Silvana – förlag

Brassaï is one of the most famous photographers in history. In the early 1930s, he sets out with his camera on long nocturnal walks through Paris. The depictions of people and environments that emerge when darkness descends over the city become his breakthrough. Through more than two hundred vintage photographic prints, this volume - published on the occasion of a major retrospective hosted in Stockholm - presents an in-depth and original window into Brassaï’s oeuvre. Brassaï (1899–1984) was born in Hungary, but France, and especially Paris, became his home. Here he begins a new era in photography with his penetrating images of the city. But Brassaï travelled all over Europe – including to Italy and Spain – as well as to the United States, creating a photographic trail that bears the imprint of his curiosity and his style.The full chronological range of his production is unveiled here, from his first shots influenced by an affinity with the Surrealist movement to his iconic images of Parisian pleasure-seekers and socialites. Particular attention is given to his images of 'graffiti', captured by Brassaï during his decades-long exploration of the walls of Paris, a mark of his bond with the visual arts and artists such as Jean Dubuffet. Finally, the photographs dedicated to the female nude and to fashion, portraits of artist friends and children, and the small paradoxes and “involuntary sculptures” that reality offered to his gaze and which Brassaï, a creator of images, masterfully grasped in the immediacy of the moment.Text in Swedish.

The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh – will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 (preview 6, 7, 8 May) at the Giardini and the Arsenale venues, and in various locations around Venice.The exhibition is being carried out with the full support of Kouoh's family: "It was important to Koyo that the catalogue for In Minor Keys stands not only as a robust contribution to the archive, but also as an exemplar of the collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and intuitive mode of making that she convened."

What do we see when we observe? What do we see when we observe a photograph? Ghirri's work is distinguished by the tension between the object and its representation, and there is nothing that he loves more than those situations in which boundaries become permeable; his work has taught us a new way of seeing, giving meaning to what is seemingly obvious. This is not the landscape that is normally perceived, but the one that is supposed to be latent, inscribed on the reverse: landscape of memory and fairytale, the landscape of hidden figures and wonders. In this direction, Ghirri has always preferred common and familiar places, already seen, but for the first time 'observed' with different eyes, where everything is suspended between past and future and where, like in the countryside, the world can be imagined as a vision which still arouses wonder. A thought-landscape. Text in English and Italian.

The success of Christian Dior's first essence, Miss Dior, was so outstanding as to leave its permanent mark in history. Ten years on from the founding of his perfume factory, on 24 October 1957, Christian Dior's untimely death conferred a new dimension to a decade characterised by an uncommon destiny.Text in English and French.

The collection of works by Giorgio Morandi selected by Antonio and Matilde Catanese belongs to the tradition of great Milanese collectors who had a far-sighted view of the painter, acquiring his works in the 1930s and becoming among the first to contribute to his fame. The Morandi’s works in the Catanese collection are a microcosm of the artist’s oeuvre, thanks to the number of works, their chronological spread covering almost all the years of the artist’s activity, the techniques used to create them, their themes, their place in collecting history and, most importantly, their artistic importance, rendering the collection well suited for deciphering and understanding Morandi’s work.The group includes 15 paintings made between 1914 and 1959 and three watercolours representing the distinctive themes of his work indicated by anodyne titles: Still Life, Landscape, Flowers and, most importantly, a Self-Portrait dated 1914 by Morandi.Another integral part of the collection is the almost complete series of etchings, showing the collectors’ embrace of the technique that Morandi practised in parallel to painting and that cannot be separated from it.The works have been the subject of scientific investigations, preliminary to restoration and conservation, conducted by the University of Urbino, the results of which are presented here.Texts by: Cristina Bandera, Luca Cecchetto, Mariella Gnani, Buccolini Federica, Paolo Triolo, Sabrina Burattini, Laura Valentini.Text in English and Italian.

