Five Continents Editions – serie

Alejandro Merizalde began photographing in Venice in 2008. In his early visits he found the city stiflingly overcrowded, but during a brief winter trip a few years later, the overcast skies and foggy atmosphere allowed him to draw out Venice's legendary beauty without the disruptions of mass tourism. In 2013 he started experimenting with longer exposures to eliminate the distractions of human activity and enable him to concentrate on his architectural compositions. This shift in approach was gradual, but it helped him realise that he was no longer interested in recording iconic features like St Mark’s Basilica, the Bridge of Sighs and the gondola, to name a few. From then on, he dropped the predictable locations and buildings and trained his lens on the Venice lagoon and areas of the city where Venetians actually spend their lives.Text in English, French and Italian.

An elegant photographic book highlights BFF’s new headquarters. Viale Scarampo, in Milan, saw the inauguration in 2025 of the BFF Banking Group’s new headquarters, a building whose transparent airiness and environmental and social sustainability ensure it provides an entirely original contribution to the city’s skyline. Designed by OBR (Open Building Research), the structure places the accent on the brightness of its interior and does not seek to compete in height with the skyscrapers of the nearby City Life district. The book is organised in a series of alternating photographs and text, drawing attention not only to the architectural features and the building’s functional characteristics, but also to the aim of creating a working environment that is intimately linked to its surroundings, in contrast to the traditional view of corporate architecture.Casa BFF is not only the headquarters of a B2B bank, it is also a building that embraces the neighbourhood and the city as a whole, starting with the museum it houses, which is accessible to all and contains the BFF Collection of post-war Italian art. Here the visitor will find works by Valerio Adami, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri, Lucio Del Pezzo, Lucio Fontana, Gianfranco Pardi, Mario Schifano, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Giò Pomodoro and Emilio Tadini. The Bank inaugurated the museum with an exhibition dedicated to Enrico Baj’s series of 40 etchings inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The book does full justice to the exhibition spaces, as well as to the works that hang on the building’s walls.Text in English and Italian.

Racines | Roots is a vibrant art book reflecting the unique vision of a passionate collector and entrepreneur. Garance Primat unveils a selection of works drawn from the heart of her aesthetic and spiritual journey. For her, art is a life-sustaining force: deep roots nourish our being and link us to nature, allowing us to flourish like a tree.Born into a family responsive to nature and art, she has honed her eye through contact with different cultures during her travels, particularly in Australia and the United States, where she became aware of how everything in the realm of nature was interconnected. This quest inspired her to acquire the Domaine des Étangs in Charente Limousine.With its ability to question the world and shape the future, contemporary art occupies a special place in her eclectic collection, interacting with modern art from around the world, minerals and wisdom-bearing objects. Garance Primat invites us to trust her sensibility as we explore the universal, where words struggle to grasp the interconnectedness of living things. An original message emerges from the “root” of things, awakening a shared consciousness. This book, built around the etymology of seven key words linked to nature and the universe, is an invitation to let ourselves be carried away by the senses and discover the invisible links that unite us.      Text in English and French.

The fashion, history, and development of Jewish dress tells a story that spans the globe and crosses many cultures. In this colourful volume, Jewish communities - particularly those established for centuries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa - are revealed through their garments. Stunning photographs spin tales of family traditions and religious devotion, with a special section dedicated to jewellery worn by brides and grooms. Superb photographs of specific garments, with many close-up details, are juxtaposed with rare contextual photographs from The Israel Museum's archives to create a tapestry of a people revealed through textiles, costume, and images. More than 350 revelatory illustrations tell us how these precious articles of dress were originally worn.

Inspired by the teachings and research of Patricia Fortini Brown, a renowned scholar of Venetian art and history, these beautifully illustrated essays by leading scholars address topics ranging from painted Venetian narrative cycles of the late 15th century to the rebuilding of the Campanile in the early 20th century. This book was derived from papers given at the Giorgione Symposium held at Princeton University on the occasion of Fortini Brown's recent retirement. The superb study offers new reflections on artists as diverse as Andrea Mantegna, the Bellini family, Giorgione, Pietro Lombardo, Paolo Veronese, Andrea Palladio, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

This A3-format title brings together a selection of 50 exhibition posters designed by Werner Jeker (Les Ateliers du Nord, Lausanne) presented at the Collection de l’Art Brut between 1976 and 2026. This renowned Lausanne-based German-Swiss graphic artist has worked with the museum since it opened and is also responsible for the layout of this publication. The Collection de l’Art Brut would like to take advantage of this project to show its appreciation of this fruitful collaboration spanning five decades.Text in English and French.

