Rizzoli Electa – förlag

A sequence of 99+1 images by Giovanni Chiaramonte, that, while individually significant, together acquire an extraordinary narrative force.Infinite Realism brings together 99+1 photographs, many of them never published before, taken over a period of two decades from 1980 to the early 2000s. This volume forms an organic overview of Giovanni Chiaramonte’s complex work on the representation of the landscape and the urban view, developed after a long period of theoretical reflection.In this exploration, Italy offers a privileged vantage point: its territory, which appears as a stratification of cultures and civilizations, tells the story of the whole of the West at a glance. Italy is therefore a “contemporary space,” as it encompasses different eras that are visible simultaneously. The Italian landscape serves as the matrix for reading and understanding the West as a whole—its culture and destiny. It is the lens through which Chiaramonte explores.

A sublime volume about one of the most important collections of ancient marble sculptures in the world, an astonishing private trove largely hidden to scholars and the public until now.Last published in a nineteenth-century catalog, the distinguished Torlonia Collection of more than 600 priceless Greek and Roman works--marbles and bronzes, reliefs and sarcophagi, depictions of gods, and portraits of emperors--is one of the most important assemblages of classical sculptures still in private hands anywhere in the world. This eagerly awaited volume presents a selection of nearly 100 sculptures, which have been chosen for their quality and historic significance and which will be featured in an unprecedented exhibition designed by David Chipperfield and held in the Villa Caffarelli, near the Musei Capitolini in Rome, before touring globally. The legendary aura surrounding this, Rome's last princely collection, is due not only to its extraordinary scope and the high quality of the works, but also to the fact that the collection has not been available to the public for decades.This revelatory book features multiple essays by leading experts on the history of the collection and scholarly entries for the works detailing important discoveries made through archaeological research as well as the cleaning and conservation of the sculptures.

This is the catalogue of the important exhibition dedicated to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, which focuses on female empowerment in various domains from the 1960s onward.This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Women in Balance at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence. The project arose as a tribute to Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, who guided the Salvatore Ferragamo company from 1960 until her death in 2018.The volume aims to tell the story of the women who balanced their roles as mothers and wives with their work during the years of the Italian “economic miracle” and beyond. The story of Wanda Ferragamo’s life is accompanied by the voices of women from diverse fields who embodied their time and helped to shape it.Focus is placed on women who have been pioneers in their fields (politics, literature, photography, cinema, art, music, business, science, and technology). This catalogue seeks to trigger reflections on gender relations in contemporary society and the balance needed to reconcile women’s private lives with their passions and professional aspirations.

This book traces the evolution of Bill Beckley’s work through a selection of over 100 works, with critical texts and a conversation with the artist.Bill Beckley is an American conceptual artist and one of the first artists to use photography as a means of artistic expression. In the early 1970s he was part of a loose-knit group of conceptual artists that used images and fictional texts in a form that came to be known as Narrative Art. “I was basically writing a story and taking pictures at the same time. The text evolved with the photos,” he says.In the 1980s he experimented with various materials and his work became more sculptural and pictorial. By the end of the decade, he had found a way to integrate these materials with photography, and this integration became a very important aspect of all his works. In 2019 he produced the Neapolitan Holidays series, inspired by cards dated between 1915 and 1972, sent to or from Naples, Italy. The artist responded to the text on the postcard with an email or a text message—an old postcard receiving a response, sometimes even after a hundred years.

A thorough exploration of Salvatore Ferragamo’s life and work: an inescapable opportunity to analyze the importance of his creativity and entrepreneurial instinct.One hundred years have passed since Salvatore Ferragamo opened his first store, the Hollywood Boot Shop, opposite the recently built Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. This set the seal on the success he achieved in America, where he had emigrated in 1915. He was perfectly integrated in the film world of those years, as important directors entrusted him with the design and creation of shoes for the film stars. His customers were movie actresses and actors, producers, and directors, who could no longer do without the elegant and comfortable footwear of the “shoemaker to the stars,” as the young man from Irpinia was nicknamed. Furthermore, his persona had a certain standing in Hollywood: he sat on the city’s executive committees and lived on the same street as Charlie Chaplin. On May 4, 1923, Holly Leaves magazine pointed out just how much Ferragamo was doing for the city and its residents.The book illustrates various aspects of his life and work, including the difficulties he had to endure during the war, which in the end resulted in incredible surges of creativity, using the limited materials available during those years of scarcity. He literally made shoes with everything, from corks to fish skin.A wide selection of Ferragamo’s patents is also featured. Kept today in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome, these important documents testify to his boundless creativity and mastery of the trade.

A must-have monograph on the global legacy of Gae Aulenti, Italy’s pioneering architect and designer.The most extensive publication to date on Gae Aulenti (1927–2012) accompanies a major retrospective at Triennale Milano in 2024–25. The richly illustrated book includes hundreds of projects—both built and unrealized—and a bibliography of Aulenti’s writings, alongside design documents, drawings, correspondence, and testimonies that capture the complexity of Aulenti’s persona and practice.In 1972, Aulenti was one of twelve Italian designers commissioned to create a site-specific environment for the groundbreaking exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, bringing her work to a global audience as one of the most forward-thinking voices in her field. She realized major projects, including the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where she led the conversion of the former railway station into one of the world’s most renowned museums; the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) in Barcelona; and in Tokyo, where her refined and scenographic approach to exhibition design met wide acclaim. Retracing Aulenti’s contributions across architecture, design, theater, and exhibition making, this book sheds new light on a figure central to shaping Italian and international visual culture in the second half of the twentieth century.

A groundbreaking exploration of Emilio Ambasz’s visionary fusion of nature and architecture—revealing the origins of sustainable design long before it entered the global conversation.Called the “Messiah of Green Architecture,” Emilio Ambasz not only revolutionized design methods, but changed the traditional way of thinking about humanity’s relationship with nature. Instead of the traditional home in a garden, Ambasz’s designs show we can have both, by proposing solutions that restore 100% of the land covered by a building’s footprint to the community, in the form of gardens and parks.For a long time, his vision was considered utopian or eccentric. Today, in light of environmental sustainability concerns, his work is being rehabilitated as prophetic, and he stands out as a forerunner of the sustainable design movement. Organized into eight chapters, this book includes some of his most well-known projects (Lucille Halsell Conservatory, Casa de Retiro Espiritual, Fukuoka Hall, Venice Hospital, Banca dell'Occhio, etc.), as well as unbuilt projects dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, which faithfully convey Ambasz’s vision, his commitment to restoring the right balance between the natural and the artificial, and his ingenuity in coming up with innovative solutions to make vegetation an integral part of architecture.