january june 2010 - Gallery Electa Web

JANUARY JUNE 2010
Managing Director
Martin Angioni
[email protected]
Foreign Sales and Distribution
Laura La Monaca
[email protected]
Marketing
[email protected]
Sales Information
All orders and enquiries, including
requests to meet regional
representatives, should be
addressed to:
Germany and Austria
Michael Klein
Pfifferlingweg 20
84137 Vilsbiburg - Germany
Tel. +49-8741-928860
Fax +49-8741-928859
e-mail: [email protected]
Spain, Portugal
Salvador Garzon
Diffusion Internationale
Heber Ostroviesky
10, Rue de la Maison Blanche
75013 Paris - France
Tel. +33-1-45820114
Fax +33-1-45820193
e-mail: [email protected]
France
Salvador Garzon
Diffusion Internationale
Mirtha Bazan
10, Rue del la Maison Blanche
75013 Paris - France
Tel. +33-1-45820114
Fax +33-1-45820193
e-mail: [email protected]
The Netherlands, Belgium, Greece,
Hungary
Salvador Garzon
Diffusion Internationale
Elizabeth Feigenbaum
10, Rue de la Maison Blanche
75013 Paris - France
Tel. +33-1-45820114
Fax +33-1-45820193
e-mail: [email protected]
Latin America and Mexico
Salvador Garzon
Diffusion Internationale
Salvador Garzon
10, Rue M. Blanche
75013 Paris - France
Tel. +33-1-45820114
Fax +33-1-45820193
e-mail: [email protected]
Other Countries
Mondadori Electa
Foreign sales and distribution
Tel. +39 02-21563419
Fax +39 02-21563246
Laura La Monaca
[email protected]
Please be sure to quote the
following information on every order:
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Please note that all prices,
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CONTENTS
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ART
Barock
Franz West
A Roma, la nostra era avanguardia
Urs Luthi
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
e Maxxi. Le collezioni 1958-2008
Donna avanguardia femminista
negli anni ‘ 70
Triennale Design Museum
Terza interpretazione
Periscopio sentimentale
L’anima sensibile delle cose
Paolo Ulian
Il Segno dei designer
Alessandro Mendini
Parco internazionale della scultura
Antoni Tapies
Essential Experiences
Arte in transito.
Viaggio nell’arte in Basilicata
Dogana da Màr
Feel a Work of Persol
Alighiero Boetti
Subodh Gupta
Pino Pascali
Giorgione
Gli Affreschi di Chiaravalle
Pittura sacra a Montecitorio
La Madonna delle Vittorie
a piazza Armerina
Pierre-Jean Mariette
Catalogue Raisonnè
Crivelli e l’arte tessile
La Musa Stupita 2
On Biennals 2
Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano
ARCHITECTURE THEMES
22 Sapone Sapey
23 Architettura & natura
design e artificio
23 A fior di pelle/Skin deep
24 Giò Ponti. La committenza Fernandes
25 Palazzo Montecitorio.
Il Palazzo barocco
25 Palazzo Montecitorio.
Il Palazzo liberty
25 La stazione centrale di Napoli
FASHION & DESIGN
26 Mito e bellezza
27 Mila e la notte
27 Pininfarina
28
29
30
31
31
PHOTOGRAPHY & PERFORMING ART
Haiti
Sos pianeta Terra
Dal piacere alla dolce vita
Sardegna le paste della tradizione
Season of music
Electa Architettura
34 Ville in Svizzera
35 Ville in Portogallo
36 Palerm & Tabares
de nava arquitectos
36 Mauro Galantino
37 Gino Valle
37 Gino Valle Deutsche Bank Milano
38 Kostantinidis
39 Il Design della ceramica
in Italia 1850-2000
39 Sussidiario di grafica
ART/MADRE
ART/MACRO
BAROCK
Art, Science, Faith and Technology
in the Contemporary age
AVAILABLE
A ROMA, LA NOSTRA
ERA AVANGUARDIA
AVAILABLE
Edited by Luca Massimo Barbero,
Francesca Pola
English/Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 192
Illustrations 130 black and color
Paperback
Edited by E. Cicelyn
and M. Codognato
English text
Size 24×28
Pages 368
Illustrations 200 color
Hardcover with jacket
Price € 34,00
Price € 45,00
In 1970, the exhibition entitled Vitalità del negativo nell’arte
italiana 1960/70 (Vitality of the Negative in Italian Art 1960-1970)
transformed the venue of Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome into
a gigantic multimedia container. The leading artists of the time
participated in the exhibition: Gianni Colombo, Gino Marotta,
Enrico Castellani, Jannis Kounellis, Vincenzo Agnetti, Fabio Mauri,
Luciano Fabro and Paolo Scheggi. Contemporanea (Contemporary),
which opened in 1973, is now regarded as one of the most
important exhibitions of the 20th century. It was one of the first
and largest international exhibitions to feature many different
spheres of art, including multimedia. The exhibition is divided into
ten sections art, cinema, theater, architecture and design,
photography, music and dance, visual and concrete poetry, books
and records by artists and alternative information.
Concurrent with the great Baroque season which opens at the
Capodimonte Museum in Naples in October 2009, the MADRE
(Donna Regina Contemporary Art Museum in Naples) is
organizing an exhibition with the aim of comparing the 17th
century with our own time. On the one hand, both historical
periods have a background of revolutionary scientific discoveries
which have transformed our way of living and thinking and, on
the other, have experienced deep-rooted religious fanaticism.
By examining the work of contemporary artists who are sensitive
to this kind of subject, this is an attempt to analyse the spirit of
the time. A scientific committee, comprising historians, critics
and experts of international renown, will give a horizontal slant
to the exhibition and ensure expert curatorship.
4
EXHIBITION
Naples, MADRE
December 12th 2009 - April 5th 2010
FRANZ WEST
Edited by Katia Baudin-Renau
Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 350
Illustrations 200
Hardcover with jacket
5
EXHIBITION
Rome, MACRO
January 23rd 2010 - April 5th 2010
RELEASE DATE
MAY 2010
Price € 40,00
URS LÜTHI
Just another story about leaving
AVAILABLE
Edited by Elena Forin
Italian text
Size 22×28
Pages 208
Illustrations 130 color
Hardcover
Price € 50,00
This is the first retrospective held in Italy on Franz West (1947),
universally acknowledged as on of the Austria’s greatest artists.
West’s approach to sculpture was a reaction to Viennese
actionism and the post-war European abstraction. His signature
papier-mâché sculptures on their bases, pedestals or tables
combine three-dimensional anthropomorphical shapes with
colourful gestual abstract painting. Apart from these
“independent” sculptures, West is well-known for his furniture
design, providing space to sit, contemplate or simply relax. Franz
West philosophy is that a work does not have a meaning or a
function in itself, but in its perception and the different reactions
it arouses. This is the “participatory model”. His work always
draws its viewers into a dialogue between object and action.
EXHIBITION
Naples, MADRE in cooperation with Ludwig
Museum, Koln and Museum Joanneum, Graz
May 7th 2010 - August 23rd 2010
The exhibition “Just another Story about leaving” tells moments
characterising the issue of purpose in life through photographs
from the past and present, a video installation, photographic
installations and sculptures. The oeuvre is completed by a special
section dedicated to the individual throughout history and physical
symbolic locations in everyday life. This section will also contain a
specially commissioned photographic service on Rome to be
published as a special section.
