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.

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.

A multistoried apartment building. Its plaster is grayish beige and exudes a kind of petit-bourgeois tristesse; it has the requisite carpeted balcony railings, the lone flower box, even the deckchair is there. A familiar view. It is only on second glance that we see that something is wrong. All of the balcony doors lead to nowhere, and in turn, the balconies themselves cannot be accessed.German photographer Frank Kunert (*1963 in Frankfurt/Main) has not uncovered any sort of architectural scandal. With Balcony is one of the works that sensitively and enigmatically turn familiar narrative contexts upside down and question reality itself. Far from being simply photographic satire, Kunert's miniatures give three-dimensional form to puns on thoughts and words, making them tangible in the truest sense of the word. Kunert spends weeks constructing his model sets down to the smallest detail and then photographs them in his studio-in the process, creating the antithesis of worn and hackneyed concepts and ideas. Exhibition schedule: Galerie S, Siegen, February 22-March 28, 2008 * Darmstadter Tage der Fotografie, Darmstadt, April 18-20, 22008 * Galerie Camera Obscura, Dortmund, August 16-September 6, 2008 * Artbox Frankfurt, Galerie der Editionen, October 2-29, 2008 * Stadtmuseum Munster, February 23-April 11, 2010