenu a son apogee dans les annees 1960, le Pop Art debuta comme une revolte contre l'approche majoritaire de l'art et de la culture, et se mua en une interrogation globale sur la societe moderne, la culture consumeriste et le role de l'artiste et de son oeuvre. La premiere provocation des artistes de ce mouvement fut de defier les canons et la pretendue "originalite" de l'art en integrant dans leurs oeuvres l'iconographie produite par la grande distribution. Qu'il s'agisse de slogans publicitaires, des visages les plus celebres de Hollywood, de personnages empruntes aux comic strips ou aux emballages de produits de consommation, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol et Roy Lichtenstein ont sciemment reproduit les images quotidiennes et triviales de la culture populaire. Dans le meme temps, le Pop Art a reduit le role accorde a l'individu et remis en question la notion d'originalite en developpant l'usage des techniques de production de masse comme la serigraphie. Telles une galerie de miroirs, les oeuvres qui resulterent de cette demarche interrogent a la fois les ideaux et les aspirations de la culture contemporaine, ainsi que sa part de simulacre, quand images, substituts et representations en viennent a determiner une experience de la "realite". Dans ce livre, Tilman Osterwold se penche sur les styles, les sources et les vedettes du phenomene Pop Art. De l'esthetique de Lichtenstein, inspiree des comics, aux portraits de Marilyn par Warhol, il explore la facon dont ce mouvement a remis en cause les icones de son temps pour produire les siennes propres.

Qui aurait donc bien pu prevoir, au soir du 31 decembre 1899, que 100 ans plus tard la peinture et la sculpture ne seraient plus des supports incontournables, mais seulement possibles. Le mot "art" a ete defini et redefini tant de fois ces 100 dernieres annees qu'il s'est enrichi de connotations sociales, politiques et techniques tout a fait nouvelles. Ce superbe ouvrage encyclopedique, tres agreable a lire, couvre tout le spectre des disciplines artistiques, dont la photographie et les nouveaux medias; organise thematiquement par chapitre, pour mettre en evidence les relations entre oeuvres et mouvements, il remplit parfaitement son objet. Que vous recherchiez le surrealisme, le land art, le Fluxus ou le Bauhaus, voici le guide qui vous dispense de tous les autres ouvrages consacres a l'art du XXe siecle.

Limited to 1,000 copies, each numbered and signed by the photographer. A decade after his first TASCHEN book, Deux ex Machina, Ralph Gibson is back, with an extensive collection of nudes, including his best recent work as well as an interview by Eric Fischl. Strikingly contrasted and meticulously composed, Gibsons photographs pay tribute to some of the mediums greatest practitioners, such as Man Ray and Edward Weston, while venturing into uncharted waters. Says Gibson: A photographer once said that beauty in women is endless. Perhaps it was I who said it. In fact, I remember distinctly having done soand the thought persists to this day. We stare in the psychological mirror of the human body with a fascination that endures indefinitely. At least art history indicated this to be so. The Willendorf Venus is said to date from 25,000 BCthat is a old enough for me to believe in the subject. I love photographing women and could say that the form of the female body is absolute and perfect.

On October 1, 1958, the world's first civilian space agency opened for business as an emergency response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik a year earlier. Within a decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, universally known as NASA, had evolved from modest research teams experimenting with small converted rockets into one of the greatest technological and managerial enterprises ever known, capable of sending people to the Moon aboard gigantic rockets and of dispatching robot explorers to Venus, Mars, and worlds far beyond. In spite of occasional, tragic setbacks in NASA's history, the Apollo lunar landing project remains a byword for American ingenuity; the winged space shuttles spearheaded the International Space Station and a dazzling array of astronomical satellites and robotic landers, and Earth observation programs have transformed our understanding of the cosmos and our home world's fragile place within it. Throughout NASA's 60-year history, images have played a central role. Who today is not familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope's mesmerizing views of the universe or the pin-sharp panoramas of Mars from NASA's surface rovers? And who could forget the photographs of the first men walking on the Moon? Researched with the collaboration of NASA, this collection gathers more than 400 historic photographs and rare concept renderings, scanned and remastered using the latest technology and reproduced in extra-large size. Texts by science and technology journalist Piers Bizony, former NASA chief historian Roger Launius, and best-selling Apollo historian Andrew Chaikin-and an extensive mission checklist documenting the key human and robotic missions-round out this comprehensive exploration of NASA, from its earliest days to its current development of new space systems for the future.The NASA Archives is more than just a fascinating pictorial history of the U.S. space program. It is also a profound meditation on why we choose to explore space and how we will carry on this grandest of all adventures in the years to come.

