Искусство

Do you ever find yourself wondering, "Has she had work done?" Do you flip through supermarket tabloids to see who's the latest star to have gone under the knife? Do you secretly adore before and after photos? Well, let's face it, who doesn't? Aesthetic surgery has become a global phenomenon.

In places like Hollywood, the mystery isn't who's had work done, but who hasn't. Those who have been to the world's best surgeons can get away with lying about it, while others have the evidence written all over their faces. From liposuction to lip implants, this book explores all the ins and outs of body sculpting via photos, illustrations, essays, and interviews.

Topics include:
- Beauty and Beauty Surgery
- Beauty in Art
- The Astonishing History of Aesthetic Surgery
- Ethnicity and Aesthetic Surgery
- Plastic Surgery in the Movies
- The Michelangelo of the Scalpel: Ivo Pitanguy
- The World`s most famous aesthetic surgeo
- Methods and Techniques
- Jokes and Caricatures

Handmade in Africa. Shedding light on the art of the 'Dark Continent'

Art from the African continent occupies an unusual place in the concert of world cultures. Once considered "primitive" by colonial invaders, it has long since been recognized and acknowledged for its highly developed sense of design and aesthetics. Similarly, African art is often concerned with vital moral and spiritual concerns of the human condition, and frequently has a ritual or religious function—whether in masks, ancestral figures, ceramics, basketry, metalwork, or weapons. The items in this volume, mostly datable only with difficulty, start with a sculptured head from Nigeria, possibly dating from the 12th century, and extend from a 15th/16th-century salt container from Sierra Leone to the 19th and 20th centuries, to which most of the artworks belong.

With examples from every region of the continent — including Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Madagascar, South Africa and a dozen other countries — this book demonstrates the profundity and astonishing variety of African arts, describing the social and religious contexts without which these artworks cannot be fully understood.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:

• a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural and social events that took place during that period
• a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each of which is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and with an interpretation of the respective work, plus a portrait and brief biography of the artist
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Ethnologist and historian Stefan Eisenhofer has been head of the African department of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich since 2001. He co-founded the museum's Munich EthnoFilm Days and Urban African Sounds concert series. He also teaches at the Institute for Ethnology at the University of Munich, and has curated various exhibitions including Genocide Monument (2004). His book Painted People (2005) explores body art on all five continents.

The Visual Encyclopaedia series provide up to 300 beautiful photographic and artwork images, illustrating subjects of perennial cultural interest. Images are accompanied by narrative providing background, brief criticism, and details on relevant museums, brief biographies and time lines

The art of sub-Saharan Africa has a long history, although it is a difficult to reconstruct precosely because many works, being made from wood and earth, have disappeared without trace and archeological excavations, which could enrich our knowledge of the region are still rare.

Nonetheless, what has been preserved - largely works from the past 150 years, although there are some which date back even thousands of years - is already substantial and provides evidence of a great variety of artistic traditions, which can be traced back to broad historic and geographical areas and to ethnic or tribal groups.

This beautiful book was born out of the passion and artistic insight of Marnix Neerman and Hugo Martens. One hundred and twenty-eight masks have been photographed in such a unique style that their artistic nature is revealed to the utmost. Each mask has been shot from the front and from the rear, and detail shots reveal each mask as an almost autonomous work of art. And yet, these masks are not considered works of art in their countries of origin, but rather tools that have a function and a meaning in socio-religious life.

Many of these masks have never been displayed or published before and come from reference collections such as the Museum for Middle Africa in Tervuren, Belgium; the Etnographic Museum in Antwerp and private collections in Belgium, France, UK and USA.

African Faces was produced in cooperation with the archive of the Yale university, Tribal Art magazine, Parcours des Mondes in Paris and many other experts and will become a future reference work when it comes to the African mask; the powerful photographs accentuate the artistic value of the masks like never before

The book includes one hundred color plates accompanied by in-depth descriptions, as well as numerous black-and-white photographs of the masks as they are used in religious and secular ceremonies.

An introductory text by renowned scholars describes how the masks are constructed, examines their significance in African culture, and offers insight into the universal practice of masquerading. A unique contribution to the literature on African art, this book is also a wonderful introduction to countless fascinating, age-old spiritual traditions still practiced today.