"... Full-page illustrations, drawings, paintings, photos, film scenes accompanied by texts allow the reader to forget reality for a moment. Dreams replace reality." — Mensch Maus… !The volume accompanies the major exhibition - the first in Italy - that the National Cinema Museum dedicates to Tim Burton (1958). A journey into the visionary universe and creativity of the Californian director through original works of art, photographs, film material - storyboards, costumes, sketches, maquettes - and precious documents, many of which come from his personal archive.The volume retraces Tim Burton’s 30-year production from his beginnings, with Beetlejuice and Batman, up to the recent great success of Wednesday, highlighting the evolution of his singular imagination, which draws not only from the most varied forms of popular culture - such as fairy tales, comics, television films - but also to classic illustrators such as Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Don Martin and Theodore Geisel, to expressionist cinema, to the horror catalogue of Universal Studios and the masters of suspense William Castle and Vincent Price.Likewise, it emerges how ideas, themes and even some images peculiar to his art have flowed into the most iconic films that we today associate with the sumptuous cinema spectacle.Text in English and Italian.

Giacomelli's landscape is both real and invented, just as his eye is both visionary and visual. It is a pretext to represent another situation. His landscapes are 'written landscapes' in which the horizon is almost completely eliminated: a fusion of time and non-time. In his landscapes, the relationship between countryside and memory, between Giacomelli and a denied and accepted mother earth, is more dramatic, resulting in a dry and great representation. He captured the marks, material and furrows of the earth and in them he found parallels with human bodies, since the earth, in his poetics, is the flesh of man. Text in English and Italian.

Paul Guiragossian (1926-1993) is one of the most influential artists to emerge from the Arab World in the 20th century. Born to Armenian parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide, he experienced the consequences of exile, first as a child, and later on as a young refugee from Jerusalem arriving to Beirut in the late 1940s.In the '50s Paul started teaching art in several Armenian schools and worked as an illustrator. He later started his own business with his brother Antoine painting cinema banners, posters, and drawing illustrations for books. Soon after he was discovered for his art and introduced to his contemporaries after which he began exhibiting his works in Beirut and eventually all over the world.

Arman 1975–2005, edited by Chiara Spangaro and produced by Studio Celant in collaboration with the Arman Archives, New York, is devoted to the artist’s creative journey and production of the last 30 years of his life.The volume, which continues and completes the earlier monograph Arman 1954–1974 edited by Germano Celant (2020), presents the professional biography and oeuvre of the French-American artist through original research that addresses in detail the evolution of his practice and investigates his constant exploration in the many series he conceived, including New Accumulations, Shooting Colors, Dirty Painting, Atlantis, Accumulations de collections, Emersions, and Sandwich Combos, just to mention a few.In addition to the editor’s introductory essay, the volume is further enriched by a series of studies by Cécile Debray, Rose­mary O’Neill and Jérôme Sans. The authors draw on contemporary critical discourse to investigate key aspects of Arman’s work, including his performances, his global outreach, the development of his monumental projects, and his influence on subsequent generations.These essays are followed by an extensive illustrated chronology of Arman’s professional and personal life that highlights the outstanding events, exhibitions, and works in the last 30 years of his artistic endeavours. Particular emphasis is placed on the many critical accolades he has received, interwoven with accounts of the historic and artistic context of the time. The volume is completed by a full scholarly apparatus.

This book is published on the occasion of an exhibition in Milan, which was first shown in Murcia (Spain) and after in Siena (September 2009 - January 2010), featuring a selection of 114 pictures, some of which are previoiusly unpublished, almost all of small size, by the famous American photographer Francesca Woodman. Born in Denver in 1958, daughter of the ceramist Betty and the painter George Woodman, Francesca started to work with the camera when she was only thirteen, by making her first self-portrait. In the nine following years, before her suicide in January 1981 when she was only twenty-three, she kept on taking pictures of herself at home, in the midst of nature, on her own or with friends, while in action shots or in studied poses. With texts by Isabel Tejeda, Marco Pierini and Lorenzo Fusi, a biography of the artist and a complete bibliography, this book is the most recent and most complete publication of the artist's work. Text in English and Italian.

