Movies from the decade of excess, enormity, and experimentalismFrom Aliens to Amadeus, get your fill of 1980s nostalgia with this movie bible of all things bold, bizarre, and boisterous. We've diligently compiled a list of the most influential films of the 1980s that's sure to please popcorn gobblers and highbrow chin-strokers alike. Adventurous, excessive, and experimental, ’80s cinema saw moviegoers get their kicks from pictures as wide-ranging as Blade Runner, Gandhi, and ...
Raphael (1483–1520) is considered the most important artist of the Italian High Renaissance alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo. In his short lifetime he created around one hundred paintings and numerous frescoes, including nine fresco cycles, on an unsurpassed variety of themes – from sensual female beauties, antique myths and portraits of wealthy Romans and church dignitaries to history cycles and biblical scenes. He produced altarpieces, as well as designing tapestries for...
With his smooth, warm, ruddy face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s.Chairman Mao, portrayed as a stoic superhero (aka the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Helmsman, the Supreme Commander), appeared in all kinds of situations (inspecting factories, smoking a cigarette with peasant workers, standing by the Yangzi River i...
Travel across continents and climates to experience architecture that’s rewriting the rules of sustainability. Like the other titles in our Homes for Our Time series, each of the 63 projects in Sustainable Living opens a window into a unique dwelling inspired by the pressures and possibilities of a warming planet with finite resources. The result is a sweeping story of architects, ranging from Norman Foster to the Snøhetta practice, building in bold new ways that honor the ec...
Enter a world populated by private eyes, gangsters, psychopaths, and femmes fatales, where deception, lust, and betrayal run rampant. This film-by-film photography book on film noir and neo-noir begins with the early genre influencers of German and French silent film, journeys through such seminal works such as Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Vertigo, and arrives at the present day via Chinatown, Pulp Fiction, Heat, and the recent cult favorite Drive.Ent...
A comprehensive volume covering five seminal genres that shaped art, from the late 19th century and well into the 20th: Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Each approach was distinct in aesthetic and philosophy, but all had immediate impact and enduring influence. Many great names were indelibly associated with one, some explored several during their careers.Impressionism, led by Monet and Renoir, focused on light and color, capturing...
In 2005, Scott Schuman transformed fashion photography forever when he founded the blog The Sartorialist. The idea was simple: to open a dialogue between fashion and daily life, by shooting locals in public spaces. But in the lineage of Bill Cunningham and August Sander, that unpretentious, radical emphasis on “real people”—off the runway, out of the studio—elevated people-watching to an art and street style to high fashion, long before Instagram. In Milano, Schuman found a m...
Global travel can be a wearying business: mass tourism, overcrowded planes, chaotic airports, heightened security, cookie-cutter hotel chains, well-worn tourist trails. Finding even a sliver of adventure can sometimes feel impossible. But take heart: for all of us with an unfulfilled spirit of wanderlust, The Golden Age of Travel evokes an era when traveling the world was a thrilling new possibility for those with the resources, time, imagination, and daring. This richly ill...
This book presents the epic story of New York on nearly 600 pages of emotional, atmospheric photographs, from the mid-19th century to the present day. Supplementing this treasure trove of images are over a hundred quotations and references from seminal books, movies, shows, and songs. The city’s fluctuating fortunes are all represented, from the wild nights of the Jazz Age to the hedonistic disco era, from to the grim days of the Depression to the devastation of 9/11 and its ...
The Kisokaidō route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country’s then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travelers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaidō journey. After produ...
Mount Fuji has long been a centerpiece of Japanese cultural imagination, and nothing captures this with more virtuosity than the landmark woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849). The renowned printmaker documents 19th-century Japan with exceptional artistry and adoration, celebrating its countryside, cities, people, and serene natural beauty. Produced at the peak of Hokusai’s artistic ambition, the series is a quintessential wor...
Rocky Balboa is the Philadelphian icon who took on the world and won. The original “Italian Stallion,” the gutsy fighter who rose above the odds to boxing glory, and a rags-to-riches legend in the business of making movies. Ever since Sylvester Stallone unleashed his impassioned title character in 1976, the resilient fighter has earned his place in history as a symbol of tenacity and courage and a legend of cinematic success.The story of Rocky the movie is as exciting as t...
Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements, and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of “home” into a workable, constructed reality. This publication rounds up 100 of the...
Virtually unparalleled in scope and spanning more than five decades, the photography of visionary Helmut Newton (1920–2004) reached millions through publication in magazines like Vogue and Elle. His oeuvre transcended genres, bringing elegance, style, and voyeurism to fashion, portrait, and glamour photography through a body of work that remains as inimitable as it is unrivaled. Having mastered the art of fashion photography early in his career, Newton’s shoots invariably wen...
“You may have the universe,” composer Giuseppe Verdi once said, “if I can have Italy.” Back in the mid-19th century, Verdi’s emotive language appealed to the patriotic sentiments of an emergent nation state. After decades of struggle and bloodshed, the movement known as Risorgimento triumphed with the 1861 proclamation of Italian Unity, assembling disparate kingdoms, territories, and borders that had hitherto been ruled by Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Papal State...
In 1960, photographer William Claxton and noted musicologist Joachim E. Berendt traveled the United States hot on the trail of jazz. Through music halls and marching bands, side streets and subways, they sought to document this living, breathing, beating musical phenomenon that enraptured America across social, economic, and racial lines.The result of Claxton and Berendt’s collaboration was Jazzlife, much sought after by collectors and now revived in this fresh TASCHEN volume...
Peter Lindbergh and Azzedine AlaĂŻa, the photographer and the couturier, were united by their love of black, a love that they would cultivate alike in silver print and solid color garments. Lindbergh ceaselessly turned to black and white to signify his search for authenticity in the faces he brought to light. AlaĂŻa drew on the monochrome of timeless clothes to create veritable sculptures for the body. In this book, the unique dialogue between the two artists is immortalized ...
The Gourmand's Egg BookAs Dalí‘s muse, Hitchcock’s nightmare, and humble ingredient, the eternal egg weaves a fascinating tale through the history of culture.?The first volume in The Gourmand's new book series, published by Taschen, The Gourmand's Egg is illustrated with exclusive photography and historic artworks, celebrating the link between food and art through original recipes and stories.
Sebastião Salgado is one the most respected photojournalists working today, his reputation forged by decades of dedication and powerful black-and-white images of dispossessed and distressed people, taken in places where most wouldn’t dare to go. Although he has photographed throughout South America and around the globe, his work most heavily concentrates on Africa, where he has shot more than 40 reportage works over a period of 30 years. From the Dinka tribes in Sudan and the...
Simply the BestTina Turner by Peter LindberghWith her music and boundless passion for life, Tina Turner enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Peter Lindbergh was a lifelong friend of the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll and shot intimate portraits of her over many years.Lindbergh’s photographs do more than just document her iconic status; they reveal the powerful, joyful, and at times introverted woman behind the public persona. Through his len...
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?The sexiest, funniest, weirdest record covers ever wrapped around vinylEric Godtland has worked in the record industry for over 35 years, and collected records since turning 12 in 1977. As manager of the American band Third Eye Blind from 1995 he traveled the world, exploring record stores in every country, adding to his collection. Sexy covers were not a priority, but always welcome.When Godtland switched to managing, and touring with, Village People in ...
From a small, picturesque farmhouse in the rich fields and meadows of Normandy, David Hockney followed the changing seasons across 2020 and into the new year. He used his iPad to spontaneously depict impressions of the landscape surrounding him, catching the first spring blossoms, the smell of summer, the saturated colors of autumn, and the stark shapes of dark branches in winter time. The 220 (plus four bonus) iPad paintings in this book are printed with six colors to match ...
“The Tower is also present to the entire world... a universal symbol of Paris... from the Midwest to Australia, there is no journey to France which isn’t made, somehow, in the Tower’s name.” — Roland Barthes When Gustave Eiffel completed his wrought iron tower on Paris’s Champ de Mars for the World’s Fair in 1889, he laid claim to the tallest structure in the world.Though the Chrysler Building would, 41 years later, scrape an even higher sky, the Eiffel Tower lost none of its...
Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp’s 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th century saw ever more fertile exchange between sounds and shapes, marks and melodies, and different fields of composition and performance. In Francesco Spampinato’s unique anthology of artists’ record covers, we discover the rhy...
'For me, it's really the joy of looking out into the world and getting this positive energy... It's opening up our vision, and how we look'—David HockneyWhen David Hockney discovered the iPhone as an artistic medium, it opened up entirely new possibilities for his art. He made his first digital paintings in spring 2009, describing the morning landscape in broad lines and dazzling colors directly on a display that offered subtle hues as unmixed expressions of pure light.Then i...
In 1965, Tom of Finland began flirting with the idea of an ongoing character for his panel stories, the ultimate Tom’s Man. He tried out a blond named Vicky—a common male name in Finland—followed by a Tarzan-inspired Jack. Then in 1968 Tom settled on Kake, a dark-haired, mustached leatherman who often wore a tight white T-shirt bearing the motto “Fucker.” Kake lived up to this moniker, a sort of post-Stonewall, hyper-masculine Johnny Appleseed traveling the world on his motor...
With his instantly recognizable decorative style, Czech artist and Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) defined the look of the fin-de-siècle. In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre, and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers, and beautiful women became paradigms of the Belle Époque years. Mucha’s work permeated illustration, posters, postcards, and the advertising designs of his day.His striking posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt were particu...
Travelling widely, Ralph Gibson works primarily in inspired series, associated image reveries in both monochrome and colour, whose titles—The Somnambulist, Déjà-Vu, Days at Sea, and Chiaroscuro—underline the particular poetic sensibility that informs his work. Starting out in 1960 with Dorothea Lange, he made his way to New York in 1967 and was soon considered in the same light as the likes of Larry Clark and Diane Arbus. The photographs and series can of course speak for the...
The world appears to be divided into cat and dog lovers, but fortunately Walter Chandoha, the 20th century’s greatest pet photographer found himself happily in the middle. He loved these intriguing creatures equally for their unique beauty and individualism, and as subjects to photograph in a career spanning over 70 years. While working on his critically acclaimed TASCHEN book Cats, Chandoha handpicked his favorite dog photos for a potential follow-up title, putting into care...
A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. In this neat, dependable monograph, we gather all of Klimt's major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged archival material from Klimt's own archive to trace the evolution of his astonishing oeuvre.With top-quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Friez...
On a winter’s night in 1949 in New York City, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha spotted a stray kitten in the snow, bundled it into his coat, and brought it home. Little did he know he had just met the muse that would determine the course of his life. Chandoha turned his lens on his new feline friend—which he named Loco—and was so inspired by the results that he started photographing kittens from a local shelter.These images marked the start of ...
With the cold war ebbing, crime and inflation at record levels, and movie star-turned-President Ronald Reagan launching a Star Wars of his own, the 1980s did not seem likely to become one of the most outrageous, flamboyant, and prosperous decades of the 20th century. The "greed is good" mantra on Wall Street spawned the power-dressing, exercise-obsessed "Me Generation" of Yuppies. The art world enjoyed the influx of capital; computers and video games ruled in the office and a...
Clothes define people. A person’s attire, whether it be a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Indeed, clothing has the power to define people and their generation.Recognizing this sartorial significance is the Kyoto Costume Institute, whose team of curators examine fashion through sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has ...
Decades’ worth of images have been distilled down to 512 pages of photographs in this ultimate retrospective collection of Nobuyoshi Araki's work, selected by the artist himself. First published as a Limited Edition and now back in a new format to celebrate TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary, the curation delves deep into Araki’s best-known imagery: Tokyo street scenes; faces and foods; colorful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As girls...
Following up on the best-selling Bibliotheca Universalis logo manual, this second volume focuses on corporate identity. In a globalized world, more and more symbols convey values ??such as trust, quality, or reliability. This catalog comprehensively breaks down how texts, images, and ideas are condensed into distinctive brands.From airlines and groceries, sportswear and computers, museums, and magazines, to car brands, music labels, pharmaceuticals, and internet portals, this...