EXHIBITION
Rome, MACRO
December 17th 2009 - April 5th 2010
ART/MAXXI
ART/GNAM
GALLERIA NAZIONALE
D’ARTE MODERNA E MAXXI
LE COLLEZIONI 1958-2008
AVAILABLE
Edited by Anna Mattirolo
e Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 896 (two volumes)
Illustrations 1350
Paperback with long flaps
Price € 75,00
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The contemporary art collections of Gnam and Maxxi from 1958 to 2008.
The complete catalogue of italy’s two most important national
contemporary art collections. The catalogue brings together the entire
contemporary art collection, of works both on display and in store,
acquired by the National Gallery of Modern Art (GNAM) and the
National Gallery of 21st century art (MAXXI). The time-span ranges from
1958 to 2008. The catalogue, published in two volumes, has been
conceived as an alphabetical list of artists’ names with an analytical
index for the purposes of research. A final section is devoted to works
which demanded treatment to reflect differences. The aim of the
catalogue is to present the works so that they can be easily consulted, in
a format of scientific charts and individual color reproductions of each
work, covering the more than 1,350 works of contemporary art in Italy’s
national collections.
DONNA AVANGUARDIA FEMMINISTA
NEGLI ANNI ‘70
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
Edited by Gabriele Schor
Italian/English text
Size 24×28
Pages 256
Illustrations 350
Hardcover
Price € 40,00
The central focus of this exhibition is a nucleus of works going
back to Cindy Sherman’s first years of artistic production;
together with the works of the American artist is a consistent
group of photographs by Francesca Woodman, who despite
her very brief existence, is considered one of the most
influential artistic photographers of the end of the 20th century.
Other names include Eleanor Antin, Hannah Wilke, Birgit
Jürgenssen, and Valie Export. Although most of them do not
consider, or have not specifically dubbed, their work as feminist,
many of their works carry feminist overtones: the body, often
the artist’s own, and the stereotype of womanhood as projected
through the media of the press, television and the cinema.
EXHIBITION
Rome, GNAM
February 19th 2010 - May 16th 2010
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ART/TRIENNALE
ART/TRIENNALE
TRIENNALE DESIGN MUSEUM
TERZA INTERPRETAZIONE
PERISCOPIO SENTIMENTALE
RELEASE DATE
MAY 2010
Edited by S. Annicchiarico,
A. Mendini
English/Italian text
Size 24×32
Pages 304
Illustrations 350 color
Paperback with flaps
L’ANIMA SENSIBILE DELLE COSE
Matteo Bazzicalupo e Raffaella
Mangiarotti Deep Design
Edited by Cristina Morozzi
English/Italian text
Size 15×20
Pages 96
Illustrations 100 color
Paperback
Price € 30,00
Price € 50,00
AVAILABLE
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EXHIBITION
Milan, Triennale Design Museum
March 27th 2010 - February 27th 2011
To coincide with the important 2010 edition of the Design Museum
exhibition Alessandro Mendini attempts to answer the simple, but
vital question “what is Italian design?” through his anthropological
vision of the subject.
The hypothesis underlying the curatorial approach to the 2010 Design
Museum Triennal is that exists some sort of infinite parallel world of
design in Italy. An invisible, non-institutional, unorthodox design
whose authors, producers and products are of considerable social
and anthropological importance, possibly linked to mass consumers
at a more profound level than that of acknowledged design.
This theory shifts viewpoints and causes a certain amount of
provocative upheaval, but is extremely fertile, exciting and
entertaining. The result is a selected series of objects, which like
“shooting stars” come from different places and situations, each
independent of the other, but all motivated by meaning. Placed side
by side they forge links, references and signs and convey cryptic
information, forming interwoven constellations that trace an
alternative pattern to Italian design.
EXHIBITION
Milan, Triennale Design Museum
December 17th 2009 January 17th 2010
PAOLO ULIAN
Tra gioco e discarica
Edited by Enzo Mari
English/Italian text
Size 15×20
Pages 96
Illustrations 85 color
Paperback
Price € 26,00
AVAILABLE
EXHIBITION
Milan, Triennale Design Museum
January 23rd 2010 February 28th 2010
IL SEGNO DEI DESIGNER
Edited by Gianni Veneziano
English/Italian text
Size 21×29,7
Pages 136
Text, Paintings and Posters
all packed in case
Price € 38,00
AVAILABLE
EXHIBITION
Milan, Triennale Design Museum
December 17th 2009 January 17th 2010
The Deepdesign exhibition by Matteo
Bazzicalupo and Raffaella Mangiarotti
continues the cycle dedicated to
contemporary Italian designers in the
CreativeSet space housed in the Triennale
Design Museum. On show a selection of
projects that document the deepdesign
work, guided by intensive research into
shapes, technology and new materials
which often generates radical rethinking.
Bazzicalupo and Mangiarotti design tools
for daily use, objects that are efficient and
innovative, but also extraordinarily
elegant. Things that are measured and
sincere, courteous and respectful to
mankind, sensitive in their dealings. From
the Pulse washing machine to the
Dandelion standard lamp and Flat piano
(an original piano-table hybrid), their
projects are concise in shape, soft and
with no redundancies.
The exhibition covers a series of designs
which are representative of Ulian’s work.
The works selected for the exhibition
have been divided into four categories:
highlighting the amount of waste
in rubbish dumps; minimizing waste;
reinterpreting existing objects; design
as a game.
The objects designed by Ulian embody
a sort of formal and functional ‘discretion’.
Through small, barely visible gestures
of design, Paolo Ulian shows how they
can effectively express his personal vision
of the world. The designer concentrates
on the relationship created between
the object and the body using it and the
way in which the two come into contact.
An extraordinary selection of designs
by important Italian and international
designers. Mario Bellini, Aldo Cibic,
Antonio Citterio, Michele De Lucchi,
Nathalie Du Pasquier, Marco Ferreri,
Stefano Giovannoni, Makio Hasuike, Italo
Rota, Toyo Ito, Joe Velluto, Kengo Kuma,
Angelo Mangiarotti, Enzo Mari, Alberto
Meda, Alessandro Mendini, Renzo Piano,
Marc Sadler, Denis Santachiara, Matteo
Thun and Nanda Vigo are only some of
the names on show.Design is an art that
involves ideas and emotions, thoughts
and insights. The subjects on display and
the techniques employed are many, and
reflect the multiple facets of the
discipline itself.
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ART/MARCA
ART/RISO
ALESSANDRO MENDINI
Edited by Alberto Fiz
English/Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 240
Illustrations 180
Hardcover in plancia
Price € 45,00
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
EXHIBITION
Catanzaro, MARCA
April 2010 - October 2010
PARCO INTERNAZIONALE
DELLA SCULTURA
10
Edited by Alberto Fiz
English/Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 180
Illustrations 120
Hardcover in plancia
Price € 40,00
RELEASE DATE
APRIL 2010
EXHIBITION
Catanzaro, MARCA
April 2010
ANTONI TÀPIES
Edited by Alberto Fiz
English/Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 240
Illustrations 190
Hardcover in plancia
Price € 48,00
AVAILABLE
EXHIBITION
Catanzaro, MARCA
December 12th 2009 March 14th 2010
An exhibition and monography on one
of the undoubted masters of shape and
colour, who is also an incisive critic and
intellectual editor of magazines.
Marca’s spring expo examines the
critical aspects of Alessandro Mendini’s
visual production through key works
such as Poltrona Proust, Kandissi, Tavolo
spaziale, Mobile infinito, Lassù and a
brand new project realised ad hoc for
MARCA. Architect, designer and artist,
Mendini has gradually evolved a system
of images set in an utopia, rich in
concepts and advanced living solutions.