Focusing on some of the most interesting conceptual technical trends in wood working today, Against the Grain includes approximately 65 vessels, sculptures, furniture, and installations, created since 2000, which provocatively defy categories and celebrate the visual dynamics of wood. The book demonstrates how contemporary creators have engaged the medium of wood in strategies that might be described as “postmodern,” employing mimicry, assemblage, virtuosity, and whimsy (with a serious purpose). Environmental issues also are prominently addressed. Artists represented include Derek Bencomo, Gary Carsley, Hunt Clark, Piet Hein Eek, David Ellsworth, Sebastian Errazuriz, Bud Latven, Mark Lindquist, Thomas Loeser, Sarah Oppenheimer, William Pope.L, Martin Puryear, Marc Andre Robinson, Laurel Roth, Betye Saar, Courtney Smith, Elisa Strozyk, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. Focusing on some of the most interesting conceptual technical trends in wood working today, Against the Grain includes approximately 65 vessels, sculptures, furniture, and installations, created since 2000, which provocatively defy categories and celebrate the visual dynamics of wood. The book demonstrates how contemporary creators have engaged the medium of wood in strategies that might be described as “postmodern,” employing mimicry, assemblage, virtuosity, and whimsy (with a serious purpose). Environmental issues also are prominently addressed. Artists represented include Derek Bencomo, Gary Carsley, Hunt Clark, Piet Hein Eek, David Ellsworth, Sebastian Errazuriz, Bud Latven, Mark Lindquist, Thomas Loeser, Sarah Oppenheimer, William Pope.L, Martin Puryear, Marc Andre Robinson, Laurel Roth, Betye Saar, Courtney Smith, Elisa Strozyk, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Ursula von Rydingsvard.

From its fascinating historical origins to its contemporary symbolic significance, every aspect of Ai Weiwei's beautiful and monumental work of art is explored in this illustrated volume that also guides readers through the highlights of the artist's career.

Ai Weiwei's "Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads" features twelve large-scale bronze animal heads, each depicting a segment of the ancient Chinese zodiac. As a major work of public art, it is an extraordinary accomplishment in its own right. But as this book explains, the origins and motivation behind the piece are as compelling as the work itself.

Ai Weiwei based the sculpture on a complex zodiac fountain that was built for an imperial retreat in eighteenth-century China. When the retreat was looted by European soldiers, the fountain's bronze animal heads were stolen - only seven of the tewlve are known to survive. By reimagining the work Ai Weiwei confronts uncomfortable truths within Chinese and Western history.

This book compares Ai Weiwei's work to the original zodiac heads; features interviews with Ai Weiwei conducted at various periods during the sculpture's development; offers a historical overview of the events surrounding the fountain's looting; and follows the trail of the original heads as they are sold and resold amidst political furor.

The book tells the riveting story behind a highly acclaimed piece of modern art, while providing an introduction to one of our generation's most important artists.

The most lavishly produced and profusely illustrated volume on Akira Kurosawa ever published, timed for the centennial of his birth. Akira Kurosawa is arguably the greatest of all Japanese film directors and is respected around the world as one of the masters of the art form. This is the first illustrated book to pay tribute to his unmistakable style—with more than two hundred images, many never before published.

The filmmaker is also famous for his attention to detail, and fans will delight in seeing annotated script pages, sketches, and storyboards that reveal the meticulous craft behind Kurosawa’s genius. Peter Cowie examines how Kurosawa took the samurai genre to its apogee in such films as Yojimbo and Seven Samurai; his literary influences in such films as Throne of Blood [Macbeth] and Ran [King Lear]; and in his take on our relationship to the modern world in such films as High and Low and Dreams. "Akira Kurosawa is one of the greatest directors ever to work in the cinema.

His films meant an enormous amount to me when I was starting my own career, and it’s fitting that in the year of his centennial this book by Peter Cowie should pay tribute to him."—Francis Ford Coppola

Often wryly funny and just as smart, Albert Oehlen’s paintings play the medium for all it's worth - and then some. After realizing that the so-called death of painting freed him to explore "the number of aspects through which one could expand painting," Oehlen started work on a wide variety of figurative and non-objective offerings, in what he has called his "post-non-figurative" art. The artist continuously challenges himself, setting up rules that force him to overcome convention and his own routine in order to arrive at a satisfying image. During his career, he has chosen to paint in primary colours only or in grey, to integrate mirrors into his canvases, or to start on computer paintings when the first PCs became available. In his most recent work, Oehlen expands painting through the use of advertising posters whose in-your-face aesthetics he transforms with subtle brushwork. Never without a touch of tongue-in-cheek humour, his work seems to be winking at us as it dares us to change the way we perceive an image.

