Something strange is going on in the photographs by Frank Kunert (*1963 in Frankfurt am Main): the table set for two has been so cleverly built around a corner that neither of the diners has to see the other, yet they can both watch their own television. Or a desk has a built-in bed for the much-desired office nap. And the outdoor toilet is located further away than one might hope for in an emergency-namely, on the moon. Kunert, a model builder and photographer, creates images of this kind in weeks of painstaking attention to detail, lending expression to the grotesque outgrowths of civilized life that is as humorous and exhilarating as it is profound. The ambivalence between tragedy and humor piques the artist time and again and permeates his surreal-looking visual worlds in an inexhaustible variety of ways. Melancholy and skewed wit are closely related in this wonderland of absurdities-surprising and thought provoking.

Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) was a German doctor, educator, popular science writer, and information graphics pioneer. Chased out of Germany by the Nazis, who banned and burned his books, Kahn emigrated to Palestine, then France, and finally the United States to continue his life's work. In this new edition, TASCHEN celebrates Kahn as a creative genius, particularly adept at the visualization of complex scientific ideas. In such works as Man as Industrial Palace, we see how Kahn deployed vivid visual metaphors to demystify science and how his concepts have influenced generations of scientific illustrators, visual communications specialists, and infographic artists through to today. The book features more than 350 illustrations with extensive captions, three original texts by Fritz Kahn himself, a foreword by Steven Heller, and an essay about Kahn's life and oeuvre.