Linking his experience to poor art and
radical design, and later to Neomodernism, Mendini is the narrator of a
sensitive environment that is trying to
contact man through his soul.
The international sculpture park lies within
the Mediterranean Biodiversity Park, a vast
area of greenery close to Catanzaro’s town
centre. Here sculptures by great
contemporary artists have found home:
Stephen Balkenhol, Tony Cragg, Wim
Delvoye, Jan Fabre, Antony Gormley,
Mimmo Paladino, Marc Quinn and the
latest Splashbuildings by Dennis
Oppennheim. A nucleus of 20 works
created over a five-year period make up an
open-air museum that is one of the most
important on a national level and is in
continuous evolution. This volume sees
Alberto Fiz investigate an exhibition model
which is increasingly popular in Europe,
juxtaposing as it does nature, contemporary
art and archaeology with a social need for
entertainment and recreation.
A broad overview of the experimental
work of the Spanish artist, from the ‘60s
to his most recent creations. Through a
rigorous selection of paintings,
sculptures and installations, in which
each component takes on a concrete
and visionary presence, the exhibition
aims to re-discover the persisting
influence of the mark made by this
Spanish artist, who has never abandoned
his experimental search. The continuous
dialogue between matter and form finds
space in the Calabrian museum. The
museum will also house Muri (Walls), a
synthesis of his art, of the nomadic
journey which, using language that is
permanently precarious and unstable,
leads to the Graffitism of the ‘80s.
ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCES
AVAILABLE
Edited by Lóránd Hegyi
English/Italian text
Size 23×27
Pages 168
Paperback with flaps
Price € 35,00
EXHIBITION
Palermo, Riso
November 14th 2009 - February 28th 2010
This exhibition opens the new season at the Riso Museum in
Palermo. Without in any way wishing to be moralistic or
didactic, the exhibition, with 24 leading exponents of the
contemporary art scene on display, deals with fundamental
ethical issues regarding the very concept of “creation” and the
theme of the artist’s responsibility; the extent to which he or
she manages to involve the visitor in an interpretative journey
through essential themes – through signs, symbols and
metaphors – which are at the same time both simple and
complex. Organised in two phases, the exhibition represents a
sort of encyclopaedia of artistic representation of the great
existential themes. The first part explores the great issues of
passing time, death, loneliness, fear, identity and love. The
artists exhibiting in this first section include: Marina Abramovic,
Jan Fabre, Gloria Friedmann, Dennis Oppenheim, William
Kentridge, Anselm Kiefer, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paolo
Grassino, Danica Dakic, Kevin Francis Gray, Gilbert&George,
Koji Tanada. The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to
works by artists who share the desire to shape fascinating
metaphors, with echoes of loss, resistance, devotion, empathy
and participation. Names include: Lee Ufan, Richard Long,
Roman Opalka, Giuseppe Penone, Gunther Uecker, Pedro
Cabrita Reis, Kim Sooja. This exhibition opens the new season
at the Riso Museum in Palermo. The exhibition, with 24 leading
exponents of the contemporary art scene on display, deals with
fundamental ethical issues.
11
ART/CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS
ARTE IN TRANSITO
Viaggio nell’arte in Basilicata
ART/CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS
AVAILABLE
FEEL A WORK OF PERSOL
Edited by Incontri Internazionali d’Arte
English/Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 96
Illustrations 80 color
Paperback with flaps
VV.AA.
English text
French text
Size 25×28
Pages 160
Illustrations 140
Hardcover with jacket
Price € 25,00
Price € 60,00
Beyond the confines of the exhibition, a bird’s eye look at
Basilicata’s Art in Transit project. The Art in Transit project, launched
in Potenza in 2009, has sponsored a series of seminars with leading
exponents of Italian and European culture, training courses, public
entertainment events and, above all, four site specific works
by well-known international artists (Daniel Buren, Michele Iodice,
Bianco-Valente and Studio Azzurro), who have all interpreted the
townscape from its outskirts to the historic city centre offering
a fresh look at a familiar landscape. The volume also hosts
contributions from the curators of the project, Brunella Buscicchio
Scherer, Giuseppe Biscaglia and Francesco Scaringi.
12
English
French
An innovative creative project that grew up around a well-known
brand of sunglasses. Persol as an inspiration for a large group of
carefully selected contemporary artists from all around the world.
“A work of Persol” commissioned a group of artists from all over
the world each to create a new work inspired by Persol
sunglasses. Persol glasses come from a very special production
process that combines dexterity, culture, passion and dedication.
The long, careful work that goes into each pair of glasses has now
become an inspiration and concept for a project that has enrolled
some of contemporary art’s newest talents, who share the values
of the well-known Italian brand in their creative approach and
passion. Each artist is distinguished by his or her creative process
involving different, experimental and material experiences, so
that the materials used become an essential element of the final
work of art. The volume comprises critical essays and pictures on
the creative process that led the artists to produce their unique
works due to go on exhibition at Art Basel 2010.
EXHIBITION
Art Basel 2010
DOGANA DA MÀR
La Punta dell’arte
Punta: Art Point
La Pointe de l’Art
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
Edited by Giandomenico Romanelli
English/French/Italian text
Size 24×28,5
Pages 332
Illustrations 180
Hardcover with jacket
Price € 60,00
Giandomenico Romanelli, a member of the new scientific
committee of Punta della Dogana, is this author of this book which
traces the functional history (as a trading center) and the
iconographic role (in paintings from the 18th century to the present
day) of the building which housed the Dogana da Màr (the customs
house for goods arriving by sea) of the Most Serene Republic of
Venice. Romanelli, Paola Rossi and J.-C. Hoquet tell the story of the
building right up to the moment when Tadao Ando stepped in. His
aim was to make Punta della Dogana the third contemporary art
venue in Venice, after the Peggy Guggenheim and Palazzo Grassi.
Designed in the 17th century by Giuseppe Benoni, the building
consists of eight bays with a tower at the tip. On the top of the
tower is a large gilt bronze sphere representing the globe,
shouldered by two kneeling Atlas figures, with a statue of Fortune
on the very top. This wedge-shaped building between the Grand
Canal and the Canale della Giudecca, overlooking the Bacino San
Marco, commands one of the finest views in Venice.
RELEASE DATE
JUNE 2010
13
ART/CONTEMPORARY MONOGRAPHIES
ALIGHIERO BOETTI
Catalogo ragionato
ART/CONTEMPORARY MONOGRAPHIES
AVAILABLE
Edited by Archivio Alighiero Boetti
English/Italian text
Size 25×28
Page 450
Illustrations 400 color
Hardcover in case
SUBODH GUPTA
AVAILABLE
VV.AA.
English text
Size 32×32
Pages 304
Illustrations 300
Hardcover
Price € 90,00
Price € 200,00
14
In the landmark series devoted to general and theme catalogues
about famous artists, the first volume of the series covering
the complete works of Alighiero Boetti examines his creations from
1962-1971. A master of construction and invention,
whose work is distinguished by a refined sense of conceptual irony,
Alighiero Boetti has spent his whole life conducting
complex research into a variety of themes. This first volume
about the work of the artist from Turin catalogues his works
between 1962 and 1971, a crucial period of in-depth research.
