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| BELLINZONA 2001 [Felice Varini] Bellinzona commissioned the internationally famed installation artist Felice Varini to create a work to mark the inclusion of Bellinzona's fortifications in the renowned list of Unesco World Heritage Sites. Varini, who was born in Locarno in 1952, adorned San Michele Hill and the walls of Castelgrande with red stripes, which appeared to fall across the medieval fortress and the rock on which it stood as if projected from some distant point in the universe. The visual effect obtained was one of unity between the two. With amazingly simple means he achieved his aim which was to unite the spatial elements of building and nature, whilst producing an optical illusion of one-dimensional unity. Text in English, Italian, French and German. { 75pp, 190x220mm, May 2003; PB, £21.50, 8887469296:9788887469295 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| BEYOND BERING : The Russian Colonies of the North Pacific [Galleria Gottardo] Works from the collection of the History Museum, Tallinn, Estonia (Ajaloomuuseum) in collaboration with the State Museum of Ethnology, Munich, Germany, 7 July-23 December 2004. The Galleria Gottardo, continuing its collaboration with museums of ethnography, presents more than 150 original ethnographic pieces from the Russian possessions in the North Pacific which were administered by the Russian-American Company until 1867. These works from the History Museum in Tallinn are being shown for the first time in Western Europe and retrace a long forgotten passage in Russian history and of European colonial expansion. Until now these exhibition pieces were carefully stored in the repository of the Tallinn Museum, one of the most breathtaking Gothic buildings in Estonia's capital city. Before the exhibition could be organised, the works were carefully cleaned and restored by the experts from the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich. The necessary works were completely financed by the Galleria Gottardo, a non-for-profit foundation of Banca del Gottardo for the promotion of cultural activities. { 266pp, 170x240mm, October 2004; PB, £33.00, 888746927X:9788887469271 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| BRIEF HISTORY IN IMAGES OF PEGGY GUGGENHEIM'S COLLECTION The book, by illustrating Peggy Guggenheim's life's archivement through photographs, memorabilia and works of art, pays homage to a peculiarity of her collection, which is that it is the expression of an epoch, a milieu in which she thrived, as well as the outcome of her personal talents and determination. { 160pp, 180x245mm, January 2003; HB, £16.65, 8886455186:9788886455183 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| BROWNS : A Walk Through Books... [Peter Kirby] London based design consultancy Browns are five years old. In that time they have achieved an award-winning global reputation based on their ability to bridge the gap between the cultural and corporate arenas, manifesting itself as a successful design business. This is the fourth in the 'GCE Directions Series' that takes a look at famous design groups around the globe. In an amazingly short space of time and on top of their expanding brand/identity work, Browns have designed and published some thirteen award-winning books. The books have not only been influential from a design point of view but have also forced the design world to re-think how the barriers separating publishing and design can be broken down. From a New York Sex Club to a frozen Scottish Loch, the book takes a look at how six of these books came to be. In a visual scrap book format, the book tells the story of the personalities, adventures, travels and process surrounding each book, visually all laid bare on the printed page. It gives an insight into the level of commitment, drive and passion required for designers to successfully enter the publishing arena. { 64pp, 150x210mm, January 2003; HB, £15.50, 8887469075:9788887469073 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| DOTLINEPIXEL : Thoughts on Cross-Media Design [Michele Jannuzzi & Richard Smith] Technological advances have changed not only the constraints and possibilities of individual media, but the interplay between media, and our expectations. Never before have we had the potential to channel and cross-reference such a wealth and diversity of information; and never before have we been posed such difficult questions about how information is structured, delivered, and accessed; about who sees what, where, and for how long. Designers not only have to be successful in designing for this medium and that medium but in making them work in tandem with each other, without tautology or contradiction. A cross-media approach involves media selection, optimisation, and articulation to define