Swiss Art Brut 1945–2026 is being published to coincide with an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Collection de l’Art Brut (Swiss). It brings together a wide range of works from the Lausanne museum’s collection that were created by Swiss artists or artists who worked in Switzerland. With Switzerland as the common thread, this publication and the accompanying exhibition highlight the close and lasting ties between the originator of the concept of art brut Jean Dubuffet and this country. Indeed, it was this close bond that led him to donate his collection of outsider art to the City of Lausanne in order to ensure its preservation and the public’s access to it.The book includes a foreword by writer Metin Arditi and a presentation by Sarah Lombardi, director of the museum and curator of the exhibition, followed by Jean Dubuffet’s own handwritten notes recounting his trip to Switzerland in search of extra-cultural works in the summer of 1945. This previously unpublished document is reproduced here in facsimile. Other authors provide further analyses of the works: Michel Thévoz, the museum’s first director; Lucienne Peiry, who succeeded him until 2011; Andreas Steck, president of the Aloïse Corbaz Association; and Astrid Berglund and Eleanor Philippoz, respectively curator and outreach coordinator at the Collection de l’Art Brut.

One of the first people in Europe to consider the gifts which the Aztec ruler Montezuma gave to Hérnan Cortés as works of art was Albrecht Dürer: 'Nothing I have yet seen has given me such joy as the objects brought to the king from the new gold countries [...] Some pieces display an extraordinary skill; I have been astonished by the ingenuity of the inhabitants of those far distant lands,' he wrote. It was 1520 and those works had been sent to Brussels. The five centuries that have passed since the beauty of these objects was first noticed seem not to have been enough for the ancient cultures of Latin America to be fully understood. This catalogue of pre-Columbian art is a fresh attempt to examine and come to terms with artworks produced by a section of mankind that came to the attention of Europeans only after the voyages of Columbus and other explorers. It illustrates the collection of pre-Columbian art of Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue, one of the few collections of its kind in Italian hands: over 150 pieces from Mesoamerica and South America, an extraordinary corpus of objects which give testament to the excellence achieved by ancient artists. But it also tells the story of certain rare objects which belonged to the Medici Collection, one of Europe's greatest treasures. Among these are two atlatls, spear-throwers covered in gold-leaf from the Aztec or Mixtec cultures, a Taíno necklace dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and a Teotihuacan stone mask. These objects are accompanied by pieces from private European collections and a number of significant artworks from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. Essays by leading scholars and archaeologists, such as C. Phillips, C.F. Baudez, J.M. Hoppan, J.J. Leyenard, F. Kauffmann Doig, C. Cavatrunci, D. Domenica, and M. Polia, weave both scientific and humanistic interpretations of Amerindian thought. The Giancarlo and Inti Ligabue Collection of masterpieces of ancient Latin American cultures is part of a huge and broad-ranging hoard of objects gathered over a period of almost fifty years.

Noire Idole is an immersive journey into a sophisticated world, both in terms of the choice of subject matter and form and as regards the way these are given artistic expression. The gear on the set lets the imagination and virtuosity of the craftsmen run riot. None of the objects are fake; they exude a natural perfection whose mirror image is simply reflected back to us.It is also a sensory journey into the shadows, alongside the reclining smoker. The choice of a black background transforms reality. The outlines of the furnishings become blurred, vision becomes clouded, the present is endlessly suspended.At the same time, it is a journey through memory, where drugs are merely a pretext for the narrative. Indochina appears within and between the lines. The author reveals his double loss: a vanished ritual and a dead dream, an unfulfilled French passion. Noire Idole is a collection of texts. A compendium brought together in the name of emotion, cultural exchange, and mutual fascination. The writing is leavened by contemporary pictures in the form of a collection of exceptional, previously unpublished photographs.