The generative principles which make his soul vibrate, like order
and chaos, randomness and necessity, seeking and finding,
the equal and the different, are developed in his work through
materials and procedures which are simple “but of extraordinary
esthetic clarity”. It is especially in the ethics of his artistic
output that Boetti infringes the rules of art, which put artist
and creator on the same level. While he is responsible for the
original idea behind the work, he actually leaves the job
of creating it – as in the case of his famous Maps – to an expert.
A total of four volumes will cover his entire output. After this
volume, in 2010, another will cover Boetti’s works from 1972-1978,
and two more volumes will cover his output in the periods
1979-1985 and 1986-1994.
The first monograph on key indian contemporary art exponent
Subodh Gupta, with contributions by prestigious art critics and a
wealth of images published here for the first time.
Born in Bihar, one of the most important centers of Buddhist
teaching, Gupta now lives in New Delhi. His move from the
country to the city is an allegory of modern India, where the
rural dimension of the village is rapidly bending to the influence
of cosmopolitan culture.
The artist’s monumental sculptures and installations, created by
assembling hundreds of sparkling stainless-steel utensils, reflect
the ‘short-circuit’ currently taking place between archaic and
modern culture, between traditions and change.
On the one hand, the monograph, which has two main sections,
examines the career of the artist through an exploration of his
work, from his earliest works up to the present day, and it focuses
on the exhibition entitled “There is always cinema”, created by
Subodh in the former cinema of San Gimignano, which resulted
in a series of works presented by Galleria Continua.
The book concludes with criticisms by the famed French critic
Nicolas Bourriaud and Italian Elio Grazioli, and an extensive
photographic content, most of which is published here for the
first time, with examples of the artist’s extraordinary creations,
made using various everyday utensils and pots and pans.
15
ART/CONTEMPORARY MONOGRAPHIES
PINO PASCALI
Edited by Anna D’Elia
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 256
Illustrations 32 color and 130 bicromia
Paperback
ART/CLASSIC & MODERN MONOGRAPHIES
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
Price € 35,00
“I have been close to many artists, some of them great, but in none of them
have I ever encountered Pascali’s white heat, his blistering creativity, his power
to mould materials into the pure gold of fantasy.” Thus Cesare Brandi on Pino
Pascali (Bari 1935 – Rome 1968), who became an icon of the extraordinary
vitality of Italian art in the 1960s, thanks to both the startling brevity and
generosity of his life and his artistic development. Sculptor, set designer and
performer, Pascali brilliantly juxtaposed the mythical primary forms of
Mediterranean nature and culture (its fields, sea, landscape and wildlife) with
the forms of childish toys and adventure and the icons and fetishes of mass
culture. He transposed this imaginary world into concise, monumental forms,
often produced using the most ephemeral of materials, supplying an original,
critical response from Italy and the Mediterranean to new tendencies from the
USA, such as Pop Art, and preceding the conceptual art of the seventies.
16
GIORGIONE
Edited by Mauro Lucco
Italian text
Size 25×28
Pages 160
Illustrations 234 color
Paperback with flaps
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
Price € 39,00
2010 being the fifth anniversary of the death of Giorgione,
Electa has reprinted this monography in a competitively priced
edition. A lavishly-illustrated collection of Giorgione’s paintings,
showing specially produced views of both complete works and
details. The pictures are accompanied by detailed descriptions
of each work. The volume also contains a complete catalogue
of the artist’s paintings and drawings, including his lost works
and those attributed to him, followed by a biography and a
detailed bibliography. This study by Mauro Lucco is still
considered a milestone by academics, especially as far as the
painter’s widely-debated autography is concerned. Electa has
taken advantage of media interest surrounding the celebrations
marking this anniversary to reprint a work that is sure to be
appreciated by experts and the general public alike.
17
ART/CLASSIC & MODERN
GLI AFFRESCHI DI CHIARAVALLE
Edited by Mina Gregori
and Sandrina Bandiera
Italian text
Size 25×32
Pages 304
Illustrations 200 color
Hardcover with jacket
ART/CLASSIC & MODERN
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
LA MADONNA DELLE VITTORIE
A PIAZZA ARMERINA
Dal gran Conte Ruggero al Settecento
AVAILABLE
Edited by Maria Katya Guida
Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 192
Illustrations 100
Paperback with flaps
Price € 120,00
Price € 40,00
18
A volume in Electa’s great tradition, documenting the cycle of
frescoes and the various works of restoration they have undergone
with illustrations in the same format as the originals, which capture all
the emotions of viewing them in their real life setting.
These stunning illustrations are the result of a specially-commissioned
photographic shoot.
The first volume to provide exhaustive, analytical documentation on the
important cycle of paintings decorating the dome at the base of the
church tower. These are the Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, a cycle
dating back to the mid-14th century, which was based on the “Golden
Legend” by the Domenican Jacobus da Varagine, an inspiration in
terms of subject matter for much medieval art. Chiaravalle Abbey is a
Cistercian monastic complex built in the 12th century. The cycle of
frescoes is believed to be the work of pupils from the school of Giotto.
The choice of Our Lady as the subject of the cycle is due to the fact
that the abbey was dedicated to the Madonna when it was built in
1135. This volume illustrates episodes, details and aspects of the
frescoes which would be extremely difficult to appreciate, thanks to its
height, when viewing the cycle in its original setting.
PITTURA SACRA A MONTECITORIO
Dipinti dal ‘400 al ‘600
della Collezione Pallavicini
AVAILABLE
Edited by Nicola Spinosa
Italian text
Size 21×29,7
Pages 32
Illustrations 15 color
Hardcover sewn
The exhibition is the result of a wide-sweeping study of Piazza
Armerina’s venerated Madonna delle Vittorie, rediscovered in 1348.
The tradition that links the Sicilian town of Piazza Armerina to
the Count of Norman origins, Ruggero I d’Altavilla, still holds
strong, since the Count donated the icon to the town following
his victories banishing the Saracens from the island. There are
further links to kikkotissa and the famous icon donated by
Alexius I Commenius to the Kikko monastery in Cyprus, all part
of the Mediterranean artistic culture stretching from Cyprus to
Puglia to eastern Sicily, with copies and derived works in the
Campania region and Sicily itself, especially the Madonna
dell’Alemanna in Gela. An important part of the exhibition deals
with the spread of devotion to the icon fostered by the reforms
in the 15th century and the effects of the counter-reformation,
with the accent on sources from within the Jesuits and the
Franciscans, and the influences on 17th and 18th art, particularly
on devotional objects wrought in silver.
PIERRE-JEAN MARIETTE
CATALOGUE RAISONNÈ
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
Edited by Pierre Rosenberg
French/Italian text
Size 12,5×20
Pages 452
Illustrations 30
Hardcover
Price € 75,00
Price € 12,00
The Italian parliament building of Palazzo di Montecitorio opens its
doors to the public for the exhibition of seven paintings from the
15th to the early 17th of the Pallavicini collection.
They do show how artists of the calibre of Botticelli, Signorelli,
Barozzi and Rubens translated religious and aesthetic themes into
images for the benefit of a community of the faithful from a variety
of social backgrounds with different cultural roots, sometimes of
different races, and communicated ideas and ideals, contents and
arguments, principles and aims that were not always easy to grasp.
The great collection of Pierre-Jean Mariette is finally being
published in five large volumes, introduced by an anastatic copy of
the book which has allowed it to be reconstructed. In 1775, when all
the items in the collection belonging to Pierre-Jean Mariette came
under the hammer at a seemingly endless auction, an immense
collection of incalculable value was disintegrated – more than 9,000
drawings, all marked with the Mariette monogram: pencil sketches
by Salviati and Rubens, charcoal drawings by Watteau and others by
French. Today, a book kept at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
contains a description of the works that were auctioned, with
illustrations of the items in the margin by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin
(1624-1780). These drawings in the margin, rapidly executed pencil
sketches, have been very important in reconstructing Mariette’s
huge collection. The anastatic copy of the book is now presented in
its complete form, in a smaller refined edition, as an introduction to
the broader-ranging work about Pierre-Jean Mariette’s collection.
