In a world of turmoil, art matters more than ever.

Art can bring about political action, even social revolution. Art reminds us of the things that really matter. It lifts our eyes to eternity and show us the importance of the here and now. With illustration from contemporary art and reference to theatre and film, this book shows the importance of art for all, not just the professionals.

Creativity helps humans to flourish and reflects the character of a creative God. This is a book to return to time and again for inspiration and encouragement.

Illustrated by author Alastair Gordon, Why Art Matters encourages us to embrace creativity at home, church, in play and professionally in the creative arts and industries.

This new collection is the second in the Global Punk series. Following the publication of the first volume the series editors invited proposals for a second volume, and selected contributions from a range of interdisciplinary areas, including cultural studies, musicology, ethnography, art and design, history and the social sciences. This collection extends the theme into new territories, with a particular emphasis on contemporary global punk scenes, post-2000, reflecting upon the notion of origin, music(s), identity, careers, membership and circulation. This area of subcultural studies is far less documented than more 'historical' work related to earlier punk scenes and subcultures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This new volume covers countries and regions including New Zealand, Indonesia, Cuba, Ireland, South Africa, Siberia and the Philippines, alongside thematic discussions relating to trans-global scenes, the evolution of subcultural styles, punk demographics and the notion of punk identity across cultural and geographic boundaries. The book series adopts an essentially analytical perspective, raising questions over the dissemination of punk scenes and their form, structure and contemporary cultural significance in the daily lives of an increasing number of people around the world. This book has a genuine crossover market, being designed in such a way that it can be adopted as an undergraduate student textbook while at the same time having important currency as a key resource for established academics, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students. In terms of the undergraduate market for the book, it is likely that it will be adopted by convenors of courses on popular music, youth culture and in discipline areas such as sociology, popular music studies, urban/cultural geography, political history, heritage studies, media and cultural studies.

Alastair Gordon (b.1978, Edinburgh), is an artist based in London. This, the first major monograph of the artist’s career, includes over 160 paintings, drawings and documentational photographs, along with notes by Gordon himself. The book introduces this accomplished and engaging new voice in British painting. Gordon’s paintings bring the historic languages of genre painting and the quodlibet into a contemporary discourse that pushes the boundaries of realism, figuration and illusionism to focus on everyday moments. His work often elevates seemingly ordinary objects – feathers, matchsticks, postcards – allowing them to speak to wider concerns of beauty, truth, life and death. The documented works, produced between 2012 and 2023, include paintings made in oil or acrylic on MDF, wood, ‘found’ wood, gesso panel, paper, canvas and occasionally linen. Each is distinctive for its style and for the recurring motifs Gordon selects such as masking tape, paper ephemera and repeated, subtly different studies of the same subject. Gordon’s texts describe how objects found mud larking on the banks of the River Thames, shoes from the London City Mission and rags and papers discarded from art students’ studios have been depicted in paintings, incorporating the histories and stories of each item (and each person) into his work. The book also features recent works influenced by rural landscapes and parkland. An introduction by Julia Lucero, Associate Director of Nahmad Projects, London, emphasises the importance of nature and of meditation within Gordon’s practice. Specifically, Lucero brings out the idea of the ‘axis mundi, that metaphysical and mystical connecting point where heaven meets Earth’. She explores the significance of quodlibet, a seventeenth-century trompe-l’oeil painting technique that Gordon favours, rendering brushstrokes invisible and affording everyday objects new significance, even ‘profound value’. Humble objects such as a matchstick or paper aeroplane might be elevated to the realms of the divine. An essay by Jorella Andrews, Professor of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, describes the influence of Gordon’s time on a research residency in the former studio of Paul Cézanne at Les Lauves on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence. His experiences there proved pivotal to the direction of his practice, in which both the ‘visual misdirection’ of quodlibet and the qualities of wood have become central. Andrews brings art historical texts and works of art into relation with Gordon’s paintings, making comparisons between subject, form and approach. Andrews’ text further details the recent synthesis of two sides of Gordon’s work: precise illusionism combined with looser observations made in the natural landscape. Edited by Alastair Gordon Studio, designed by Herman Lelie, printed by EBS Verona and published in 2023 by Anomie Publishing, London, the publication has been generously supported by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson through Fieldstead and Company. Alastair Gordon (b. 1978, Edinburgh) is an artist working with painting, drawing and installation, based in London. Gordon received his BA from Glasgow School of Art and his MA from Wimbledon School of Art, London. His work has been shown in recent solo exhibitions at Ahmanson Gallery in Irvine, California (2017), Aleph Contemporary, London (Quodlibet (2021) and Without Borders (2020)) and in the group exhibition Unpacking Gainsborough (2021) at Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London.