The volume collects a rich selection of photographs from the archives of the Magnum Photos agency, taken by Robert Capa, in a combination of emblematic shots of his work and images that have appeared more rarely.The intent is to hint at some facets of a passionate and ultimately elusive character as Capa was: a courageous witness of his time, a strong, insatiable and at the same time dissatisfied personality, with the traits of a gambler. Therefore, not only the war images that made him one of the most famous photojournalists of the 20th century, but also lesser-known shots that allow you to appreciate the very high formal quality of his photography and, together with it, his personality.Text in English, Italian and French.

The dramatic events of the troubled life of Caravaggio, one of the most formidable painters in the history of art of all time, are retraced in this volume, updated in light of the latest discoveries, and published on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his documented birth in Milan in 1571. Examined here are the most significant circumstances that shattered, in just 14 years, the brief course of the great Lombard genius’ professional life: from his arrival in Rome in 1596 to his tragic and still mysterious death in Porto Ercole in 1610. A compelling story that exerts an irresistible attraction, perhaps equal to that emanating from the artist’s masterpieces, in which his innermost essence shines through.His exceptional works, characterised by ingenious intuitions and a revolutionary way of painting, are here rigorously analysed, for the first time on a large scale, not only from a historical and stylistic point of view but also from a technical- executive one. A methodology that in recent years has become one of the essential components for a full understanding of the Caravaggio phenomenon. It is for this reason that the historical-artistic files of the autograph works are flanked by specific technical-diagnostic notes that complete and integrate the reading of his extraordinary paintings.

“I do not believe you can be a good photographer if you aren’t curious about others” — Martine FranckThis book was conceived to shed light on the significant visual contribution made to photography by Martine Franck (Anverra, 1938 - Paris, 2012), an influential woman photographer active during the final third of the 20th-century. Celebrating her most renowned images of childhood, old age and theatre, many of which have become iconic, this book also offers a glimpse into swathes of her work depicting labour, the women’s liberation movement and consumer society, which have seldom been displayed before now.This new retrospective brings to a wider audience this truly humanistic artist, who engaged so deeply with her times, and for whom the camera was the privileged medium for Looking at Others.

The volume offers a chance to approach the work of Brassaï (1899-1984), a multifaceted figure in the history of French photography.A painter, sculptor and writer in addition to being a photographer, his name is inextricably linked to the masterpiece Paris de Nuit, published in 1933 with a preface by Paul Morand. Brassaï’s views of the capital – illuminated by public lighting and other sources, and at times shrouded in fog – lend a mysterious aura to the urban landscape. Brassaï was a forerunner in capturing the night-time atmosphere of different areas of Paris, masterfully blending photographic art with his personal sensitivity.The volume, curated by the photographer’s nephew Philippe Ribeyrolles, sets out to revive Brassaï’s body of work, offering an overview of his evolution over the years. From the artist’s collaboration with Edward Steichen to international recognition in the wake of his 1957 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Brassaï’s influence spreads far beyond the French borders.The volume includes texts by Philippe Ribeyrolles, Silvia Paoli, an interview with Gilbert Brassaï, the artist’s wife, and biographical information.Text in English and French.

From Lucio Fontana to Ada Minola, from Salvador Dalí to Man Ray, from Gio’ Pomodoro to Giovanni Corvaja, the volume presents an anthology of internationally renowned artists who have engaged with the theme of the artist’s jewellery: 32 portraits originally published in the Maestri orafi column of the Corriere della Sera.Between memories and encounters, art and enterprise, the jewel emerges as an intellectual and identity-bearing language, capable of illuminating private experiences and public works of art, places and people in their daily and symbolic dimensions, offering the reader an original perspective on 20th-century goldsmithing creativity, autonomous and fully accomplished work of art.Artists: Ada Minola, Piero Gilardi, Bruno Martinazzi, Mario Giansone, Umberto Mastroianni, Enrico Cirio | Fausto Melotti, Gio’ Pomodoro, Nino Franchina, Man Ray, Lucio Fontana, Max Ernst, Louise Nevelson, Niki de Saint Phalle, Salvador Dalí, Elsa Schiaparelli, Arnaldo Pomodoro | Tania Pistone, Jessica Carroll, Giulio Paolini, Ugo Nespolo Giorgio Vigna, Giovanni Corvaja, Grazia Varisco, Cleto Munari, Giuseppe Penone, Matteo Bonafede | Mattioli, Palmerio, Tataborello, Lorenzo e Paola Monticone Musy.Text in English and Italian.