The five volumes of drawings by French, Italian, Dutch, German and
Flemish artists will be presented to the public from April 2010.
19
ART/ESSAY
ART/ESSAY
CRIVELLI E L’ARTE TESSILE
I tappeti e i tessuti di Carlo Crivelli
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
Edited by Associazione culturale Matam
(Museo Arte Tessile Antica Milano),
Moshe Tabibnia con Tiziana Marchesi
e Elena Piccoli
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 240
Illustrations 115
Paperback with flaps
An innovative approach to artistic design in the field of textiles,
embracing history, art, economics and geography. Measured
comparison between the two fundamentally different disciplines of
textile design and painting opens new fields of study. With fascinating
insights into the world of painting and Anatolian carpets, the section of
the catalogue dedicated to Crivelli and Brera analyzes Carlo Crivelli’s indepth study of carpets which he then applies to his paintings. From a
project that was part of the Brera Art Gallery bicentennial celebrations
programme, the MATAM cultural association has produced a publication
on Carlo Crivelli and textiles. There is an overview of how textiles are
represented in Crivelli’s works and that of his contemporaries, followed
by a study of similar representations in Venetian paintings, given the
close contacts between the Venetian and Marche artists of the time. This
clarifies the underlying theme of the whole book: that studying paintings
helps study carpets and vice versa. The volume ends with some
chemical and physical analysis and 20 fact files on textiles and carpets.
LA MUSA STUPITA 2
Infanzia e fruizione del museo
VV.AA.
English text
Size 11×18
Pages 96
Paperback with flaps
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
Price € 12,00
Price € 35,00
20
ON BIENNALS 2
RELEASE DATE
APRIL 2010
A journey through biennals around the world, from Venice to
the 2010 edition of Documenta, from the general biennals of
the past to the site-specific biennals of today, with a prophetic
look at the future. The promise made in 2008 to produce an
even more internationally-oriented edition has been kept, with a
wealth of critics, journalists and curators, but above all artists,
protagonists of conversations and “behind the scenes”
interviews on their works. Among them curators Angela Vettese,
Carlos Basualdo, Pier Luigi Sacco, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev,
Renato Barilli, Luca Beatrice and Beatrice Buscaroli, Gabriella
Belli, Daniel Birnbaum, Marco Carminati, Stefano Baia Curioni,
Claudia Vassallo, Concita De Gregorio, Elio, Salah Hassan,
Sharon Hecker, Jennie Hirsh, Eva Diaz, Jannis Kounellis, Cornelia
Lauf, Arto Lindsay, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Achille Bonito Oliva,
Monique Veaute and Francesco Vezzoli.
21
RICERCHE SUL ‘600 NAPOLETANO
Saggi e documenti 2009
AVAILABLE
Edited by Fiorenza Mariotti
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 132
Illustrations 85
Paperback
VV.AA.
Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 200
Illustrations 70 color
Paperback
Price € 18,00
Price € 45,00
School children and their relationship to museums, analysed in scientific
detail for both the non-specialist reader and experts in pedagogy.
In collaboration with Milan Town Council’s department of Education,
this is a new look at the theory and practise of how children learn from
their visits to museums. A number of museums, who together embody
the abstract concept of a museum. This volume looks at how some of
Milan’s museums have approached exhibitions and cultural events in
this context. It examines an unusual, and effective, didactic approach
that exploits a broad range of communication tools, including some
which are both spectacular and interactive, to establish a new
relationship between learning and museums.
A new number of the periodical founded in 1982 and published
by Electa Naples from 1996 on.
Considerations on the Neapolitan Period (1584-1606) by Elio
Catello; Artemisia Maria Borgia, Princess of Cariati’s. Unpublished
Documents on Arts and Crafts in Naples in the 16th ad 17th
Centuries. In this edition there are also two foreign language
articles Los Ribera del poeta mallorquín Antonio Gual, secretario
del duque de Medina de las Torres, virrey de Nápoles di Mariano
Carbonell Buades and Tracing the success of Andrea Vaccaro’s
painting in Spain by Anna K. Tuck-Scala and Ida Mauro.
ARCHITECTURE THEMES
SAPONE SAPEY
ARCHITECTURE THEMES
AVAILABLE
ARCHITETTURA & NATURA
DESIGN E ARTIFICIO
VV.AA.
English/Italian text
Size 27×29
Pages 324
Illustrations 350 color
Paperback with flaps
RELEASE DATE
MARCH 2010
Edited by Emilio Ambasz
English/Italian text
French/Spanish text
Size 22,5×30,5
Pages 584
Illustrations 600 color
Hardcover with jacket
Price € 50,00
Price € 100,00
‘Emotional architecture’ is what Teresa Sapey herself says lies behind
her projects. Pure emotions, aroused through color, unusual
dimensions and spaces, achieving results which do not aim to be
merely functional and esthetic. Color and exuberance also infiltrate
her books: after Sapore Sapey (Sapey Flavor, a quite unique recipe
book, halfway between cuisine and design, the second stage in the
world of this architect is Sapone Sapey (Sapey Soap): a book of five
chapters describing five different recipes for using soap, from large
things (such as planes) to the things we use habitually in daily life.
And there are plenty of bubbles, surely the most magical and
interesting form of abstract art, between the soap recipes.
English/Itaian
French/Spanish
An updated version of the monography dedicated to Emilio Ambasz
published to mark two important exhibitions celebrating the
architect, one at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, and the other at the
Forum Grimaldi in Montecarlo.
This is an updated and expanded version of the volume dedicated to
Emilio Ambasz (Argentina, 1943), a versatile, extraordinarily innovative
artist, who could turn his hand with equal success to architecture,
town planning, industrial design, interior decorating or furniture
design. His best known projects are the Mycal Cultural Centre in
Sanda, Japan, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York and the
greenhouses for the botanical gardens in San Antonio, Texas.
Ambasz, who was often called ‘a narrator of fairy tales’, is difficult to
slot into any traditional form of criticism. Each of his projects and
constructions was characterised by his passionate search for
originality, his resistance to any tame idea of modernism and by close
links between nature and architecture.
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23
A FIOR DI PELLE/SKIN DEEP
Centro di medicina rigenerativa
di Modena
AVAILABLE
VV.AA.
English/Italian text
Size 24×32
Pages 208
Illustrations 200 color
Flexibound
Price € 50,00
The new Stefano Ferrari Center for Regenerative Medicine bears the
signature of the ZPZ Partners architectural studio, headed by Michele
Zini, Mattia Parmiggiani and Claudia Zoboli: a young but highly
specialized team, who presented an innovative project on a European
scale. The center specializes in cultivating adult stem cells for the
transplant of human tissues and requires environments which are
absolutely sterile, often without any natural light or fresh air. Based on
the special characteristics demanded by the center, the building was
conceived as a solid building with a ‘skin’ surface to meet two of the
main needs: to portray the activities conducted inside the building and
so to create a building that would be flexible and transformable, both
during the design stage and once it was completed.