The Basic Architecture series is a building aficionado's delight, with crisp images and texts that give you the full picture. This reference work combines 10 complete monographs for the price of three, introducing us to the architects who challenged and changed the way we live: Aalto, Gaudi, Gropius, Hoffmann, Le Corbusier, Mackintosh, Mies van der Rohe, Niemeyer, Ponti, and F. L. Wright.

Along with Turner, no artist has sought more than Claude Monet (1840-1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man Cezanne called "only an eye, but my God what an eye!" who stayed completely true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color, and whether it was through his early interest in Japanese prints, his time in the dazzling light of Algeria as a conscript, or his personal acquaintance with the major painters of the late 1800s, what Monet produced throughout his long life would change forever the way we perceive both the natural world and its attendant phenomena. The high point of his explorations were the late series of water lilies, painted in his own garden at Giverny, that, in their moves towards almost total formlessness, are really the origin of abstract art. This biography does full justice to this most remarkable and profoundly influential of artists, and offers numerous reproductions and archive photos alongside a detailed and insightful commentary.

This title covers Germany after the war 1952 - 1967.It was no more than eight years after the surrender of the Nazi government when Josef Heinrich Darchinger set out on his photographic journey through the West of a divided Germany. The bombs of World War II had reduced the country's major cities to deserts of rubble. Yet his pictures show scarcely any signs of the downfall of a civilization. Not that the photographer was manipulating the evidence: he simply recorded what he saw. At the time, a New York travel agency was advertising the last opportunity to go and visit the remaining bomb sites.Darchinger's pictures, in color and black-and-white, show a country in a fever of reconstruction. The economic boom was so incredible that the whole world spoke of an "economic miracle." The people who achieved it, in contrast, look down-to-earth, unassuming, conscientious, and diligent. And increasingly, they look like strangers in the world they have created. The photographs portray a country caught between the opposite poles of technological modernism and cultural restoration, between affluence and penury, between German Gemutlichkeit and the constant threat of the Cold War. They show the winners and losers of the "economic miracle," people from all social classes, at home, at work, in their very limited free time and as consumers. But they also show a country that looks, in retrospect, like a film from the middle of the last century.

This is the definitive monograph of Oehlen's work to date. This XL retrospective explores Albert Oehlen's entire career chronologically and examines his creative process via in-depth texts. Limited to 1,000 copies, each numbered and signed by the artist.Albert Oehlen seeks the limits of painting in his work, challenging viewers to abandon their instinctive expectations. His early work in the late 1970s - when painting was decidedly out of fashion - was associated with a so-called 'bad painting' movement, in that it aimed at challenging ideas about what makes a painting 'good' or 'bad'; a recent exhibition in London was, somewhat ironically, entitled 'I Will Always Champion Good Painting'. With an approach he describes as 'post-non-representational', Oehlen uses painting not only as a way to convey meaning, but also as a means of exploring the function a painting can serve - often a painting's title itself gives the work an entirely new dimension. Never without a touch of tongue-in-cheek humor, his work seems to be winking at us as it dares us to change the way we look at art. Combining subtlety and sophistication with chaos and brutality, Oehlen has left an indelible mark on contemporary painting.This XL monograph explores all groups of Oehlen's work chronologically via genre-oriented approach, such as mud-colored paintings, mirror paintings, computer paintings, and so forth. Like a series of interlocking episodes, the chapters of the book draw the reader into a complex drama of constantly evolving themes. In-depth texts get to the root of Oehlen's creative process, and an exhaustive bibliography and biography round out this comprehensive study. While Oehlen fans will rejoice at the publication of this breathtaking book, no one with an interest in contemporary art can afford pass up this unique opportunity to discover Oehlen's work. And to anyone who says painting is obsolete: we beg to differ. This book is also available in an Art Edition, limited to 100 copies and with an original artwork by Albert Oehlen.