This XL monograph covers the entire scope of Oehlen’s oeuvre: Roberto Ohrt discusses the early years when Oehlen came into his own alongside Kippenberger, Büttner, and others, part of a scene that broke rules in art and rock music. Klaus Kertess examines the years from 1988 onwards, when Oehlen saw himself more self-consciously as a painter and started his first abstract works, then continued to probe the limits of the medium. Martin Prinzhorn and John Corbett take a close look at aspects of Oehlen’s iconography, and Oehlen discusses his computer paintings in a conversation with Corbett. An exhaustive biography and bibliography round out this comprehensive study. While Oehlen fans will rejoice at the publication of this breathtaking book, no one with an interest in contemporary art should pass up this unique opportunity to discover Oehlen’s remarkable body of work.

Alberto Giacometti forged a singular path within European Modernism, restlessly seeking a new language for sculpture as a double of reality. Presenting some 100 sculptures and paintings, the publication tracks the evolution of Giacometti’s work from Post-Cubism through Surrealism to post-war Realism.

Throughout his life, Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) was in conversation with some of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. By highlighting three writers – Georges Bataille, Jean Genet, and Samuel Beckett, with whom the artist sustained lasting friendships – the publication examines how these dialogues may be traced in Giacometti’s oeuvre.

The lavishly illustrated book not only provides an overview extending from his early to his later works, and newly commissioned essays but also presents important historical texts by the three authors and the artist himself.

This book references all the artist's periods and media: sculpture (plaster, bronze), paintings, drawings, prints… It will allow a comprehensive view of Alberto Giacometti's creation, from early works to the surrealist period, from the return to figuration to his work from models, and to the invention of the great post-war icons. Over 230 works are represented, including several masterpieces such as Spoon Woman (1927), The Invisible Object (1934-35), Woman with Chariot (1945), The Nose (1947), and Walking Man (1960).

Giacometti’s works are separated into fourteen original sections revealing the themes favoured by the artist - the representation of the head, the face, the female body, etc. The book is punctuated by seven essays written by leading art historians who dwell on the detours and questions that mark Alberto Giacometti's creative process, but also allow the reader to discover his relationship to loneliness, melancholy, and his hard work with his models: his wife Annette, his brother Diego, his close friends. This catalogue aims to introduce the reader to another Giacometti, the one who experiments with the limits of sculpture, and the formidable painter who also practices, alongside the portrait, the genres of landscape or still life.

Signs and Wonders. A fantastic journey through the history of esoteric lore

Fables, folklore, and fantasy — this compendium of all things alchemical and mystical gathers centuries of esoteric mythology in the form of writings, drawings, paintings, and prints. From early Christian mystics to the illustrations of William Blake and the Romantics, this collection spans science, philosophy, and otherworldly mystery over the ages.

The Hermetic Museum takes readers on a magical mystery tour spanning an arc from the medieval cosmogram and images of Christian mysticism, through the fascinating world of alchemy to the art of the Romantic era. The enigmatic hieroglyphs of cabalists, Rosicrucians, and freemasons are shown to be closely linked with the early scientific illustrations in the fields of medicine, chemistry, optics, and colour theory. Even for those with no knowledge of the fascinating history of alchemy, this book is a delight to explore. Each richly illustrated chapter begins with an introduction and quotes from alchemists by specialist Alexander Roob. The roots of surrealism and many other more recent artistic movements can be found in this treasure trove.

The author:

Alexander Roob studied painting at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. From 2000 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart since 2002.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

A fantastic journey through the history of esoteric lore

The Hermetic Museum takes its readers on a magical mystery tour spanning an arc from the mediaeval cosmogram and images of Christian mysticism, through the fascinating world of alchemy to the art of the Romantic era. The enigmatic hieroglyphs of cabbalists, Rosicrucians and freemasons are shown to be closely linked with the early scientific illustrations in the fields of medicine, chemistry, optics and colour theory.

The author:

Alexander Roob studied painting at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. From 2000 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart since 2002.