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Page turners: 10 new titles to add to your shelves
Page turners: 10 new titles to add to your shelves
Zoltar the Magnificent
By Dan Macmillan and Kieron Livingstone
Existing as its own subculture, the world of Zoltar, first established as a ‘disruptive entity’ by founders Dan Macmillan (aka Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden) and Simon Barnzley Armitage 10 years ago, exists in its physical form as a London store, fashion line (designed by Macmillan and Kieron Livingstone) and artistic collaborator with the aim of rupturing the visual status quo. In celebration of a decade of ‘guerrilla’ activity, Macmillan and Livingstone have compiled this retrospective of Zoltar’s complete works, including the shop’s infamous ‘pornographic toilet’, with a foreword by Jake and Dinos Chapman.
Published by Trolley Books, £69
Writer: Katrina Israel
From the book: Dan Macmillan and Kieron Livingstone subvert the Nike slogan
The Technicolor book communicates Zoltar's ethos of ‘cosmic malevolence’
Mood board imagery from Zoltar the Magnificent
Carlo Scarpa
By Robert McCarter
Of all the modernist masters, Carlo Scarpa has perhaps been least well represented by the contemporary publishing industry. While his oeuvre is expansive, many of his best-known jobs are characterised by an extreme attention to detail and a level of craft and material understanding that doesn’t translate well to the page. With this new monograph, Phaidon is hoping that through scale, solidity and meticulous design, the Italian architect's approach can be better understood - and savoured. The book itself becomes an extension of the work.
Published by Phaidon, £75
Writer: Jonathan Bell
From the book: Carlo Scarpa's first glassworks can be identified by their cone-shaped foot - an invention of his - and the consistent use of pure geometric forms. Pictured is 'Vaso Transparente', 1926, a globe-shaped clear vase with a blue truncated cone base. Courtesy of Archivio Barovier
Scarpa was commissioned in 1950 to make changes to the Italian pavilion, Venice's largest Biennale building. Creating a new rectangular courtyard within the existing building, the architect installed a concrete canopy structure where visitors could relax between exhibits. Courtesy of ORCH Orsenigo Chemollo
Scarpa was hired to enlarge the Canova Museum in Possagno, dedicated to the works of neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. Pictured is a view of the western gallery with two inwardly projecting, steel-framed windows, a subtly modern addition to the traditional museum © Klaus Frahm / Artur Images
Castelvecchio Museum renovations, entrance arch with a deeply recessed glazed foor and projecting L-shape wall
Malicious Damage: The Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton
By Ilsa Colsell
Joe Orton's playwriting career wasn't his first great artistic endeavour. Together with his lover Kenneth Halliwell, Orton would venture into Islington Library and plunder the stacks for interesting tomes. These would be taken back to their flat on Noel Road, modified - plates removed, covers defaced (or enhanced) - and generally messed about with in an ongoing project that lasted three years. Orton and Halliwell were sentenced to a career-defining six-month stretch in prison. Malicious Damage chronicles the incident and the results of their 'project'.
Published by Donlon Books, £35
Writer: Jonathan Bell
From the book: Orton and Halliwell withdrew random texts from the library and obscured the covers with a collage of imagery
The next reader would be shocked or offended by what they found
Amber, Guinevere and Kate photographed by Craig McDean
By Craig McDean, text by Mathias Augustyniak and Glenn O'Brien
Craig McDean’s new monograph pays glowing tribute to three of fashion’s top models - Amber Valetta, Guinevere van Seenus and Kate Moss - with rich portraits, shot entirely on film. In a refreshing throwback, McDean strips his muses of today’s hyper-glossy pretense with the virtuous click of the shutter. The volume features never-before-seen images, contact sheets and outtakes from his most recognised shoots. Texts by Mathias Augustyniak, of M/M Paris (which designed the book), and author Glenn O’Brien add depth and insight.
Published by Rizzoli, £60
Writer: Jessica Klingelfuss
From the book: A mixture of Craig McDean's most memorable commercial and editorial work with his three supermodel muses features in the new tome. Here, Guinevere Van Seenus stars in Jil Sander's S/S 1996 campaign © Craig McDean
A portrait of a fresh-faced Kate Moss, which originally appeared in British Vogue's January 1997 issue © Craig McDean
McDean photographed Amber Valletta for Yohji Yamamoto's A/W 2000 campaign © Craig McDean
Thierry Dreyfus
Back in 2011 we recruited legendary lighting designer and Wallpaper* collaborator Thierry Dreyfus to take on his first editorial photography commission (see W*152). The French designer had been privately shooting for some 20 years, and in this beautiful new tome – Dreyfus’ first – his inimitable eye for light really gains focus. The book, with text by Dominique Baqué, is a showcase of his ‘intense visual relationship with the world’. For a designer who works strictly with analogue cameras and forgoes all digital retouching, the medium is most fitting - after all, photography is derived from the Greek words for ‘light’ (photos) and ‘drawing’ (graphos). Dreyfus has produced some of fashion’s most memorable catwalk shows - and even more monumental lighting installations - but this monograph is the designer at his purest.