The beach has long been a compelling subject in photography, serving as the perfect stage for the grand 'human comedy.' Under the vast, indifferent sky, people come and go like actors in an endless play. The ocean, timeless and indifferent, mirrors the comedy and tragedy of human existence.The book presents a selection of photographers who have explored the beach from many perspectives: Ferdinando Scianna, Bruno Barbey, Bruce Gilden, Harry Gruyaert, Martin Parr, Trent Parke, Olivia Arthur and Newsha Tavakolian. Throughout history, Magnum photographers have captured the beach in strikingly different ways, reflecting both cultural moments and timeless human experiences. Whether in colour or black and white, whether depicting joy, solitude, or the sublime power of nature, beach photography continues to be a rich and evocative theme, inviting viewers to see the shore as more than just a destination, but as a canvas for visual expression.Text in English and Italian.

The Venus of Arles, drawing on Praxiteles’ art, is one of the most striking depictions of Aphrodite, goddess of desire, beauty, and vital energy.Discovered in Arles in 1651, gifted to Louis XIV, installed at Versailles, and now considered a major work at the Louvre, her absence from Provence has enhanced her prestige and created the myth of “the great pagan” celebrated by the Félibres.Its loan to the Musée départemental Arles antique, accompanied by numerous masterpieces, offers an opportunity to explore the Empire of Venus in all its breadth: a dazzling apparition born of sea foam, an erotic and cosmic force, goddess of adornments, an ardent figure, then a fertile one, finally a myth contested and reinvented by today’s writers, historians, and artists.This book on the Venus of Arles, featuring numerous illustrations, scholarly essays, thematic analyses, and historical documents, unveils the multiple identities of the Arlesian statue.Aphrodite emerges as an active force, admired and feared, a figure still alive, still capable of bewitching our present.

Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) added to his successful activity as architect, professor and theorist, also that - equally well known - of designer: in this field he continued with great professionalism and passion until his untimely death in 1997, collaborating with some of the most important Italian and international manufacturers, such as Alessi, Artemide, Bruno Longoni Atelier d’Arredo, Molteni, Rosenthal and Unifor.The volume investigates Aldo Rossi’s activity in the design sector in its entirety, presenting the furnishings and objects designed and manufactured from 1960 to 1997.Among these, some pieces well known to the public stand out, such as the La Conica and La Cupola coffee makers by Alessi, the Cabina dell’Elba by Bruno Longoni Atelier d’Arredo or the Paris chair by Unifor, just to name a few.The analysis of this production, which also includes unpublished projects and prototypes, highlights the continuous and constant relationship with architecture, while the technical drawings and photographic and archival documentation help to restore the history of each piece.The volume includes a critical essay by Domitilla Dardi.Text in English and Italian.

Enzo Mari was an inventor of languages, a constructor of grammars - intended as methods or sets of rules -, deeming these instruments necessary to “communicate knowledge with improved quality and efficiency”.It is impossible to define his discipline or his profession: he is an artist, an industrial designer, a graphic designer, an architect, but also a theorist, a pedagogue, an intellectual, possibly a philosopher, certainly a utopian who knew how to programme quiet revolutions which are, even today, often misunderstood when not totally unknown; these are some of the many facets of a complex and revolutionary personality.The root of his design methodology, which characterises the process of all the studies he later conducted, originates in his initial research into the field of visual arts, i.e. the research into the perceptual ambiguity of three-dimensional space that he undertook in the early 1950s, when he was still a scenography student at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.What characterises Mari’s design process is a “scientific” method made up of codes, theorems, theses, the construction of tools and instruments, tests, the comparison of models and the transcription of results deriving from his observations.This volume intend to return to the public a mnemonic atlas, a mapping system that can be used to explore and understand the complex nuances of the research conducted by Mari. Semantic research and verifications that have resulted in the programming of art, and which constitute the basis of the method that defines a process common to all the research, disciplines and utopias he pursued.Text in English and Italian.