Featuring visionary creators from various fields, from art and contemporary dance to architecture and robotics, this lavishly illustrated book reports from the forefront of the crossdisciplinary synthesis that creates new forms of art. The project was initiated by Diana Vishneva, principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater in New York (2005-2017) and the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, and a tireless experimenter known for collaborations that have redefined the future of dance. The book presents interviews with choreographers William Forsythe and Carolyn Carlson; photographer Nick Knight; artists Bill Viola and Olafur Eliasson; architects Toyo Ito and Santiago Calatrava; robotics inventor Raffaello d'Andrea, and other creators who actively stretch the conventional limits of their fields. Included in the volume is a DVD of a film created for this project using state-of-the-art technologies to translate the language of dance into that of cinema.

Many of Gauguin’s portraits of Breton and Polynesian sitters, as well as his self-portraits, include inanimate objects. Intriguing as these are, the works in Paul Gauguin’s portrait gallery have never really been the subject of a thorough study. This book, first published in English in 2005, fills a gap in the scholarly literature on Gauguin, one of the leading figures in post-Impressionist art, with an in-depth, well-illustrated examination of his portraits. An array of experts on Gauguin’s art reflect on the symbolic attributes his models were endowed with, and the meaning behind the evocative settings he chose for them. The authors explore the many aspects of the artist’s portraits, often in light of the remarks he made about his models, and focus on their importance in relation to his larger oeuvre. This book, which is intended as a standard text in this field, includes essays written by experts in Gauguin’s work, all established scholars and researchers.Text in French.

Following on from the success of the exhibition Before Time Began,Fondation Opale is taking on a new challenge with a show that juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal art with prominent examples of contemporary art created in a Western and Asian tradition. This beautifully illustrated catalogue includes more than eighty works by over 54 artists from two separate collections, both of which are outstanding in their own right: the collection of Aboriginal art belonging to Bérengère Primat and the contemporary art collection amassed by Garance Primat. The works play off each other with powerful effect. Insightful pairings suggest an underlying unity, a merging of mankind, heaven, earth, and the whole cosmos.The Aboriginal artists represented include: Rover Thomas, Gulumbu Yunupingu, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Judy Watson, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarrey, Paddy Bedford, Nonggirrnga Marawili, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, and John Mawurndjul. The artists working in the Western and Oriental traditions include: Jean Dubuffet, Kiki Smith, Anselm Kiefer, Sol Lewitt, Yayoi Kusama, Giuseppe Penone, and Anish Kapoor.Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Opale, Lens - Crans Montana, 14 June 2020 - 4 April 4 2021.

This book offers a review of Matteo Pugliese’s art over the past 20 years. The figures the Milanese sculptor creates are distinguished by their great power, revealing an inner torment that can no longer be disguised. The men depicted in his sculptures are all trying to break free of the wall that holds them, to throw off their limitations and assert their value as individuals in the hopes of escaping from dull uniformity and social and family expectations. These are people who are attempting to achieve a painful rebirth by struggling against materialised restraint — a wall — that seeks to prevent them expressing themselves, growing and therefore existing. The artist chooses to portray the moment of greatest effort, of supreme tension, the instant when a man regains control of his life and struggles against what is holding him trapped so as to restore a sense of purpose in his life. The carefully studied poses of his figures recall ancient models, in the same way as the material from which they are fashioned is also ancient. Luigi Spina’s lens knowingly lingers on these figures’ troubled birth and enables the reader, admirer, and art historian to acquire an intimate understanding of the sculpture and even to feel a part of the travails and manifest vulnerability that grip all of humanity.Text in English and Italian.

Headrests from Southern Africa - The architecture of sleep presents the subject of southern African headrests in a fascinating new light. The book, richly illustrated – often with in situ photographs, offers unique historical and personal information collected from many of the original owners and carvers of the headrests. So, for the first time African headrests are brought to life with detailed information and the stories of their creation, ownership, use and significance.The 438 headrests from the collections of Bruce Goodall from Cape Town and Frédéric Zimer from Paris are presented according to 3 geographical areas: KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo (where the Ntwane people live) and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland).Since 2003, Goodall has made numerous field trips collecting, as well as interviewing and photographing the owners and carvers of headrests. In 2017, Goodall’s collection grew substantially with the purchase of a comprehensive collection of headrests from the Msinga area of KwaZulu-Natal. This collection had been assembled and meticulously documented by the late Anglican priest Clive Newman and his friend and assistant, Mavis Duma, between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s. The Zimer collection has been built up since the 1990s through his many travels in Africa, and his acquisitions from collectors and African art dealers around the world.This publication not only offers insight into the personal and historical dimensions of this important southern African tradition through the text written about the headrests and their owners by Bruce Goodall, but includes essays by Newman, Nel and Leibhammer and a text about collecting by Duma. Together these facilitate a penetrating understanding of these valued items as well as a respectful appreciation of the cultures and individuals who made and used them.

