Damiani – serie

Toiletpaper is an artists’ magazine created and produced by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, born out of a passion or obsession they both cultivate: images. The magazine contains no text; each picture springs from an idea, often simple, and through a complex orchestration of people it becomes the materialization of the artists’ mental outbursts. Since the first issue, in June 2010, Toiletpaper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination. It combines the vernacular of commercial photography with twisted narrative tableaux and surrealistic imagery. The result is a publication that is itself a work of art, which, through its accessible form as a magazine, and through its wide distribution, challenges the limits of the contemporary art economy.

In Fire and Ice: Timescapes Joan Myers gathers volcanoes photographs of iconic sites from all over the world, including Volcano National Park on the island of Hawai'i, Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, Cotopaxi and Picincha in Ecuador, Nevada del Ruiz in Colombia, Mt. Erebus in Antarctica, Krakatoa in Indonesia and of course Mt. Etna and Pompeii. The work is breathtakingly beautiful, compelling and provocative by turns. Her essay reads like an adventure story, exploring the connection between fire and ice while describing her thrilling treks to ends of the Earth.

This book edited by Jerome Sans draws a Lipstick panorama within the world of contemporary art photography. Fully illustrated it is conceived as a magazine or a rhapsody without any beginning or end. Throughout the pages unfurls a new history of the relationship with Lipstick. A story that shows how this feminine symbol with particular flavor has pervaded our culture and its imagery. The book brings together more than 40 international artists and their work from Andy Warhol's self-portrait to intimate pictures of Araki and Nan Goldin, collapsed compositions of Maurizio Cattelan and Pier Paolo Ferrari. Sublimed, made-up, eroticized, parodied...these traces of contemporary cult accoutrement has become an iconic element of contemporary values. A sexy book to be kissed.

The book is a research on the syncretism of the Argentinian rural bandits. The project follows the footsteps of Gauchito Gil and San la Muerte, two of many folk saints not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church but which are flourishing in Argentina. The Gauchito Gil is a legendary character of Argentina’s popular culture. He was allegedly born in the area of Pay Ubre, nowadays Mercedes, Corrientes, possibly in the 1840s, and died on 8 January 1878. He became a mystical symbol of bravery stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. The book includes evocative pictures of the quacks, the pilgrims, the prayer centres, the gauchos arriving on horses to Mercedes the 8 January to celebrate the death of Gauchito Gil, those saved /cured by miracles, the most radical bandits with Gauchito tatooed, the Catholic Church representatives, and so on. Devotees of San La Muerte, which is depicted as a male skeletal figure holding a scythe, make offerings in hopes of favors ranging from health, fortune and protection to revenge. Toni Meneguzzo took the photographs included in the book in different Argentinian areas: Corrientes, El Chaco, Missione and Buenos Aires. The book includes texts by Andreas Sala, Daphné Anglès, Jean Blanchaert, Tommaso Basilio and Toni Meneguzzo.

Profile is a highly personal selection of Jan’s work from the early ‘90’s to 2018. Jan’s defining images cross all kinds of fashion barriers. His respect for the models he works with is evident. His models are raw, sometimes slighty unconventional beauties, quite often with very little hair and make-up. Jan’s images are pure, powerful and evocative, getting to the very soul of the subject. Whether its an androgynous looking girl with a cowboy hat, a model smoking a cigarette on a beach, a movie star or a picture of his wife or children, the pictures are captivating in their simplicity with a very clear style that belongs only to him. His approach to his craft remains unchanged over decades, his style clear, avant-gard and transcendent of trends. Featured are among others Cate Blanchett, Helena Christensen, Eva Herzigova, PJ Harvey, Drew Barrymore, Kirsten Owen, Kylie Minogue, Tatjana Patitz, Jessica Chastain, Christy Turlington, Tilda Swinton, Vanessa Paradis, Gisele Bundchen, Natalia Vodianova, Courtney Love, Doutzen Kroes, Laetitia Casta, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jennifer Connelly, Milla Jovovich, Bella Haddid and Helen Mirren.