effective and efficient strategies for the delivery of information, where each medium is played according to its strengths. In this environment everyone is a prospector: everything is up for grabs. This book illustrates these themes through the working methodology of Jannuzzi Smith, one of Europe's most innovative and influential design studios. { 44pp, 155x215mm, January 2003; HB, £14.00, 8887469008:9788887469004 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| FABRIZIO GIANNINI [Gauthier Huber] Fabrizio Giannini travels on the surface of his computer and television screens, immersing himself in a flow of homogamous and antagonistic, frivolous or serious, engaged in a furious battle. Making use now of first one, then a different image that attracts or interests him because of the importance of its power of synthesis of grouping. His work becomes an area of negotiation between private sensibility and the surrounding culture. Giannini reproduces for example, in partly modified form, the best known logos of the biggest brand names (Global, 2002-2003), placing the observer immediately in front of images that he recognises. In a series of more intimate works, which he has been working on for a number of years, he creates on paper images from sitcoms, from films and from television programmes, carrying them into a new context -- the walls of an art centre or of a gallery -- in the form of small, airy compositions. Their specific plot reveals their origin. These images, deprived of the movement the originally made them part of a message, now appear deprived of any sense of territoriality. Text in English, French and Italian. { 48pp, 200x240mm, May 2003; PB, £10.00, 8887469253:9788887469257 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| FAMILY PICTURES : Contemporary Photography & Video from the Collection of the Guggenheim Museum Photography has always been used to preserve fleeting moments of childhood and to fix important family events. Many contemporary artists explore traditions of family portraiture in order to present a more revealing image of family dynamics and the emotional tone of childhood. Galleria Gottardo -- Banca del Gottardo's cultural foundation -- will present an exhibition of works from the photography and video collection of the Guggenheim Museum. Organised by Jennifer Blessing, curator at the internationally renowned Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, it will open on 28 September and will include works by important contemporary artists such as Janine Antoni, Gregory Crewdson, Rineke Dijkstra, Anna Gaskell, Loretta Lux, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Catherine Opie, Thomas Struth, Gillian Wearing and others. An ongoing collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, through the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and the Galleria Gottardo in Lugano, has resulted in two exhibitions, "Il ritrovo degli artisti" (2001) and "Spiritual Landscape" (2003). The Galleria Gottardo is pleased to host a third collaborative exhibition, entitled 'Family Pictures', in its intimate and family-friendly environment. This exhibition includes a selection of images, at times provocative and ironic, that show the paradoxes of family life and what lies beneath the surface of its traditional representations. Text in Italian and English. { 144pp, 170x240mm, October 2005; HB, £26.00, 8887469407:9788887469400 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| FOTOGRAFIE IN UNA COLLEZIONE PRIVATA [Walter Binder] Text in Italian. This volume collects together a broad spectrum of photographs taken by some of the most famous photographers of the world, such as Edward S Curtis, Frank A Rinehart and Frank Bennet Fiske, as well as of young contemporary photographers, such as Daniel J Denehy, Salvatore Mancini, Toba Tucker, Don Doll, Thomas Lindfors, David M Kennedy. { 124pp, 240x290mm, December 2002; PB, £19.00, 8887469164:9788887469165 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| GALLERIA GOTTARDO 1989-1999 [Luca Patocchi & Alberto Bianda] "...Ten years have gone by since the first exhibition organised in the Spring of 1989 by the Galleria Gottardo. This was an important exhibition treating one of the most important international photographers of Swiss origin: Robert Frank. And an exhibition, moreover, which was also to have extensively defined one of the recurrent themes in the gallery's exhibition approach. In fact, photography has been one of the fundamental arguments of the exhibition history of the Galleria Gottardo. This volume wishes to bear witness to the activity accomplished during these ten years: remembering it by way of images, reconstructing its history-cum-story with the work carried out by the photographers, and by way of the declarations of gratitude on the part of some of the people