José Bedia: Inner Circle Journey 1976 – 2026 is a rich exploration of the career and work of Cuban artist – José Bedia. From being a formative member of the “Volumen Uno” Cuban art renaissance, Bedia’s international outreach continually grew from the 1980’s onward, reaching worldwide acclaim - spanning from his participation in the monumental exhibit Magiciens de la Terre in 1989 to winning First Prize at the Beijing Biennale in 2010. His unique artistic craft focuses on organic elements, tribal symbology, and shamanism from diverse cultures. Bedia’s work and artistic creations are deeply informed by living and past ancestral communities everywhere and his personal interactions with them, while simultaneously using a “field work” approach of an ethnographer or anthropologist to create his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations. Anchored by his 5-decade retrospective at the MARCO Museum of Monterrey, and also accompanied by text from various art scholars, this book will look at his trajectory focusing on his different styles and periods throughout the years, as well as images from his personal travels, and tribal collection, that directly impact his artistic output. Text in English and French.

The inhabitants of Italian artist Maria Lai’s hometown of Ulassai live surrounded by mountains and a theatre of rocks, far from Sardinia’s famous coastline. This book documents Lai’s best-known large-scale collective art project, Legarsi alla Montagna (Bound to the Mountain) which took place over 3 days beginning on September 8th, 1981. Harkening back to a Sardinian legend of a young girl saved from death by chasing a blue ribbon out of a cave, the artist convinced the residents of Ulassai to tie their homes and the mountain together with 17 miles of blue ribbon. A symbolic act of communal unity, the process was tempered by personal conflicts and ancient family feuds, resulting in ribbon that was knotted (for friendship), wrapped tightly (for conflict), or hung with bread (for love). This combination of land art, performance art, and sculpture was captured at the time by renowned photographer Piero Berengo Gardin, in images that the artist has worked with watercolours and markers. Art historian Elena Pontiggia has contributed the text.Text in English and Italian.

This catalogue for an exhibition at the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne brings together an ensemble of found images gathered over the course of several years by gallerist Antoine Gentil and collector Lucas Reitalov. By dint of patience and research they found photographs that had been modified, often by simple (but telling) cut-outs, in addition to more complex images where the original photograph becomes part of a different story. These anonymous photographs date from the late 19th century onwards, and capture the inconspicuous person that one might encounter in a flea market or a secondhand store, along with family photographs that have been condemned to oblivion and are laden with mystery and emotion.Published to accompany an exhibition in Lausanne at the Collection de l'Art Brut Time - dates to be confirmed.

Maria Lai (1919-2003), the influential Sardinian artist whose work draws on the rich history and traditions of her native land, created multimedia works that explore community, religion, and folklore. This book, the catalogue for a show in Sardinia, presents nearly 70 works, most previously unseen, related to the extraordinary Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) series that Maria Lai created in 1981 and which she donated to the parish of Ulassai, her birthplace. Maria Lai’s artistic endeavour is strongly defined by a mix of secular and religious spirituality: the work presented in this volume reveal her idea of “making art” as something that must respond to the essential questions of mankind and the meaning of existence.

The red-figure vases from the National Museum “Domenico Ridola” in Matera and the Rizzon Collection – rich in precious Apulian and Lucanian pieces – offer a unique opportunity to grasp Magna Graecia antiquity from an unusual perspective through the photographs by Luigi Spina. Significant testimony to vase painting between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the museum's artefacts largely date back to the discoveries of Domenico Ridola (1841-1932) and form part of elaborate funerary assemblages, possessing great aesthetic and historical value through which everyday life is reflected in myths.In the book, black is the protagonist: it enhances the red figures and brings out the keen eye of photographer Luigi Spina. Anatomical details, drapery, and decorative motifs emerge in all their strength without the filter of museum cases, while touches of white enrich the vases' bichrome palette.Photographing a work of art means capturing its deep meaning to communicate it to the world. Far from the idea of a museum catalogue, the volume is rather a figurative atlas of antiquity.Text in English and Italian.