Today, the works of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) are among the most well known and celebrated in the world. In paintings such as Sunflowers, The Starry Night, and Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, we recognize an artist uniquely dexterous in the representation of texture and mood, light and place.Yet in his lifetime, van Gogh battled not only the disinterest of his contemporary audience but also devastating bouts of mental illness. His episodes of depression and anxiety would ...
The most exciting new buildings today are almost all environmentally aware, sustainable, and conceived to consume less energy than ever before. Discover the best examples of green projects from the Architecture Now! series in this handy Bibliotheca Universalis edition.Celebrated architects like Frank Gehry and Norman Foster are presented alongside young up-and-coming creators from all over the world. Filled with plans, renderings of proposed projects, and stunning architectur...
With a career spanning seven decades, Catalan-born Joan Miró (1893–1983) was a polymath giant of modern art, producing masterworks across painting, sculpture, art books, tapestry, and ceramics, and embracing ideologies as varied as Fauvism, Surrealism, Dada, Magic Realism, Cubism, and abstraction. Over the course of his prodigious output, Miró evolved constantly, seeking to eschew categorization and the approval of “bourgeois” art critics as much as he pursued his own dreamli...
Meet the artist whose majestic breaking wave sent ripples across the world. Hokusai (1760–1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also significantly influenced Western modernism, whose prolific gamut of prints, illustrations, paintings, and beyond forms one of the most comprehensive oeuvres of ukiyo-e art and a benchmark of japonisme. His influence spread through Impressionism, Art Nouveau, and beyond, enrapturing the likes of C...
Swiss artist HR Giger (1940–2014) is most famous for his creation of the space monster in Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror sci-fi film Alien, which earned him an Oscar. In retrospect, this was just one of the most popular expressions of Giger’s biomechanical arsenal of creatures, which consistently merged hybrids of human and machine into images of haunting power and dark psychedelia. The visions drew on demons of the past, harking back as far as Giger’s earliest childhood fears as...
These restorative retreats have it all Looking for a vacation that leaves you relaxed, restored, and uplifted? In this gorgeous updated guide, Angelika Taschen gathers the most exquisite and inspirational yoga retreats around the world, from an exotic luxury hotel in Bhutan to a spiritual ashram in India, a beach resort in Mexico to a tucked-away treasure in Brazil`s tropical forests. Highlights include the Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh—one of the holy cities of the Ga...
An exhaustive exploration of one of art history's most mysterious masters, Hieronymus Bosch. This monograph, based on the XXL edition which saw TASCHEN commission new photography of recently restored works, unravels his oeuvre through accessible texts, a special chapter on The Garden of Earthly Delights, a fold-out of The Last Judgment, and...
The life of Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona his clothes were so shabby...
Als TASCHEN 1998 The Art of Pleasure von Tom of Finland, bürgerlich Touko Laaksonen, herausbrachte, war Tom außerhalb der Schwulenszene praktisch unbekannt. The Art of Pleasure änderte das grundlegend und vergrößerte seine Fangemeinde schlagartig um ein Vielfaches. Sein Heimatland widmete ihm kürzlich sogar eine Briefmarken-Edition.2009 folgte mit Tom of Finland XXL der ultimate Überblick über Toms Schaffen, eine limitierte Collector's Edition mit weit mehr als 1.000 Bildern ...
In 1965, Steve Schapiro started documenting Andy Warhol for LIFE magazine: Warhol was cementing a reputation as an important Pop artist who drew his inspiration from popular culture and commercial objects. With his sunglasses, blond wig, and bland public utterances, Warhol was enigmatic, charismatic, intensely ambitious, and aware that to become a star, you needed the presence of people to document your ascent. Schapiro, also ambitious and hardworking, who in his own words "k...
German photography pioneer Karl Blossfeldt (1865–1932) photographed plants so beautifully, and with such originality, that his work transcends the medium itself. Over more than 30 years, he took thousands of photographs, revealing a formally rigorous talent whose precision and dedication bridge the 19th- and 20th-century worlds of image-making and bring a distinctly sculptural aspect to a firmly two-dimensional art form.Beautifully but starkly composed against plain cardboard...