who have been close to us during this period. On the one hand, therefore, one has the visual documentation of the exhibitions, their installation projects and the workshops organised by us and, on the other, the words by those people who have know how to understand and appreciate our intentions..." Text in Italian and English. { 262pp, 225x225mm, January 2003; HB, £21.00, 8887469156:9788887469158 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| GIRAUDI & WETTSTEIN [Antonio Ortiz] The Giraudi and Wettstein architectural practice was opened in Lugano in 1995 by the architects Sandra Giraudi (1962) and Felix Wettstein (1962). It has made a name for itself in recent years with two important projects: the Basle railway station extension (1996-2003), executed in collaboration with Antonio Cruiz and Antonio Ortiz, and the Computer Laboratories of the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (1998-2002). The borgovico 33 exhibition presents eight projects by Giraudi and Wettstein in a minimal exhibition design, specially conceived for the location. A table in the centre of the main Church space greets visitors and invites them to sit on the stools placed along it, each bearing the name of a project. The table is covered with a large canvas, on which the eight projects are printed, and has some models arranged in the centre of the table. Eight spotlights point one at each project, illuminating the half-darkened environment. Resembling a laid table and surrounded by stools, it conjures up the architect's worktop but also moments of encounter and conviviality: the table as a place of discussion, the dinner table... The presentation of the project is completed with a projection on a loop. { 48pp, 240x170mm, November 2003; PB, £14.00, 8887469350:9788887469356 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| GOTTHARD BANK'S SWISS PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION The volume is a rich collection of Swiss photographs from the Banca del Gottardo. Images in the collection include: Joerg Bader, Ruedi Bechtler, Stefania Beretta, Lorenzo Bianda, Martin Blum, Matthias Bosshart, Daniele Buetti, Heinz Brand, Balthasar Burkhard, René Burri, Hans Danuser, Silvie & Chérif Defraoui, Lisa Enderli, Fischli/Weiss, Alberto Flammer, Robert Frank, Thomas Frey, Flor Garduno, Walter Gartmann, Micaela Garzoni, Peter Gasser, Fausto Gerevini, Victor Gianella, René Groebli, Adriano Heitmann, Hans Knuchel, Reto Rigassi, Luciano Rigolini, Béatrice Helg, Olivia Heussler, Felix Stephan Huber, Alan Humerose, Franz Immoos, Jean-Pascal Imsand, Monique Jacot, Simone Kappeler, Pierre Keller, Urs Knoblauch, Katharina Krauss-Vonow, Rudolf Lichtsteiner, Kaspar Th. Linder, Urs Lüthi, René Mächler, Manon, Peter Maurer, Minkoff & Olesen, Claudio Moser, Jacques Pugin, Stefan Rohner, Monica Maria von Rosen, Klaudia Schifferle, Daniel Schwartz, Gaudenz Signorell, Alex Silber, Vladimir Spacek, Annelies Strba, Beat Streuli, Hannah Villiger, Christian Vogt, Bernard Voïta, Cécile Wick, Anna Winteler. { 158pp, 250x290mm, January 2003; PB, £24.16, 8887469210:9788887469219 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| GRAPHIC DESIGN DIRECTIONS 3 : Graphic Thought Facility [Paul Neale & Andrew Stevens; Text by Emily King] An exploration of the ideas, themes and solutions that re-occur in the work of graphic designers Paul Neale and Andrew Stevens. They form GTF 'Graphic Thought Facility' and their work profiled here includes: posters, marketing material, packaging, publications, invitations, exhibitions graphics, etc for: Oki Nami Restaurant, Habitat UK Limited, Counter Editions, Mighty Productions, Focal Point Gallery, The British Council, Booth-Clibborn Editions, The National Glass Centre, Antoni & Alison, Royal College of Art, London College of Printing, Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Science Museum. { 49pp, 150x210mm, January 2003; PB, £14.00, 8887469024:9788887469028 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| HENRY J DARGER : In the Realms of the Unreal [John M MacGregor] The fifteen works by Darger, property of the Collection de l'art brut in Lausanne, are being exhibited for the first time in their totality at the Galleria Gottardo. In addition to the author's essays, the book also contains a selection of texts in Darger's original language. All of the works in the collection have been reproduced in large format, along with detail photographs, original drawings and pictures of the artist, and of the room exactly as it was found at the time of his death. { 110pp, 350x240mm, January 2003; HB, £28.30, 8887469199:9788887469196 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| LE SPECTACLE DANS LA RUE : 100 posters from 10 countries designed between 1958 & 1968. A selection from the celebrated exhibition curated by Antonio Boggeri for Olivetti