Italian artist Enzo Cucchi (b. 1949), is one of the pioneers of the 20th century trans avant-garde art movement, and was part of a wider international movement of Neo-Expressionist painters. Today he is considered one of Italy’s most productive and innovative artists, and has become a model for the younger generation. His work is notable for its vibrant colour, figuration, and symbolism, with signs, symbols, mixed media, and words which meld into a powerful new aesthetic. His work is presented here in thematic chapters, and includes his ceramics, small bronze figurines, drawings, paintings, and artist books. This volume accompanies the exhibition Enzo Cucchi: The Poet and the Magician that will be held between May and November 2023 at MAXXI in Rome.Text in English and Italian.

These previously unpublished images of New York's waterfront are presented here as part of a unique editorial project: the iconographic perspective is analysed and discussed in Pauline Vermare’s interview with Sophie Fenwick, and finds further literary development in the photographer’s poetry, on which she started working during the pandemic and is used here to accompany the visual narrative.     The language of photography is used here — in a series of black and white and colour shots — to retrace the memory of a transformation and to express the urgency of documentation that in these pages evolves from personal to universal. The invitation to travel voiced by Fenwick is visual poetry articulated in a series of pictures, each of which possesses the potential to become a true icon.Text in English and French.

Italian artist Ugo Rondinone was invited by the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire (MAH) in Geneva to curate a show that invites a dialogue between his work and the works in the permanent collection. The show he created centres around two emblematic figures of 19th and 20th century Swiss art – Felix Vallotton and Ferdinand Hodler - and considers the importance of love and desire in our relationship with art and creation. This book documents the museum’s halls and the exhibition, which includes works by Rondinone and art from the MAH Collection.Text in English and French.

This volume is the first monograph devoted to Woods Davy and collects the works made by the artist from 1978 to the present, highlighting their context, the stories connected to their creation, and the artistic development to which they bear witness. Woods’s growth is in fact marked by an evolution: his early practice is characterised by bold architectural abstractions and monumental installations, while his later work possesses a more reflective character. These latter pieces are compositions of smooth, rounded stones that appear to float in the air, defying gravity. The publication also focuses on an in-depth analysis of his Cantamar series.However, Woods’s work also draws upon ideas derived from his passion for art collecting, in particular the masks used by the Songye and Luba peoples that inhabit the south eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He in fact owns what is certainly the most important private collection of Kifwebe masks. The connection between these two poles around which Woods’s life revolves is quite simple: in both there is a negation of the natural order. On the one hand, stones float like clouds, while on the other, men are transformed into a hybrid of human, animal, and spirit.

Long awaited by collectors, scholars, and enthusiasts, this book illustrates the bronze pieces, most of which have never before been published, collected by Syrop during more than 40 years of passionate, attentive, and untiring research.An architect by profession and a collector by instinct, Arnold Syrop was a pioneer for his interest in this particular area of African material culture, developing what Susan Kloman in her introduction calls “one of the best eyes” in the field of African bronze artifacts.As remarked by the author/collector in his preface, these bronzes are for the most part “spiritual in nature,” their function being to protect and give strength to their owner.  Text in English and French.

This double volume devoted to Yves Dana, a Swiss sculptor of Egyptian descent, is the ideal continuation of a 2015 publication by 5 Continents Editions. His sculptures present themselves to contemporary viewers as if they were the archaeological finds of ancient civilisations, and it is possibly from this very trait that they derive their extraordinary strength.The chronological narrative follows the works created by Dana since 2017 and calls the reader’s attention to the dialogue between the artist and his medium, which finds its voice in the creative process. In the interview with Marc-Alain Ouaknin included in this volume, it becomes clear that to Yves Dana his task is first and foremost observing what nature has to say — observing with his eyes, but also with his hands.Text in English and French.