Published by Editions du Régard, €40
Writer: Jessica Klingelfuss
From the book: Untitled, by Thierry Dreyfus
Dreyfus' photographs hone in on the essence of light
Dreyfus works strictly with medium format analogue cameras (such as Hasselblad and Rolleiflex), taking very few exposures and forgoing all digital retouching
Untitled, by Thierry Dreyfus
Emerald
By Joanna Hardy, Hettie Judah and Jonathan Self
Twenty times more rare than a diamond, the emerald has rightfully been the subject of envy throughout the ages. Thames & Hudson’s beautifully presented Emerald, with a preface by Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani, is the definitive guide to the world’s most precious gemstone. Delving into the archives of jewellery houses from Boucheron to Bulgari, it showcases more than 200 pieces - many from previously unseen private collections. Tracing notable devotees, from Catherine the Great to Elizabeth Taylor, the comprehensive edit also explores Cleopatra’s lost emerald mines in the Sahara.
Published by Thames & Hudson, £75
Writer: Katrina Israel
From the book: a pair of emerald and diamond earrings, a lamp pin and a clip of drop emeralds from Van Cleef & Arpels
The raw stones
Interference colours appear during the mining process
Karma
By Oscar Monzón
Lurking around in car parks after dusk isn't our preferred weekend hobby, but for photographer Oscar Monzón this was clearly the best strategy available to him. Karma isn't just about sex - it dives into a host of (mostly covertly captured) in-car behaviours for an anthropological study of behaviour most of us treat as totally private.
Published by RVB Books, €95
Writer: Jonathan Bell
From the book: the photographer's pictures show his fascination with what he can (or can't) see in parked cars
A woman examines a toy in the passenger seat of her car
Even the ordinary seems subversive
Often what goes on outside the car is as important as what goes on inside
Critical Mass
By Michael Danner
Photographer Michael Danner has undertaken a photographic survey of the German nuclear power industry. While this is by no means a polemic, his steady eye and unrelenting ability to conjure up both beauty and banality shows the industry for what it is, a prosaic and humdrum business running under pressure of political and environmental opposition. Germany has 17 nuclear plants and no real desire to power them down. However the Fukushima disaster has transformed public opinion, potentially sealing the industry's long-term fate.
Published by Kehrer, €39
Writer: Jonathan Bell
From the book: Radiation monitors at the Isar nuclear power station in Germany © Michael Danner
The airlock at Grafenrheinfeld Nuclear Power Plant © Michael Danner
A metal chest filled with clean protective gloves at the now-decommissioned nuclear power station in Brunsbüttel © Michael Danner
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
By Jeremy Deller
Accompanying the exhibition of the same name, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air sees Jeremy Deller co-opt Marshall Berman's classic exploration of modernity and commerce. The result is a historical travelogue that explores the emergence of popular working-class culture in the face of the challenges of the Industrial Revolution. Deller's work has always had an element of folk history, and his archival skills are here pushed to the fore.
Published by Hayward Publishing, £14.99
Writer: Jonathan Bell
A spread from the book depicts an 1819 Thomas Hornor painting(left) and a Judas Priest album cover from 1979 (right)
Stockport Viaduct, 1986. Photography: John Davies
A spread from the book featuring a drawing, by John Evans, 1819 (left) Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath, photographed by Dean Shaw (right)
Giambattista Valli
When Giambattista Valli was approached to create a coffee table book, he hesitated at first; having launched is eponymous label only a few years earlier, in 2005, he was reluctant to do a typical retrospective. Instead the Rome-born designer embarked on a behind-the-scenes journey into his creative process. With an opening watercolour portrait of Valli by Francesco Clemente (which hangs in the designer’s Paris studio), the reader is instantly drawn deep inside a rarified world. Between fabric covers, Valli shares his obsessions, from the artwork of Alberto Burri to Little Red Riding Hood; his inspiration boards; backstage candids; and expressive illustrations of his frothy couture confections. Contributors include Hamish Bowles, Diane Kruger and Lee Radziwill.
Published by Rizzoli, £62.50
Writer: Katrina Israel
From the book: Fashion designer Giambattista Valli revisits magnified colours and sumptuous materials from collection to collection
Characterised by their lightness, his fetish materials - gazar and organza - have a life of their own, giving them the vibrant energy that makes his designs so distinctly dynamic
Backstage at the Giambattista Valli S/S 2013 couture show. Photography: Kevin Tachman
Giambattista Valli A/W 2012 runway show. Photography: Alexis Dahan
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