in the late sixties [Anna Boggeri & Bruno Monguzzi (eds)] Antonio Boggeri (1900-1989), Italy's premier and greatest art director, always called on his designers to produce "Le spectacle dans la rue". He said it in French, deliberately quoting Cassandre, the leading affichiste of the first half of the twentieth century. In the late 1960s, Boggeri collected posters from all over the world. One hundred fifty of these, mainly of a cultural nature, lent substance to the historic exhibition staged by Renzo Zorzi and Giorgio Soavi for Olivetti in 1968 in Milan. From this body of work, Anna Boggeri and Bruno Monguzzi have selected and arranged 100 posters from ten countries (Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the US and Switzerland) for the exhibition at Galleria Gottardo in Lugano. It is important to remember that the point of Boggeri’s exhibition was to contrast posters from different sources which, unlike the decorative posters that proliferated in the 1960s, in the midst of the liberty revival linked to pop and rock music in particular, responded to a precise need: to carry a message in a well-defined period of time. These posters, exhibited in Milan in 1968 and in the Galleria Gottardo today, have become artefacts in the history of visual communication. To give some idea of the variety of the works and the artists who produced them, the following extract is taken from the piece written by Antonio Boggeri himself for the brochure of the original exhibition and republished in the catalogue that accompanies today’s show. "The oriental preciousness of the Japanese, modern interpreters of ancient symbology, fruitive of exquisite alphabets, is flanked by the variations on well-known abstract motifs of the American group from Chicago, Milton Glaser’s typical designs, and Lou LoMonaco’s dazzling black and white images; the vibrant colours of refined and incisively original British compositions; the modernity of the Dutch; the hugely inventive and fascinating designs of famous Polish and Czech artists, who for years have tirelessly continued the classic tradition while remaining atuned to the distant currents in the stimulating themes in theatre and exhibitions; the great, varied and unexpected contribution of the Swiss group, and finally the dramatic and expressive language, the mature artistry of the leading German figures Edelmann, Kieser and Hillmann". { 224pp, 170x240mm, June 2005; HB, £27.50, 8887469423:9788887469424 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| MINGEI FOLK ARTS OF JAPAN : A Private Collection [Jeffrey Montgomery] The popular art objects presented in this catalogue have been created for common people by tradesmen and unknown artists. The tools were fabricated by hand using natural materials characteristic of the local area. This publication offers us, therefore, a glimpse of the so-called anonymous art of Japan, developed in tune with a system of living which today is being lost. { 92pp, 220x240mm, January 2003; PB, £28.30, 8887469237:9788887469233 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| MIRHAJICA / STRUTTURE [Davide Cascio, Martina Jacoma, Ana Roldán & Sophie Toulous] Text in English & Italian. "Mirhajica" opens the doors to imaginary worlds created by some artists, whose work is closely linked to literary production, whether classical or post-modern cyberpunk. "Structures" presents a selection of artists working in ambiguous territory between sculpture and installation. { 96pp, 200x200mm, March 2007; PB, £16.00, 8887469520:9788887469523 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| MITOLOGIA PRESENTE : Andrea Gabutti, Reto Leibundgut, Didier Rittener, Rébecca Sauvin [Fabrizio Giannini, Julia Kälin & Jean-Luc Verna] Since the prehistoric times, humans have developed a collective mythology that can justify their existence and, most particularly, answer to the questions arisen by the experience of birth and dead. The fantastic and the imaginary have always characterised the mythological narration, which has been developed at the same place with the artistic creation. During the centuries, and trained from the processes of industrialisation, globalisation and secularisation, these narrations have in part been reconsidered and modified, while new ones have appeared. Today, and beyond the cultural frontiers, we share a multiple and fragmentary mythology, reaching at the same time scientific positivism, psychoanalysis and the most varied religions, but also literature, cinema and comic strips. Andrea Gabutti, Reto Leibundgut, Didier Rittener and Rébecca Sauvin interrogate through their works the presence of the myth and the fantastic in our times. { 96pp, 200x200mm, May 2006; PB, £22.00, 8887469474:9788887469479 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| MURLO'S ETRUSCAN PRINCES : Aristocratic Patronage