Vinyl ManiaThe greatest in jazz LP artPart design history, part trip down musical memory lane, this anthology of jazz album artwork is above all a treasure trove of creative and cultural inspiration. Spanning half a century, it assembles the most daring and dynamic jazz cover designs that helped make and shape not only a musical genre but also a particular way of experiencing life.From the 1940s through to the decline of LP production in the early 1990s, each chosen cover des...
Bringing together all the greats-from Air Jordan 1 to Air Presto-Nike and Virgil Abloh reinvent sneaker culture with the collaborative project The Ten and redesign 10 sneaker icons. Experience engineering ingenuity and Ablohs investigative design process: each shoe is a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once.
Modern GraceLyrical forms from FinlandAlvar Aalto (1898–1976) made a unique modernist mark. Influenced by both the landscape and the political independence of his native Finland, he designed warm, curving, compassionate buildings, wholly set apart from the slick, mechanistic, geometric designs that characterized much contemporary European practice.Whether a church, a villa, a sauna, or a public library, Aalto’s organic structures tended to replace plaster and steel with brick...
The industrial designs that shape our livesIf you take even the slightest interest in the design of your toothbrush, the history behind your washing machine, or the evolution of the telephone, you’ll take an even greater interest in this completely updated edition of Industrial Design A–Z.Tracing the evolution of industrial design from the Industrial Revolution to the present day, the book bursts with synergies of form and function that transform our daily experience. From ca...
Volume two of the definitive exploration [br]of the [i]Star Wars[/i] galaxy From the moment Star Wars burst onto the screen in 1977, audiences have been in equal parts fascinated and appalled by the half-man/half-machine hybrid Darth Vader. In 1999, creator George Lucas began the story of how Anakin Skywalker grew up to train as a Jedi under Obi-Wan Kenobi, found love with the Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, before turning to the dark side of his nature and becoming more machi...
Step into some of the most beautiful havens of Tuscany. Grand patrician homes and rural hermitages alike open their doors to reveal Medici pottery, sun-kissed drawing rooms, and colorful tiled floors. With detailed captions and crisp photography, this portfolio presents each home and its interior to paint a gorgeous picture of Tuscan living.
Die tun was: Henry Ford gab 1908 dem Automobilzeitalter mit seinem Model T, dem ersten Auto vom Fließband, den entscheidenden Impuls. Im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts wandelte sich das Auto von einer knatternden Arbeitsmaschine zu einem Hingucker mit Heckflossen und schließlich zum rollenden Statussymbol nebst Kühlerfigur. Das anfangs als technische Innovation bestaunte Auto wurde zum Inbegriff des modernen Lebens und Garanten von Freiheit und Mobilität schlechthin.20th Century ...
An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag "SAMO," before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barely a decade, he remains a cult figure of artistic social commentary, and a trailblazer in the mediation of graffiti and gallery art. Basquiat's work drew upon diverse sources and media to create an original and urgent artistic vocabulary, biting with ...
Poem of ColorsThe most remarkable abodes from Costa Careyes to the Yucatán PeninsulaRich colors and woven textiles form a unique design aesthetic, crafted by the union of local Aztec and Mayan cultures and Spanish influences. Bold pigments and vivid patterns come together in simple and rustic spaces, resulting in a way of living that is both invigorating and homely; an authentic Mexican style.The dynamic writer and photographer duo Barbara and René Stoeltie have struck gold a...
Though it lies just across the Mediterranean from Europe, barely a stone’s throw from Spain’s southernmost tip, Morocco couldn’t possibly be farther away.With its mountainous and desert landscapes, labyrinthine souks, delectable cuisine, exquisite rugs and textiles, vibrant mosaics, fragrant odors, mesmerizing music, and welcoming people, Morocco is a most alluring and tantalizingly exotic destination. Digging a little deeper into the myth of Morocco, Barbara and René Stoelti...