Well known semiotic scientific writers and design critics signed the
multidisciplinary texts: A. Branzi, A. Landi, F. Filippi, A.Testa,
P. Pierantoni, E. Morteo, A. Sarti, C.T. Castelli.
ARCHITECTURE THEMES
GIO PONTI
La committenza Fernandes
ARCHITECTURE THEMES
AVAILABLE
Edited by Fabrizio Mautone
English/Italian text
Size 22×24
Pages 184
Illustrations 200 color
Flexibound
Price € 30,00
PALAZZO MONTECITORIO
Il palazzo barocco
Edited by Paolo Portoghesi,
Giovanni Carbonara
English text
Size 24×30
Pages 184
Illustrations 150
Paperback with flaps
Price € 40,00
A new outlook on the work of the great Italian architect Gió Ponti.
A book focusing on three of the hotels he designed (in terms of
structure, furnishing, design accessories, etc.) in Naples, Sorrento
and Rome.
A controversial figure who was often misunderstood, Gió Ponti
was one of the greatest exponents of Italian architecture of the
20th century. This book examines his meeting with a brilliant
entrepreneur, Roberto Fernandes. A professional exchange which,
through the building of three hotels, in Naples, Sorrento and
Rome, marked an important moment in the architecture of the
sector and in the design of the ’50s and ‘60s as a whole.
This brief account, richly illustrated with hitherto unpublished
documents, designs and photographs, in which architecture and
art come together, looks at Ponti’s thinking and the fact that he
regarded the man who commissioned his works as one of the
creators of each project. In addition to the main text, the book
contains introductions by Lisa Ponti and Marco Romanelli.
24
AVAILABLE
This first book about Palazzo di
Montecitorio, examines the Baroque
building through a photographic review
of etchings and paintings featuring the
palazzo, executed between the 17th and
19th centuries.
The current building was commissioned
by Pope Innocent X from Gian Lorenzo
Bernini as a future residence for the
Ludovisi family. Bernini, an extraordinary
interpreter of the true essence of Roman
Baroque, designed a building which, in
terms structure and decoration, was
suited to the lie of the land. In fact, the
facade of the palazzo, which is slightly
curved, follows the line of the artificial
hill, and the roughly-hewn stones, from
which leaves and broken branches
emerge, simulate a building constructed
on bare rock.
The second of two books devoted to
Palazzo di Montecitorio focuses on its
more recent history, which is closely
Edited by Bruno Tobia,
Paolo Portoghesi, Leonardo Benevolo linked to the Italian Parliament. In his
designs for the interior, Ernesto Basile
English text
used his taste as a designer rather than
Size 24×30
an architect, achieving an overall result in
Pages 184
which the solemnity of the rooms blends
Illustrations 150
Paperback with flaps
perfectly with the lightness of the
decoration and the detail. Examples of
Price € 40,00
this are the debating chambers, the
polychrome marble floors, the ceilings
AVAILABLE
and the furnishings, all of which Basile
supervised in detail, according to the
vogue of the period.
PALAZZO MONTECITORIO
Il palazzo liberty
LA STAZIONE CENTRALE
DI NAPOLI
Storia e architettura
di un palinsesto urbano
Edited by Cettina Lenza
Italian text
with English abstract
Size 22×28
Pages 190
Illustrations 100 color
Paperback with flaps
Price € 40,00
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
After the success of the book about
Rome’s main station, Archeologia a Roma
Termini, here is another book published
in cooperation with the company Grandi
Stazioni. From Naples’ first station, built
just after Italian Unification, to the
building of the new station shortly after
WWII, the book describes the complex
experience of a place that has become a
symbol of modern Naples. The first part
of the book focuses on the original
station, built in 1866, the city’s new
‘eastern gate’, designed by architect and
town-planner Enrico Alvino. The second
part of the book describes the railway
network of the early 20th century, and
looks at the evolution of various designs
and alterations made during the period.
25
FASHION & DESIGN
FASHION & DESIGN
MITO E BELLEZZA
AVAILABLE
MILA E LA NOTTE
Abiti da sera di Mila Schön 1966-1993
AVAILABLE
Edited by Roberto Martinelli
e Velia Gini Bartoli
Italian text
Size 24×28
Pages 336
Illustrations 300 color
Paperback with flaps
Edited by Arianna Boria
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 160
Illustrations 100 black and color
Paperback with flaps
Price € 52,00
Price € 30,00
Napoleon and Hermès. Two legends. Objects which once belonged
to Napoleon, model ships, sketches, watercolours, uniforms, a
fontaine à coco, a paper plate, toy soldiers, objects from the Hermès
private collection and leading Parisian museums, together with a large
number of carré from the prestigious Maison, are all part of this
unusual book. Few people are aware of the link that unites these
apparently disparate objects to Emile-Maurice Hermès and the legend
of the emperor: a link that lasted for over fifty years and characterised
an important part of the production of these world famous scarves.
Two people with an immense flair for communication and style,
intensely aware of beauty and refinement, but equally committed to
comfort and practicality, especially when it came to travel.
Evening dresses by Mila Schön 1966-1993. A little over a year after
her death, the town of Trieste pays homage to Mila Schön, who
spent her childhood and youth here. The exhibition includes 63
dresses, all covered in carefully embroidered beads, spangles and
glitter, unique dresses which were on the wish list of all the most
important women in the world midway through the sixties. The 1983
“Manhattan” collection, characterised by its bold black skylines of
skyscrapers, was a homage to New York, as was the 1990-1991
“Tiffany” collection, with shiny embroidery reminiscent of Louis
Confort Tiffany’s signature multi-coloured glasswork. The exhibition
also dedicates a cameo to Nino Nutrizio, Mila Schön’s brother, who
was the first editor of the Milan daily newspaper “La Notte”.
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PININFARINA
Edited by D.G.R. Carugati
English text
Size 25×28
Pages 240
Illustrations 200
Hardcover with jacket
RELEASE DATE
MAY 2010
Price € 60,00
The world-famous Italian car designer studio celebrates its 80th
anniversary. A new edition of this popular book produced in close
collaboration with Pininfarina and its leading designers. The Turinbased studio, which designed so many Ferraris and some of the other
most famous cars in the world, is tightly bound to the trademark
concept of Italian style. Design historian and car expert Decio
Carugati, tells this landmark automobile industry and the Farina
family, baptised Pininfarina by joining the name and surname of its
founder, in a panorama that also embraces 80 years of Italian history.
Famous models, innovative objects and design from the Cambiano
works thread their way through over 200 pages in a constantly
evolving story which stretches ahead as well as into the past.
PHOTOGRAPHY & PERFORMING ARTS
HAITI
28
PHOTOGRAPHY & PERFORMING ARTS
AVAILABLE
SOS PIANETA TERRA
Photos by Stefano Guindani
Italian text
Size 23×30
Pages 168
Illustrations 85 black and color
Hardcover
Photos by Luca Bracali, Patricio Estay
Italian text
Size 24,5×32
Pages 240
Illustrations 170
Hardcover
Price € 35,00
Price € 60,00
Part of the earnings from this book will be donated to the Rava
Foundation to help disadvantaged children in Italy and around the
world. For the past twenty years Stefano Guindani’s ruling passion
has been photography in all its guises. In this latest work he explores
a particularly difficult social theme: children in Haiti. In no other
country in the western hemisphere do children run such a high risk of
death while still in their infancy as those born in Haiti. Thousands of
Haitian children fight for survival on a daily basis. In rural areas they
have no access to the most basic of public services, often having to
walk miles to get health care or even find a water supply. But despite
being one of the poorest countries in the world, where 70% of the
population is unemployed, talent and energy abound, as the Rava
Foundation has discovered. Registered charity Rava works to
promote awareness, sponsorship for children and voluntary work, as
well as running an orphanage, schools, a paediatric hospital and a
rehabilitation centre for handicapped children on the island.