Ellen von Unwerth, one of the world's most original and intimate fashion photographers pays homage to the most delectable women walking the earth right now. "Fraulein" features over 1000 provocative photographs of icons such as Claudia Schiffer, Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, Kate Moss, Vanessa Paradis, Britney Spears, Eva Mendes, Lindsay Lohan, Dita von Teese, Adriana Lima, Carla Bruni, Eva Green and many many more. The images combine beautifully crafted scenarios, high production values with a joyful spontaneity. Von Unwerth's color and immaculate black and white photographs celebrate sex, femininity, romance and the sheer joy of living the moment. And if that moment features a riding crop, handcuffs, maybe a very flimsy negligee, or some black stockings and a brilliant smile -then so much the better. Sometimes the subjects willingly flaunt and delight in their intimate fantasies. Other times, it seems as if we are voyeurs who have stumbled into these very private and guarded moments. The images were shot over the last 15 years and many of them are unpublished. Sam Shahid, one of New York's top designers, who collaborated with von Unwerth on the book says "Fraulein" is 'like a very entertaining movie that hits you in all kinds of ways'. Like all great movies, it requires repeated viewing.

Marc Newson's complete works to dateHe has designed chairs, restaurants, boutiques, cars, planes, and even a spaceship. For Australian industrial designer Marc Newson, the sky is no limit. From mass-produced objects to limited edition furniture to fashion, Newson has blurred boundaries, mapped new territories, and made himself an international superstar.
This comprehensive tome leaves no stone unturned in cataloguing all of Newson's works to date, from early pieces such as Lockheed Lounge (which holds the world record for the highest price paid for a piece of designer furniture, at over two million dollars) through designs of household objects and more recent, large scale projects such as the Ford 021C concept car, the Kelvin40 plane, the interior of Qantas's A380, and the Aquariva boat.
Encyclopedia-style entries, arranged chronologically by categories: Furniture, Objects, Interiors and Architecture, Timepieces and Jewelry, Transport, and Unreleased ProjectsExtended, in-depth case studies for a selection of Newson's most important projects: the Kelvin40 plane, Qantas Airbus A380, Gagosian art editions, Ford 021C, Ikepod watches, and Aquariva BoatVisual index cataloguing Newson's complete worksExclusive, in-depth interview by Louise Neri
Contributing authors: Laszlo Adams, Nicholas Foulkes, Louise Neri, and Alice Rawsthorn
The Collector's Edition (No. 101-1,100) is limited to 1,000 numbered and signed copies, each in a linen-covered slipcase.

Fifty years of Bond, James Bond"Bond, James Bond." Since Sean Connery uttered those immortal words in 1962, the most dashing secret agent in the history of cinema has been charming and thrilling audiences worldwide. T

This is Philipp Keel's "Simple Diary Volume II". In a world where products are out as soon as they're in, where communicating without wires doesn't come without strings, and even our accessories need accessories, we need simple tools. It is a book that helps us look inside because we are overloaded outside. "Keel's Simple Diary[trademark]" offers structure for those who don't have time to wonder, making it easy to record life's moments. It gives the pleasure of a quick response and the sense that no matter what's wrong, more is right. Why "Simple Diary[trademark]"? There are three reasons why most people, although they have tried, won't keep a diary: not every day is very eventfull; it actually takes a lot of discipline to write; and, in retrospect, many find what they have written embarrassing. What is "Simple Diary[trademark]"? It is an assistant for life, a book for any occasion, for any person at any age. On every page you will discover a taste of philosophy, a pinch of psychology and a twist of insight. And here are three things "Simple Diary[trademark]" can do for you: entertain the mind; help you focus; and, keep you company. "Simple Diary[trademark]" is Keel's response to having too much information and not enough meaning, and needing to remember what made him smile. Three volumes and many pastrami sandwiches later, Keel finally had the answers to his own questions. "Simple Diary[trademark]" is the culmination of his quest to gain insight into who we are, and why we do what we do. "Simple Diary[trademark]". Let it happen. Visit: our associated website.