The book traces two decades of Gabriele Basilico’s (1944–2013) photographic research on urban centres, suburbs, and layered cityscapes, presented exclusively through colour photographs. One of the leading figures in contemporary photography, Basilico consistently explored the urban environment throughout his career.From his hometown of Milan to cities across Italy and around the world, the metropolis was always at the heart of Gabriele Basilico’s documentary photography.Featuring an introduction by Filippo Maggia and critical essays by Vincenzo Castella and Angela Vettese, this is the first monograph devoted exclusively to the photographer’s colour work.Text in English and Italian.

The book tells the story of Arredoluce. The company produced lamps and furnishing accessories which, in the post-war industrial boom, helped to write the history of Made in Italy .Arredoluce was born in 1943 in Monza, and was heavily influenced by the entrepreneur and designer Angelo Lelii. Arredoluce's curiosity for innovations from abroad, combined with a love for traditional materials - above all, glass - and a maniacal attention to detail marked the production line of the company, producing modern and sought-after specimens.Arredoluce is best remembered for his numerous participations at the Triennale di Milano, his quotes on Domus, and collaborations with designers such as Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass Jr. He also enjoyed great success abroad, with orders from luxury hotels the world over. The company, however, underwent generational changes, and this combined with the new economic scenarios, led to its closure in the 1990s. This volume offers an important contribution to perpetuating the name of this glorious company, and ensuring it has its rightful place in the history of Italian industry.Text in English and Italian.

A multidisciplinary artist, Shirin Neshat (1957, Qazvin) works with photography, video, film and theatre, creating highly lyrical narratives and politically loaded visions that question the themes of power, religion, race and the relationship between past and present, east and west, individual and collective.The volume, on the occasion of the first major solo exhibition in Italy dedicated to Neshat at PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, spans the artist’s more than 30-year career, with almost 200 photographs and ten video installations, collected by the world’s most important museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, the Guggenheim, New York and Tate Modern.Neshat interprets the history and present of her birth country, Iran, and indeed the whole world from the female perspective: from her debut in the 1990s with the Women of Allah series, comprising photographs of women whose bodies are inscribed with poetic calligraphy, to The Fury, a video installation that anticipates the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.Neshat’s work, however, goes beyond the theme of gender and uses male/female dualism as a starting point for exploring the tension between belonging and exile, sanity and insanity, dream and reality.Text in English and Italian.

The works of Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) and Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), two notable authors of 20th century art, are compared for the first time in a project aimed at illustrating their points of tangency, the result of a shared sentiment whose ultimate aspiration is the search for the absolute.The volume therefore presents the ideal encounter and the powerful dialogue between these two figures, so distant in attitudes and in life, but equally linked by a reflection on the truth in art, which blossomed against the background of an era afflicted by questions about man and its role in the universe.Both have worked on matter by removing its encumbrance and opacity, poised between the primordial dimension of time and the cosmological dimension of space, animated by the same magnificent obsession, that for the invisible that is inside and outside of us, in the flesh and in the cosmos, in cells and stars.Texts by: Sergio Risaliti, Chiara Gatti, Paolo Campione, Alessandro Del Puppo, Serenella Todesco, Marco Senaldi, Cristina Beltrami, Marco Fagioli.

The immense ambition and scale of Gordon Matta-Clark's projects, and their fearless reimagining of the urban landscape, challenged city-dwellers to reconsider the very notion of built structure and the fragility of seemingly unassailable edifices. Matta-Clark's first interventions took place in abandoned, derelict structures, upon which he performed his famous 'building cuts' and 'intersects'. First published in 2008 (for a show at SMS Contemporanea in Siena), and organised thematically and chronologically, this substantial volume looks at these and other bodies of work, such as the Food restaurant, the performances, the 'estates' and the artist's pursuit of alternative economical housing. The catalogue also includes a filmography and critical essays, plus an interview done by Judith Russi Kirshner in 1978. Text in English and Italian.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence for seventeen African countries, the Museum for Fine Arts in Brussels in partnership with the Royal Museum of Central Africa presents during Summer 2010 the festival L'AFRIQUE VISIONNAIRE (VISIONARY AFRICA). This catalogue is published to accompany an exhibition celebrating fifty years of African photography, illustrating how collective identities of postcolonial Africa were built. Panafricanism has become something concrete in the exchange between artists, above all in connection with the elaboration of common aesthetic and research. Photography, in the process of emancipation and the writing of an endogenous history, is undoubtedly the best support: African photographers' innovative role will therefore be highlighted in the process of understanding generational and social changes. The catalogue will include an introduction by Simon Njami and a text by Jean-Loup Pivin.