Guidani’s very moving shots capture a world of hope without any
bathetic trace of pity or commiseration for children who can still trust
in the future and, despite all, view their world with eternal optimism.
AVAILABLE
At the dawn of the new millennium, what sort of state is the planet
Earth in? A review of 170 photographs illustrates the state of the planet
in a dual format. On the one hand, it shows the wonders of the world
and its splendid natural environments and, on the other, how humans
interact with Nature and how it has been contaminated by them. A
journey across the continents from Alaska to Brazil, passing through
New Caledonia to show how the Coeur de Voh, the heart-shaped
forest made famous by Arthus-Bertrand Yann’s photograph, has been
burnt and reduced to a pile of dead branches. To what extent are
human activities having a negative influence, upsetting the natural
equilibrium and spoiling our landscapes? This book, making a
remarkable visual impact, follows the thinking of Al Gore, Nobel Peace
Prize-winner in 2007. His message is to regard climate change as a real
danger in terms of the future of our planet, and introduces a change of
perspective with regard to safeguarding the Earth and saving energy.
To raise awareness of this problem, Luca Bracali’s splendid
photographs, with editing support from Chilean photographer Patricio
Estay, portray the devastation wrought by human hands.
29
PHOTOGRAPHY & PERFORMING ARTS
DAL PIACERE ALLA DOLCEVITA
Roma 1889-1960
una capitale allo specchio
PHOTOGRAPHY & PERFORMING ARTS
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
SARDEGNA
LE PASTE DELLA TRADIZIONE
Edited by Antonio De Benedetti,
Gianni Borgna
Italian text
Size 19×25
Pages 288
Illustrations 200
Hardcover with jacket
Photos by Antonio Saba
Text by Gilberto Arru
Introduzione di Fiammetta Fadda
Italian text
Size 28×28
Pages 182
Illustrations 160
Hardcover
Price € 35,00
Price € 40,00
Gianna Borgna and Antonio De Benedetti reconstruct the tumultuous
life and transformations of Rome, between the late 19th century to
the 1960s. Once a relatively calm city it suddenly became a famous
metropolis, a cultural center of primary importance, in Italy and
throughout the world.
The texts and images document the personalities who have made the
city great: writers and poets such as Pirandello and Ungaretti; artists,
from Guttuso to De Chirico; the unforgettable stars of Italian cinema,
from Magnani to Ekberg and Mastroianni, from Visconti to Fellini and
Pasolini; not to mention eternal names like Maria Callas.
A choral story that recognizes in the city’s thousand voices a vitality of
ideas which today still engenders a thrill, decades after the Rome of
‘La Dolce Vita’.
AVAILABLE
A journey of exploration into Sardinian cuisine, genuine flavors
passed on by word of mouth.
Wonderful illustrations of Sardinian pasta dishes, not only
traditional recipes but also contemporary versions of the
originals. A cookbook for everyone, from housewives with a
special meal to cook on Sunday to professional chefs.
The recipes are divided into regions of provenance. For each
region there are traditional recipes and unusual pasta names, for
example: lorighittas, malloreddus, maccarones, cassulli, chjusoni
(a kind and so on). In the final section of the book, traditional
pasta recipes are given a contemporary twist. On full pages,
dark backgrounds crossed with beams of light enhance portraits
of women dressed in black at work in the kitchen, while white
plates occupying the whole page do justice to the golden pasta
and the rich colors of the sauces.
30
31
SEASON OF MUSIC
AVAILABLE
Photos by Luca Artioli
English/Italian text
Size 28,5×21
Pages 182
Illustrations 90 color
Hardcover with jacket
Price € 35,00
The combination of Luca Artioli’s photographs and the tour of
the Cameristi della Scala playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in
Moscow and the Baltic States is truly astonishing. A series of
vibrant images expressing the common characteristics between
music and photography, such as tone and color.
As a result, Vivaldi’s Spring movement in the key of E major
corresponds to the deep blue of the sky; the Summer
movement in G minor is the yellow ochre of sunburnt earth and
searing heat; the Autumn movement in F major is the dark
green of meadows and the heady season of the grape-harvest;
the Winter movement in F minor translates visually into the
white of snow. Poetry and music, photography of the soul
resulting in an unusual and absorbing juxtaposition.
AD ESEMPIO
AD ESEMPIO
VILLE IN SVIZZERA
Text by Mercedes Daguerre
Italian text
Size 30×24 cm
Pages 208
Illustrations 300 color
Hardcover with jacket
34
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
VILLE IN PORTOGALLO
Text by Carlotta Tonon
Italian text
Size 30×24 cm
Pages 240
Illustrations 300 color
Hardcover with jacket
RELEASE DATE
APRIL 2010
Price € 58,00
Price € 60,00
The book provides an opportunity to focus our attention on
recent developments in the Swiss architectural debate, through
a selection of residential buildings created in the last few years.
The selection of detached villas on which the book focuses
shows the variety of language, the diversity of approach and
nuances, where homologising trends and centripetal impulses
co-exist, with the aim of emphasizing the specific character of
places and their territorial identity.
The houses selected were designed by: Arnaboldi,
Burkhalter+Sumi, Eckert+Eckert, Ferrari, Geninasca,
Gigon+Guyer, Graber+Steiger, Gut+Gijzen, Kerez, Koenz+Molo,
Marques, Radczuweit, Salvi, Snozzi, Wagner, Wespi+deMeuron
and Zech.
A look at 18 recently-built villas in Portugal by famous architects
and some younger members of the profession. A reflection on
the characteristics of modern Portuguese architecture.
Projects include work by Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de
Moura, their immediate heirs such as Manuel and Francisco
Aires Mateus, João Carrilho da Graça, Cristina Guedes and José
Gonçalves, Graça Correia and Roberto Ragazzi, as well as
relatively new talents like Guilherme Machado Vaz and
Arquitectos Anónimos.
35
DOCUMENTI DI ARCHITETTURA
PALERM & TABARES DE NAVA
ARQUITECTOS
DOCUMENTI DI ARCHITETTURA
RELEASE DATE
APRIL 2010
Texts by Marco Mulazzani,
Carlos Ferrater
Italian text
Size 22×28
Pages 176
Illustrations 200 color
Paperback with flaps
Texts by Pierre-Alain Croset, Luka Skansi
Italian text
Size 22×28
Pages 416
Illustrations 630 black and color
Paperback with flaps
RELEASE DATE
MAY 2010
Price € 75,00
Price € 38,00
Palerm & Tabares de Nava Arquitectos – one of the largest
architectural firms in the Canary Islands – was started in 1986 by
Leopoldo Tabares de Nava (1958) and Juan Manuel Palerm (1957)
with its headquarters at Santa Cruz on the island of Tenerife. The
studio works in the field of architecture, town-planning and
landscaping, through professional responsibilities, competitions,
exhibitions and publications. Over the years, its work has focused
on the role of architecture as a crucial factor in projects involving
different territorial and urban scales – and different environments –
the landscape and the town. Significant works in this context
include the National Library at Las Palmas on Gran Canaria (1999
and later), the painters’ studio at the Fondazione Manrique on
Lanzarote and, in particular, the plan to redevelop the Barranco de
Santos in Santa Cruz.