Gap Chul LEE creates formidable, intense black & white photographic images that perfecty capture the spirit of Korean culture. LEE’s audacious camera work conveys an oppressed primal impulse and world of shamanism rooted deep in Korea’s collective unconscious. This stems from his characteristic manner of work; approaching subjects intuitively and directly and by depending on contingency, free from aesthetic consideration; and also by preferring rough cropping to a tidy finish or meticulous composition, drawing out chaotic force rather than a harmonious virtual world. This book includes Gap Chul LEE’s most iconic series of works, Conflict and Reaction (1990-2002) and Energy-Qi (2002-2007), as well as his ongoing projects (2008-present). More than half of the book covers the projects underway, which are previously unpublished. Although these works are separate entities, they can be read as a single body of work as they connect solidly to one another in terms of tugging at the vitality and spirituality one possesses.

Alexey Titarenko created the series of collages and photomontages that became Nomenklatura of Signs from 1986-1991, under the strict Soviet rule. This new publication presents the series in its entirety for the first time. Working in secret, Titarenko conceived the project as a way to translate the visual reality of Soviet life into a language that expressed its absurdity, in a hierarchy of symbols that, together, formed a nomenclature — or, in Russian, nomenklatura, a term for the system by which government posts were filled in the Soviet Union. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and other artists of the early 20th century Russian avant-garde, Titarenko captures an uncanny, darkly comic world in which language is controlled and subverted much like the Newspeak of George Orwell’s novel 1984. The book includes an introduction by writer Jean-Jacques Mari and art historian Gabriel Bauret, as well as a critical interpretation of the series by art historian Ksenia Nouril. The book is designed by Kelly Doe Studio, NYC.

The artist’s studio occupies a unique place in the popular imagination. Its environment is both the site of the artist’s creative production, and a deeply private, personal space that nourishes and bears witness to the artist’s working process, in a continuous interplay with its location, layout, interior and ambience. This rare access to the studio by a trusted visitor provides a unique opportunity to experience the lives of artists working in New York, through their methods, materials and influences, contained within the intimate space of the studio, and observed with an acutely sensitive eye. Artist Studios in New York – which Marco Anelli has been exploring since 2011 - leads the viewer into the creative process of internationally famous artists such as Alex Katz, Alfredo Jaar, Cecily Brown, Dan Colen, Elisabeth Peyton, Francesco Clemente, Jack Pierson, Joan Jonas, Joyce Pensato, Jonas Mekas, Jordan Wolfson, Julian Schnabel, Julie Mehretu, Kiki Smith, Lawrence Weiner, Mariko Mori, Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Mickalene Thomas, Nate Lowman, Pat Steir, Rob Wynne, Robert Longo, Stanley Whitney, Tony Oursler, Ugo Rondinone, Urs Fisher, Vik Muniz.

Critic and curator Jeppe Ugelvig recounts a little explored near-history of art/fashion hybridity through the genre- defying practices of Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, BLESS and DIS, exploring their experimental approaches to fashion production between the art and fashion worlds in a time of radical societal change. Through a rich selection of rare and previously unseen photographs and ephemera, the book depicts fashion work in all its exhilarating complexity, tracing it from the atelier of the garment-maker to the post-production editing suite of the fashion photographer. Ugelvig’s comprehensive account connects a mythological 1990s generation of collaborative, DIY fashion producers in New York, Paris and Berlin to the digital and increasingly corporate systems of fashion of the 2010s, where aesthetic activities such as styling and creative directing have become ubiquitous. From the dystopian brand-hacking of Bernadette Corporation to the museum pop-up stores and early sneaker collaborations of BLESS, the book shows how artists not only manage to repeatedly subvert fashion’s frenzied systems, but prototype new forms of aesthetic entrepreneurship.

This spectacular collection of photographs is a follow-up to Wilson’s very successful book, Wild Life, which was published in 2014. With 80 percent new work, stunning landscape format design, a new introduction by Wilson about his philosophy and process, and an essay by Dan Flores, author of the New York Times-bestseller Coyote America, The Other World: Animal Portraits will be a welcome sequel and a strong contender in the popular wildlife photography genre. Although he shoots in the studio, Wilson is inspired by the notion of the “authentic encounter,” that is, allowing the animal to reveal itself to us rather than imposing our subjective notions on it or on the portrait.

Parla’s painterly meditation on life and death in the wake of his perilous Covid encounter.The immersive, monumental paintings documented here were the first works that José Parlá created after his recovery from a life-threatening battle against Covid. The series was installed in the iconic Beaux-Arts Court at the Brooklyn Museum in 2022.

This collective work recently showed in Beijing, merges into a multicoloured playground: installations, videos, photographs and traditional forms entwine so that the barriers and the borders among them melt away. Work from 10 young artists.