In the Quattrocento, an era when the representation of the human figure was dominated by timeless images based on Botticelli's example, Leonardo worked with light and colour to achieve a modelling that would restore three-dimensionality to the face and soften the rigours of perspective in a misty landscape, no longer a mere backdrop but a vivid pictorial transposition of careful scientific studies and refined psychological analyses. In Leonardo's pictures, it is the changing atmospheric conditions that complement and breathe life into the delicate rendering of the forms and the emotional experiences of the subjects.Thus the artist created powerfully expressive religious pictures and secular portraits that have a modern and disquieting quality in which the faces are true 'windows of the soul', highlighting a silent psychological dialogue between the painting's subject and the observer. Artistic innovations are sustained by a new sensitivity, as well as by study of the refraction of colour, to which much space is dedicated in the Florentine master's theoretical writings.The present book offers an exhaustive account of this unique human, artistic, and intellectual adventure through a comprehensive and up-to-date art historical analysis of Leonardo's work accompanied by spectacular illustrations. Contents: Introduction; Biography; Gallery.

The work of Titian (c. 1490-1576) represents the point of arrival for a whole pictorial tradition: his early emphasis on colour developed into the art of a mature and then elderly painter seeking to explore night and darkness, to dim hues, and to push the use of liquid and dusky tones to the very limit. A prolific painter and the head of a well-organised workshop, Titian was at the same time capable of perfectly meeting new tastes. By renewing and setting the standard for the official images and aesthetics of the ruling class of his day, he became the first truly European artist, praised to high heaven by his admirers. Particularly revealing is Ludovico Dolce's panegyric: 'the greatness and the power of Michelangelo, the sweetness and beauty of Raphael and the very colours of Nature herself'. Highly sought after by collectors, disputed by royal courts and pontiffs, the master from Cadore created works that are now on display in museums across the world. This volume exceptionally brings together some of Titian's greatest masterpieces, including his large altarpieces, in such a way as to illustrate the whole span of his career.

Josef Albers (1888-1976) believed firmly in art's spiritual dimension. Among his several aphorisms on the topic, none reflects the humble, ascetic character of his spiritual disposition better than the following: 'Easy to know that diamonds are precious. Good to know that rubies have depth. But more to see that pebbles are miraculous'. Conceived by the renowned Albers expert Nicholas Fox Weber, who directed the Albers Foundation for 20 years and knew the artist well, Spirituality and Rigor presents a selection of work by Albers that illustrates his ascetic spirituality and his deeply felt Catholicism. The book stems in part from Fox Weber's The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist, and is augmented with additional work by Fabio De Chirico. It includes Albers' early drawings of country churches and cathedrals; 'Rosa Mystica', his stained glass window for St Michael's Church, and other glass works containing religious imagery; his abstractions of crosses and geometric abstractions with spiritually themed titles, from his 'Black Mountain' years; his prints of Mexican gods; photographic interpretations of the theme of angels; and a selection from the 'Homage to the Square' series. Text in English and French.

This exhibition this book accompanied - organised in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy, in celebration of the '2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States' - was dedicated to the genius of De Chirico. De Chirico was one of the most important figures in Italy's modern art world, who with Carlo Carrà founded the metaphysics movement: a way to express and set down a world that goes well beyond visible material reality, where past and present criss-cross and intertwine, where hopes and dreams coexist. The marvellous sculptures and drawings on display at the Phillips Collection, demonstrate how De Chirico (1888-1978) uses figures from mythology, archaeological artifacts, and historical events to create images that suggest an alternate, mysterious reality. They will absorb the visitor in a learning expedition through a contemporary metaphysical alphabet, one that is deeply innovative precisely because it is able to reinterpret the past.