36
MAURO GALANTINO
Opere e progetti
GINO VALLE
AVAILABLE
Edited by Silvia Milesi
Italian text
Size 22×28
Pages 240
Paperback with flaps
Price € 65,00
This first monography dedicated to the man and his works presents about
forty projects and completed works chosen from a huge body of work
produced over a twenty-year period. An illustrated account of 128 works
testifying the sweeping scope of commissions that range from small
private projects to vast public works, including over 60 projects for as
many national and international competitions. Galantino’s commitment to
challenging the fundamental disciplines of his trade and the Modern
tradition in an obstinate search for a hallmark style able to blend spatial
forms, the sociology of living and construction logic, has led him to use his
professional work, his teaching and the critical analysis of contemporary
works as essential tools for the construction of a complex composite logic.
His designs and sketches reveal how he uses graphics as a language to
express his thoughts and theories until they amount to complete volumes,
works that foreshadow the completed construction with unerring
precision. The book examines Galantino’s projects for competitions in
chronological order, from the redesigning of Piazza Fontana in Milan to
the recently-won commission for the new gateway to Venice,
demonstrating his development in the predominant use of forms and
shapes that also seeks to harmonise with other transversal disciplines.
From his very first projects in the 1950s in Udine and around Friuli,
Gino Valle (1923-2003) was spotted by international critics as one of
the most original, creative figures to emerge in post-war European
architecture. His artistic talent, combined with lively intellectual
curiosity and an authentic passion for experimenting new building
techniques led Valle to elaborate a decidedly open, multiform style.
In the small towns of Friuli and Veneto or in the metropolitan
contexts of New York, Paris and Berlin, council houses and banks,
factories and offices, town halls and tribunals remain today, not only
as solid, modern realities, but also as works to be referred to when
discussing significant projects in the fields of new architecture in
historical contexts, industry and open countryside, town planning
and architecture. 20 years after the publication of the only one
complete monograph dedicated to Valle the book reconstructs his
considerable output in 15 themed chapters, enhanced with 60
charts detailing his main works, with various reading paths which
examine the geographical contexts, the formal characteristics and
the intellectual framework of achievements which defy simple
classification.
GINO VALLE
DEUTSCHE BANK MILANO
AVAILABLE
Texts by Luka Skansi, Friedhelm Huette,
Claudia Schicktanz
English/Italian text
Size 22×28 cm
Pages 120
Illustrations 130 color
Paperback with flaps
Price € 35,00
The book is entirely devoted to the building designed to house the
offices of the Milan branch of Deutsche Bank. In 1997, the project was
entrusted to Gino Valle (1923-2003). Gino Valle interpreted it as a
building composed of several sections, with a stone surface which plays
on variations in light and people’s perception of its various segments as
they walk past. The bottom of the building is clad with shiny black
marble, while the rest of the massive surface is of gray Repen stone.
Windows at the corners make the facades seem lighter. There are
differences in projection towards the inner courtyard, continuous lines
of windows on the facades facing the piazza and only tiny windows on
the side facing the city. Valle’s building for the Deutsche Bank confirms
his interest in the formal power of the urban buildings of the first two
decades of the 20th century. As well as devoting space to the building’s
interior, designed and supervised by Italo Rota, the book concludes by
drawing our attention to the bank’s contemporary art collection and the
visual and spatial relationships established by these works of art with
the building and the people who work there.
37
ARCHITETTURA E ARCHITETTI MODERNI
ARIS KONSTANTINIDIS
1913-1993
38
DESIGN
RELEASE DATE
JUNE 2010
IL DESIGN DELLA CERAMICA IN ITALIA
1850-2000
RELEASE DATE
FEBRUARY 2010
Texts by Paola Cofano, Dimitris
Konstantinidis, Eleni Fessa-Emmanouil,
Kenneth Frampton, Giovanni Leoni
Italian text
Size 25×28
Pages 360
Illustrations 500 black and color
Hardcover with jacket and slipcase
Text by Elena Dellapiana
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 270
Illustrations 350 color
Paperback with flaps
Price € 100,00
The book sets out to describe the history of ceramics design in Italy from
the late 19th century up to the present: from the applied arts debate and
the early phases of industrialization to the birth of areas of production and
industrial transformation, from the 20th century with its large numbers and
the impact of designers and companies, to the contemporary scenario of
fashion and research. The book looks how the technique of processing clay
in a kiln becomes a field of experimentation which is ideal for the early
stages of industrialization, as well as the communication and spread of
repeatable formal and decorative expressions. The varied nature of Italy’s
areas of production is documented through an analysis of how they
developed. The book, divided into five long chapters, shows how ceramics,
through its characteristics of being made to last, in repeatable series and its
deep and persisting relationship with everyday life, has become one of the
reflections of the mutations of meaning of contemporary design.
A monograph about the work of Greek architect Aris
Konstantinidis. This isolated, often controversial figure proposed
a vision of the world that was considered unacceptable by the
dominant culture because it was intransigent and ‘antibourgeois’, expressing a form of architecture that was judged to
be excessively modest and anti-Classical. Konstantinidis’ radical
position rejected the academic tradition of architecture, and
pointed towards the world of urban and rural forms of
anonymous architecture. In antithesis to the ‘white’ architecture
of Rationalism, the use of stone and color on reinforced
concrete and on brick solutions which are typical of his work, are
statements of a new kind of expressiveness associated not only
with anonymity but also with the Ancient tradition. The fact that
he worked in Greek state-run organizations allowed him to put
into practice what he had learned at university in Munich and
what he had seen and criticized during his travels to Greece to
study Ancient and spontaneous Greek architecture. The
workers’ quarters designed by him in the years 1955-57 for the
Workers’ Housing Association and the state-run ‘Xenia’ hotels
built in the decade 1957-67 when he was head of the Technical
Service of the Greek National Tourism Organization are two
examples of series of projects where Konstantinidis
experimented with the idea of community living in towns and in
the countryside. In addition to his architectural achievements,
the book describes his passion for photography and the fact
that he was also able to ‘read’ sites and define designs through
the simultaneous use of writing and redesign.
Price € 49,00
39
SUSSIDIARIO DI GRAFICA
Edited by Sergio Polano, Paolo Tassinari
Italian text
Size 17×24
Pages 180
Illustrations 160 black and color
Paperback with flaps
RELEASE DATE
MAY 2010
Price € 40,00
This Graphics Handbook is the sequel of Abecedario, the extremely
successful volume on 20th century graphic design by Sergio Polano and
Pierpaolo Vetta that launched Electa’s Design & Graphics series in 2002.
Sergio Polano and Paolo Tassinari have reproduced the same structure
and intent in this second volume. The Handbook is not intended to be
read as a history of graphics, but rather as a selection of pressing
questions on theory and high-profile people and events from the
contemporary scene. In the first part the Handbook traces a “theory of
graphic artefacts”, linked to the central idea of graphia (etymologically
valid both for writing and painting), and then goes on to deal with,
among other issues, the theme of visual communication by public
institutions and the antithetical relationship between graphics and
propaganda. In the second part, the Handbook exams a series of high
points in graphics from the 20th century, featuring figures such as
Herbert Bayer, Adalberto Libera, Albe Steiner, Nizzoli and Oliveri, Carlo
Scarpa, Alan Fletcher, Susan Kare and John Maeda; not to mention the
history of brands like Coca-Cola and others. The final essay on
banknotes underlines the way in which graphic design is an ubiquitous,
and frequently anonymous, activity that many are unaware of.
Mondadori Electa Spa
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