This collection of essays by the Belgian philosopher and theorist Bart Verschaffel, address issues concerning the meaning and relevance of art today.Written over the course of his career, they cover a rich and inventive range of topics, from laughter to the artwork as gift, to splendor and modern beauty. This is the first synoptic collection of Verschaffel's work with many of the essays translated into English for the first time.

An exploration of urban wildlife published by the Lilliput Press.

This book reveals that James Ensor did not develop his fantastic and grotesque universe of masks and skeletons out of his melancholic soul, but that he re-used and transformed an old image tradition that was collected and published by the French author and art critic Jules Champfleury in his History of Caricature. A second essay analyses how these weird creatures infiltrate the image borders and the frames of Ensor's paintings in order to disturb the 'normal' world.

Architecture office 'Bovenbouw' presents its work in all of its variety and maps the rich world of references with which it designs. It provides a look inside the variety of projects and the rich world of references of the eponymous architecture office from Antwerp. The book and the exhibition act as complements to one another; autonomous, but all the richer when read together. Intuitive yet thought out, and with a measured dose of humour, it maps an extensive frame of reference.