Compact in format but no less magnificently endowed, The Big Penis Book will delight even the most hardened aficionado of the male member. No half-cocked measures here, as we celebrate the rampant hardware of 150 models from the 1940s to the '90s, including photos by Bob Mizer of AMG, David Hurles of Old Reliable, and Rip Colt of Colt Studio.
The deceptively simple lemon takes center stage in the second volume of TASCHEN’s collaboration with The Gourmand, masters of the rich intersection of food and art. The star of Renaissance gardens, that shaped the Medici dynasty, have the power to ward off scurvy, had a hand in forming the mob, and whose juice has been used as an invisible ink since 600 CE to pen covert messages, these joyful yellow orbs are ripe with intrigue. The Gourmand charts the fruit’s astonishingly in...
Up close and suspenseful with Alfred Hitchcock The name Alfred Hitchcock is synonymous with suspense—that is to say, masterful, spine-tingling, thrilling, shocking, excruciating, eye-boggling suspense. With triumphs such as Rebecca, Vertigo, Rear Window, and Psycho, Hitchcock (1899–1980) fashioned a new level of cinematic intrigue and fear through careful pacing, subtlety, and suggestiveness. This complete guide traces Hitchcock’s life and career from his earliest silent film...
Sophisticated Sojourns100 tours to inspire and delight from The New York Times’ celebrated travel columnSome travelers dig deep, with a sharp appetite for knowledge and minds wide open to what’s old and what’s new. In Cultured Traveler, the latest in the travel book collaborations between The New York Times and TASCHEN, these adventurers hum to Mozart in Vienna and tap their toes to dance music in Dar es Salaam. They pursue Hamlet in Elsinore, Picasso on the French Riviera, a...
The Bauhaus impactThe most famous art school of modernityIn a fleeting fourteen year period, sandwiched between two world wars, Germany’s Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideals for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and technology to be applied across painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textiles, ceramics, theatre, and installation.As much an intense personal c...
Take home one of the most cult artists in history with this handy edition, presenting all known works of Hieronymus Bosch. Through full spreads and carefully curated details, the book surveys the artists compositional scope as well as his most compelling, if disturbing, inventions, from horse-skulled harp players to devils on ice skates.
Behind the scenes of Nic Roeg’s 1976 sci-fi masterpiece starring David BowieFirst advertised as a “mind-stretching experience,” Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 The Man Who Fell to Earth stunned the cinema world. A tour-de-force of science fiction as art form, the movie brought not only hallucinatory visuals and a haunting exploration of contemporary alienation, but also glam-rock legend David Bowie in his lead role debut as paranoid alien Newton.Based on Walter Tevis’s 1963 sci-fi fable ...
Surrealism meets Symbolism in Salvador Dalí’s tarot deck Legend has it that when preparing props for the James Bond film Live and Let Die, producer Albert Broccoli commissioned Surrealist maestro Salvador Dalí to create a custom deck of tarot cards. Inspired by his wife Gala, who nurtured his interest in mysticism, Dalí eagerly got to work, and continued the project of his own accord when the contractual deal fell through. The work was published in a limited art edition in 19...
An illuminated manuscript for the time we live inTASCHEN presents Lost + Found and Good News, the latest and final publications from artist David LaChapelle. The books are the fourth and fifth installments of LaChapelle’s five-book anthology, which began with LaChapelle Land (1996), continued with Hotel LaChapelle (1999), and followed by Heaven to Hell (2006).Lost + Found is a visual recording of the times we live in and the issues we face, expressed through David LaChapelle’...
The life of Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona, his clothes were so shabb...
Master of the sublime: The essential Impressionist. Along with Turner, no artist has sought more than Claude Monet (1840–1926) to capture light itself on canvas. Of all the Impressionists, it was the man Cézanne called “only an eye, but my God what an eye!” who stayed completely true to the principle of absolute fidelity to the visual sensation, painting directly from the object. It could be said that Monet reinvented the possibilities of color, and whether it was thro...
Since the 90s, Sandro Vannini has created complete photographic reproductions that reveal murals and artifacts in unprecedented detail. Marking the centenary of Howard Carters first expedition and a series of international exhibitions, this comprehensive guide combines contemporary understanding of ancient Egyptian afterlife with Vanninis...