Forty years after its inception, punk has gone global. The founding scenes in the United Kingdom and United States now have counterparts all around the world. Most, if not all, cities on the planet now have some variation of punk existing in their respective undergrounds, and long-standing scenes can be found in China, Japan, India, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Each scene, rather than adopting traditional interpretations of the punk filter, reflects national, regional and local identities. The first offering in Intellect's new Global Punk series, The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global is the first edited volume to explore and critically interrogate punk culture in relation to contemporary, radicalized globalization. Documenting disparate international punk scenes, including Mexico, China, Malaysia and Iran, The Punk Reader is a long-overdue addition to punk studies and a valuable resource for readers seeking to know more about the global influence of punk beyond the 1970s.

Island Follies is the first book to explore the work of Henry Melich (1924-1999), a Czech-born architect who brought a beguiling form of neoclassicism to the Caribbean. While Melich built projects in the United States and England, he s best remembered for the romantic follies he designed in the 1960s and 1970s in sunny island retreats like Lyford Cay, Harbour Island, and Windermere Island in the Bahamas. Melich created a romantic sense of escape with a softly cushioned whimsy and discrete sense of tranquillity. His signature motifs included faux marbled walls, seasoned wood, colonnades and tent-like interiors with striped ceilings that suited the playful mood of the moment, documented in Island Follies with the warm touch of Slim Aarons and with new photography of many previously unpublished interiors. Gardens with Bougainvillea-draped pergolas, ivy-clad alcoves, palm-lined allees are just some of the other features that extended the architecture into the tropical landscape. Island Follies showcases more than forty of Melich s island projects, capturing a lost world of glamor and faded glory certain to inspire lovers of interior design and island retreats alike.

Although airports are now best known for interminable waits at check-in counters, liquid restrictions for carry-on luggage, and humiliating shoe-removal rituals at security, they were once the backdrops for jet-setters who strutted, martinis in hand, through curvilinear terminals designed by Eero Saarinen. In the critically acclaimed Naked Airport, Alastair Gordon traces the cultural history of this defining institution from its origins in muddy fields to its frontline position in the struggle against international terrorism.From global politics to action movies to the daily commute, Gordon shows how the airport has changed our sense of time, distance, and style, and ultimately the way cities are built and business is done. He introduces the people who shaped and were shaped by this place of sudden transition: pilots like Charles Lindbergh, architects like Le Corbusier, and political figures like Fiorello LaGuardia and Adolf Hitler. "Naked Airport" is a profoundly original history of a long-neglected yet central component of modern life.

Throughout their twenty-five-year commitment to modern design, Barnes Coy Architects have specialized in one-of-a-kind dream houses designed for those who prefer to live in highly spatial and modern ways. Assembled in Light is the first exclusive look at this firm s previously unpublished body of high-end residential work. These leisure homes gleam in the sun like sleek, finely tuned machines. Everything has been custom designed, custom made, custom treated. The houses are tastefully furnished with one-of-a-kind artisanal pieces (by Wendell Castle, Chris Lehrecke, etc.) and museum-quality collections of contemporary art hanging on the walls (such as works by Anselm Kiefer, Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman). They feature infinity pools, outdoor and indoor kitchens, roof decks, temperature-controlled wine cellars, and numerous guest rooms, as well as ten-foot-high doorways and floor-to-ceiling swathes of tempered glass to better gaze out at the dunes and ocean views. The new photography beautifully captures the architects attention to detail and love of specialized materials, whether it s Carrara marble from Italy or teak from Bali. While most of the houses are located in the Hamptons in New York, a few are found as far afield as Costa Rica, California, Georgia, and Westchester County. All but three homes were built on commanding waterfront sites.

First monograph to present the work of Laguardia Design Group, a highly regarded landscape architecture firm specializing in contemporary residential design in the Hamptons. With offices in Water Mill, LaGuardia Design Group is immersed in the fragile landscape of the Hamptons, both its woods and meadows and the dramatic shoreline along the Atlantic. Notable projects include the rebuilding of the dunescape surrounding a landmark Norman Jaffe house damaged by storms, collaborations with well-known contemporary architects, and the setting for a distinguished collection of contemporary sculpture in Bridgehampton. Founded in 1994 by Christopher LaGuardia, this firm is committed to expressing the character of each site and recognized for its environmental stewardship, historic references, and meticulously designed outdoor spaces. Rather than attempting to mimic nature, LDG's goal with every design is to interpret natural processes as an artistic expression in their work. In 2013, LDG received the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) award of excellence in residential design, the highest residential award in the profession.

Theater of Shopping tells the story of retail visionary Stanley Whitman and the creation of Bal Harbour Shops, the most successful luxury fashion shopping centre in the world*, and one of the last family-owned malls in America. Written by critically acclaimed author Alastair Gordon, Theater of Shopping is a cultural history of both a place and a personal legacy. The open-air mall opened in 1965 as a pedestrian-friendly environment that turned shopping into a kind of theatrical event, while featuring the work of young design talents like Valentino, Versace, Mugler, de La Renta, and other foreign designers who were unknown in America before first showcasing their collections at Bal Harbour Shops. The text weaves together fashion, luxury commerce, architecture, landscape design, urban development, and family history, to create a highly readable narrative illustrated with more than 300 images including never-before-published drawings, plans and photographs by renowned photographers including Richard Avedon and Ezra Stoller.