Capelli – förlag

London based design consultancy Browns are five years old. In that time they have achieved an award-winning global reputation based on their ability to bridge the gap between the cultural and corporate arenas, manifesting itself as a successful design business. This is the fourth in the 'GCE Directions Series' that takes a look at famous design groups around the globe. In an amazingly short space of time and on top of their expanding brand/identity work, Browns have designed and published some thirteen award-winning books. The books have not only been influential from a design point of view but have also forced the design world to re-think how the barriers separating publishing and design can be broken down. From a New York Sex Club to a frozen Scottish Loch, the book takes a look at how six of these books came to be. In a visual scrap book format, the book tells the story of the personalities, adventures, travels and process surrounding each book, visually all laid bare on the printed page. It gives an insight into the level of commitment, drive and passion required for designers to successfully enter the publishing arena.

"...Ten years have gone by since the first exhibition organised in the Spring of 1989 by the Galleria Gottardo. This was an important exhibition treating one of the most important international photographers of Swiss origin: Robert Frank. And an exhibition, moreover, which was also to have extensively defined one of the recurrent themes in the gallery's exhibition approach. In fact, photography has been one of the fundamental arguments of the exhibition history of the Galleria Gottardo. This volume wishes to bear witness to the activity accomplished during these ten years: remembering it by way of images, reconstructing its history-cum-story with the work carried out by the photographers, and by way of the declarations of gratitude on the part of some of the people who have been close to us during this period. On the one hand, therefore, one has the visual documentation of the exhibitions, their installation projects and the workshops organised by us and, on the other, the words by those people who have know how to understand and appreciate our intentions..." Text in Italian and English.

Text in Italian. This volume collects together a broad spectrum of photographs taken by some of the most famous photographers of the world, such as Edward S Curtis, Frank A Rinehart and Frank Bennet Fiske, as well as of young contemporary photographers, such as Daniel J Denehy, Salvatore Mancini, Toba Tucker, Don Doll, Thomas Lindfors, David M Kennedy.

The volume has been published as a collection of the material (photographs and videos) displayed during the four exhibitions. The artists who contributed to the various themes are: Jacques Berthet; Antonio Biasucci; Markus Bühler; John Davies; Alberto Flammer; Minelli&Repetto; Cristina Zilioli; Gabriele Basilico; Stefania Beretta; Roberto Buzzini; Gilbert Fastenaekens; Claudio Moser; Luciano Rigolini; Thomas Flechtner; Bruna Ginammi; Mimmo Jodice; Alexandra Rajic; Reto Rigassi.

The volume is a rich collection of Swiss photographs from the Banca del Gottardo. Images in the collection include: Joerg Bader, Ruedi Bechtler, Stefania Beretta, Lorenzo Bianda, Martin Blum, Matthias Bosshart, Daniele Buetti, Heinz Brand, Balthasar Burkhard, René Burri, Hans Danuser, Silvie & Chérif Defraoui, Lisa Enderli, Fischli/Weiss, Alberto Flammer, Robert Frank, Thomas Frey, Flor Garduno, Walter Gartmann, Micaela Garzoni, Peter Gasser, Fausto Gerevini, Victor Gianella, René Groebli, Adriano Heitmann, Hans Knuchel, Reto Rigassi, Luciano Rigolini, Béatrice Helg, Olivia Heussler, Felix Stephan Huber, Alan Humerose, Franz Immoos, Jean-Pascal Imsand, Monique Jacot, Simone Kappeler, Pierre Keller, Urs Knoblauch, Katharina Krauss-Vonow, Rudolf Lichtsteiner, Kaspar Th. Linder, Urs Lüthi, René Mächler, Manon, Peter Maurer, Minkoff & Olesen, Claudio Moser, Jacques Pugin, Stefan Rohner, Monica Maria von Rosen, Klaudia Schifferle, Daniel Schwartz, Gaudenz Signorell, Alex Silber, Vladimir Spacek, Annelies Strba, Beat Streuli, Hannah Villiger, Christian Vogt, Bernard Voïta, Cécile Wick, Anna Winteler.