Joel Denot (b.1961) is a French photographer. His images are centred on the essential elements of photography: light, colour and shape. They are neither figurative nor abstract, with coloured surfaces floating in a void, framing each other and projecting shadows of overlapping colours: orange then pale pink then blue then bright pink; red then green then pink then grey-blue. Produced entirely during the shoot, they are a purely photographic gesture, created without laboratory work. This is the first monograph on his career.Text in English and French.

Who is Samantha McEwen?Who is this Anglo-American artist born in 1960 in London, about whom Keith Haring declares in one of his interviews: “When I arrived in New York, I spent my time at school (School of Visual Arts). Everything was new and exciting. I was 20 years old. In my drawing class, I was immediately drawn to a girl named Samantha McEwen.” Samantha remembers: “He sat in front of me and said: ‘Can I draw you?’”Who is this artist, still relatively unknown to this day, who also models for Francesco Clemente and Alex Katz? In the 1980s, Samantha McEwen was one of the few women to exhibit twice in the famous Tony Shafrazi Gallery. She also participates in numerous group exhibitions alongside the leading artists of that flamboyant decade. However, very few texts exist about her work; art critics are mainly men who write about men. In the numerous articles of the art press on these exhibitions, her name is merely mentioned and rarely accompanied by a few lines. A revealing paradox of that era, Samantha McEwen is found in full-page spreads in the fashion sections of major magazines, such as Interview (Andy Warhol's magazine) and The New York Times Magazine. By the late 1980s in New York, most of Samantha’s friends disappear, taken by AIDS or drugs. Samantha McEwen returns to live in London and begins (or simply continues) a long period of obscurity, like most female artists of those generations. It takes until the 2010s for her work to reappear. This happens in 2015 in London, in the famous group exhibition organised by Pace Gallery in homage to the great London art dealer Robert Fraser. 48 artists are presented, 45 men and 3 women.Text in English and French.

This monograph edited by Ilaria Bernardi is the first comprehensive examination of the oeuvre of the Italian artist Loris Cecchini, from his debut in the mid-1990s to the present. The publication coincides with the 30th anniversary of the artist’s first inclusion in an exhibition: in three group shows in 1995. The book reviews Cecchini’s solo and group exhibitions, providing information on awards, residencies and lectures, as well as extensive commentary on his most distinctive works. Alternating between photography, sculpture, drawing, digital processing and environmental installations, Cecchini’s aim is to shape real space by means of innovative materials, focusing on how matter holds together and the aesthetic, architectural, organic, and structural processes associated with it. He has a particular interest in industrial materials such as rubber, resin and steel. His work explores the sense of the real, in a perspective suspended between the natural and the man-made that challenges the viewer’s perception. This book reconstructs the trajectory of Cecchini's personal and creative life by interweaving biographical information, historical background and an ample selection of works, thus providing a unique contribution to the literature devoted to the artist.Text in English and French

Art of the Cameroon Grasslands unveils the artistic creativity of a region of West Africa through the Weis Collection. With texts by Peter Weis and Bettina von Lintig, and a contribution by Michael Oehrl, the book is a comprehensive overview of Grasslands Art. In contrast to many other African regions, the works of the artists of the ethnic groups that live in the Grasslands are characterised by enormous diversity, dynamism, movement, asymmetry, power, and even unbridled wildness. Other works radiate tranquillity, offering the viewer uncommon visual pleasure and delight. For centuries, kingdoms and rulers in this region competed with each other to create new works of art or perfect inherited styles. These works served cultural, profane, and representational purposes, and they reflected the social and ruling structures of the Grasslands—aspects that the book’s essays and descriptions explore in detail.A broad spectrum of objects and their uses are reflected in the Weis Collection. It includes everyday objects, works of folk art, ritual, and cult objects such as magic or commemorative figures, masks, posts, palace doors, representational objects, musical instruments, tobacco pipes, and drinking horns. The introduction presents important aspects of the cultural and artistic development of each object’s region of origin, also in the context of European colonization. All are illustrated with numerous field photographs. This is followed by an essay on beaded artworks from the Grasslands, a subject that has been little researched to date. As the Grasslands are embedded in a larger cultural area, objects in the collection from neighbouring ethnic groups are also presented, in many cases shedding light on centuries-old connections and artistic exchanges.