The book presents a series of new works produced by Adel Abdessemed for the MAC's/Museum of Contemporary Arts in Grand-Hornu. The Algerian-born French artist Adel Abdessemed (b. 1971) works in a wide variety of media including animation, installation, performance, sculpture, and video; through his art he addresses contemporary themes and he reflects the bleak picture of the present day. His works, unsettling in their simultaneous beauty and raw reality, have made Abdessemed one of the most visible international artists of our time. This volume is composed of two distinct parts, each showcasing and examining one of two series of brand new, site-specific works created by Abdessemed for the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Grand-Hornu and the Musee d'Art Contemporain in Lyon. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition Schedule: MAC's, Grand Hornu (03/04/18-06/03/18) Musee d'Art Contemporain, Lyon (03/09/18-07/08/18)

This highly entertaining exploration of art, history, and commerce reveals how 30 masterpieces made the journey from image to icon. How did paintings such as the Mona Lisa and The Scream achieve worldwide recognition? Why do certain artworks populate T-shirts, mugs, calendars, and advertising? Witty and well researched, this accessible exploration of visual and pop culture reveals how particular works of art have become part of the collective imagination. Readers will learn that Myron's Discobolus only became widely known when used to promote the Olympics, that Leonardo's Last Supper was one of the first paintings to be mass-reproduced, that the Mona Lisa became a celebrity only after being stolen from the Louvre, and that Girl with a Pearl Earring was deemed a minor Vermeer until it became the subject of a bestselling novel. Ranging from classical to contemporary, traveling through the Renaissance, Surrealism, and abstraction, Mona Lisa to Marge offers insights that are in turn thought provoking and surprising. Generously illustrated, it features the original artworks as well as the cartoons, ads, book and album covers, and everyday objects they inspired. The book will open readers' eyes to the artistic images that have become universal touchstones--and the fascinating stories of how and why they got there.

The practice of Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College graduate Greg Rook (b.1971, London) explores the rich visual history, curious cultural politics and often complex ideologies of those who seek to start a new life or wish to lead alternative lifestyles. From pioneers travelling to new continents to those wanting to stay put and live self-sufficiently, Rook invites us to join him on his own aesthetic and critical journey through a world of colonies, communities, communes and cults. By means of figurative painting that pushes the boundaries between realism and lyricism, Rook captures something profoundly revealing in terms of the hopes, dreams and successes as well as the disappointments, disillusionment and disasters that radical departures from home life and mainstream society can entail. For some, utopias can turn to dystopias, the Romantic imaginary can turn to tragedy, the sublime can turn to misery. For those fleeing oppression, however, it can be completely the opposite - newfound freedom, affluence and happiness. Rook's oeuvre, which incorporates cowboys and communists, agrarians and anarchists, believers and book-burners, depicts how the relationship between people and land is regularly fraught with issues, especially when migration and a clash of mindsets or ways of life is involved. What are brave new worlds for some are threatened old worlds for others... This hardback publication, the first monograph to be devoted to the work of Greg Rook, has been co-published by Vento& Associati and Anomie to coincide with a substantial mid-career survey exhibition of the artist's work being staged by Vento & Associati at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan in spring 2019. Featuring approximately fifty illustrations of paintings and works on paper made by Rook since 2006, along with an introduction by London and Milan-based critic and curator Michele Robecchi and a significant newly commissioned essay by Matt Price, a leading voice in the field of contemporary British painting, the publication offers an engaging and pertinent commentary on Rook's long-standing painterly investigation into how people choose to live their lives. Vento& Associati is a Milan-based company operating in global contexts that specializes in strategic cultural communication within fields such as public affairs, corporate and social responsibility, and cultural fundraising. Vento & Associati manages a programme of exhibitions at the Fabbrica del Vapore as part of the Spazi al Talento initiative of the City of Milan.