Fabrizio Giannini travels on the surface of his computer and television screens, immersing himself in a flow of homogamous and antagonistic, frivolous or serious, engaged in a furious battle. Making use now of first one, then a different image that attracts or interests him because of the importance of its power of synthesis of grouping. His work becomes an area of negotiation between private sensibility and the surrounding culture. Giannini reproduces for example, in partly modified form, the best known logos of the biggest brand names (Global, 2002-2003), placing the observer immediately in front of images that he recognises. In a series of more intimate works, which he has been working on for a number of years, he creates on paper images from sitcoms, from films and from television programmes, carrying them into a new context -- the walls of an art centre or of a gallery -- in the form of small, airy compositions. Their specific plot reveals their origin. These images, deprived of the movement the originally made them part of a message, now appear deprived of any sense of territoriality. Text in English, French and Italian.

The Giraudi and Wettstein architectural practice was opened in Lugano in 1995 by the architects Sandra Giraudi (1962) and Felix Wettstein (1962). It has made a name for itself in recent years with two important projects: the Basle railway station extension (1996-2003), executed in collaboration with Antonio Cruiz and Antonio Ortiz, and the Computer Laboratories of the Universitá della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (1998-2002). The borgovico 33 exhibition presents eight projects by Giraudi and Wettstein in a minimal exhibition design, specially conceived for the location. A table in the centre of the main Church space greets visitors and invites them to sit on the stools placed along it, each bearing the name of a project. The table is covered with a large canvas, on which the eight projects are printed, and has some models arranged in the centre of the table. Eight spotlights point one at each project, illuminating the half-darkened environment. Resembling a laid table and surrounded by stools, it conjures up the architect's worktop but also moments of encounter and conviviality: the table as a place of discussion, the dinner table... The presentation of the project is completed with a projection on a loop.

The story of the tin as a collection item started in the period following the war. The tin has entered the realm of museum exhibit in every sense, thanks to its singular combination of expert handiwork and industrial production, using a language of extremely varied images and shapes. In time the tin packaging has not only maintained its objective of container and preserver of products of various types, but has assumed more and more the role of visual communicator. The demands of the market, in fact, require that the tins be easily visible, attention grabbing with their colours and shapes, able to be a vehicle for and to reinforce the image of the contents manufacturer in such a way as to favour its purchase by the consumer. And finally, it needs to be acknowledged that the humble tin has taken on new meanings and new cultural significance. It is no longer considered just something useful, to be disposed of after use, but has risen to the rank of object of study of daily life, representing socio-cultural values. The catalogue groups together a large number of items according to precise stylistic and period criteria. The dating is not always reliable, given the difficulty in determining the exact year of manufacture, but it is nevertheless important to attribute a minimum chronological ordering, highlighting that this packaging is the only one of its type and representative of the particular moment in history in which it was created. The history of the tin certainly did not end in 1939, and the exhibition covers not only the fascinating period from 1870 to 1930, but extends through the period between 1950 and 2002. Text in Italian, English and German.

Sandro Glaettli has a proper sensitivity towards forests, photographing them with respect and gentleness. He has learned that the woods are made up of living things: the plants. They grow, talk and sing, develop in every direction and become similar enough to man for us to compare them, grouped together, to cities. "In spite of urbanisation forced on the land at the expense of generative nature, today the woods remain an important place for human life. Tiptoeing through them by day and by night, trying not to disturb anything, Sandro presents for us the images of its silent transformation, sometimes where human have intervened: piling cut timber, planting flowers for their dead, clearing leaves from the paths. He walks in the woods only when he feels like it and photographs them only when an image firmly fixed in his mind present itself to him. It is his hope that one day all will be restored to order and, as the final photograph in this book shows, everything will be set in motion again, restoring the notion of balance that nature observes in its plan, but man in his presumption and arrogance wants to destroy." -- Luca Patocchi

Since the prehistoric times, humans have developed a collective mythology that can justify their existence and, most particularly, answer to the questions arisen by the experience of birth and dead. The fantastic and the imaginary have always characterised the mythological narration, which has been developed at the same place with the artistic creation. During the centuries, and trained from the processes of industrialisation, globalisation and secularisation, these narrations have in part been reconsidered and modified, while new ones have appeared. Today, and beyond the cultural frontiers, we share a multiple and fragmentary mythology, reaching at the same time scientific positivism, psychoanalysis and the most varied religions, but also literature, cinema and comic strips. Andrea Gabutti, Reto Leibundgut, Didier Rittener and Rébecca Sauvin interrogate through their works the presence of the myth and the fantastic in our times.