Among Archaeological Finds From the Poggio Civitate Museum [Professor Erik Nielsen] Among the many sites in Tuscany, which have been the subject of archaeological attention during the past several decades is Poggio Civitate. The operation is one of the longest continuously operating foreign excavations in Italy, started in 1966, and has produced one of the earliest monumental buildings found in Italy to date. The building, constructed ca. 600 BCE and destroyed ca. 530 BCE provides a very complete picture of the architectural development of an Etruscan site from the mid seventh through late sixth century BCE and allows us to see how small hilltop villages functioned socially and economically. Who destroyed it or why is unknown. Text in English/Italian. { 120pp, 170x240mm, July 2006; PB, £19.50, 8887469482:9788887469486 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| PLACES : Scenes of the Real & Cathedrals of the Mind [Viana Conti] Text in English & Italian. The catalogue proposes a sequence of works for four hands in which the artist interweave two spaces both physically and in terms of their project: the external space of photographic panoramas and the mental, internal space of houses or groups of houses. An industrial sewing-machine intervenes on the supple-looking stretched-out image of a colour photographic print, divining a barely visibile trace. { 48pp, 240x220mm, March 2007; PB, £10.00, 8887469490:9788887469493 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| POPOLI [Sandro Glaettli] Sandro Glaettli has a proper sensitivity towards forests, photographing them with respect and gentleness. He has learned that the woods are made up of living things: the plants. They grow, talk and sing, develop in every direction and become similar enough to man for us to compare them, grouped together, to cities. "In spite of urbanisation forced on the land at the expense of generative nature, today the woods remain an important place for human life. Tiptoeing through them by day and by night, trying not to disturb anything, Sandro presents for us the images of its silent transformation, sometimes where human have intervened: piling cut timber, planting flowers for their dead, clearing leaves from the paths. He walks in the woods only when he feels like it and photographs them only when an image firmly fixed in his mind present itself to him. It is his hope that one day all will be restored to order and, as the final photograph in this book shows, everything will be set in motion again, restoring the notion of balance that nature observes in its plan, but man in his presumption and arrogance wants to destroy." -- Luca Patocchi { 56pp, 285x285mm, August 2005; HB, £25.00, 8887469431:9788887469431 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| SAINT-GOTTHARD [Georg Kreis, Pier Luigi Zanon, Raffaello Ceschi & Giovanni Orelli] The volume has been published as a collection of the material (photographs and videos) displayed during the four exhibitions. The artists who contributed to the various themes are: Jacques Berthet; Antonio Biasucci; Markus Bühler; John Davies; Alberto Flammer; Minelli&Repetto; Cristina Zilioli; Gabriele Basilico; Stefania Beretta; Roberto Buzzini; Gilbert Fastenaekens; Claudio Moser; Luciano Rigolini; Thomas Flechtner; Bruna Ginammi; Mimmo Jodice; Alexandra Rajic; Reto Rigassi. { 246pp, 290x290mm, January 2003; PB, £33.35, 8887469180:9788887469189 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| SAN CARLINO LUGANO : Notes on the Wooden Model of the San Carlino in Lugano [Mario Botta; Edited & Text by Emanuele Saurwein] A wooden model and a city. A large wooden model of a valuable church and a small city that is perhaps still unsure of itself. The clash between these two completely independent and autonomous realities opens up a path of inquiry that deserves to be followed, if only out of a legitimate and very human sense of curiosity. { 24pp, 110x190mm, January 2003; PB, £2.20, 8887469059:9788887469059 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| SILENT NATURES / NATURE SILENZOISE : Flor Garduño [David Streiff & Jose Maria Espinasa] The Autumn 2005 exhibition, 'Silent Natures by Flor Garduño' is dedicated to art photography: an exhibition by Mexican photographer Flor Garduño, woman and artist of international fame who, as some may know, has lived for many years in Ticino, bringing her own cultural experience and true Latin roots. This book offers thirty-two large format photographs, many of which are on display for the first time, and which as a whole highlight the more recent studies in her artistic career. A poetic and tormented photographic language deriving essentially from the interiorisation of pain and from the loss of roots and identity not only in Latin American countries, but in general in modern man. The work of Flor Garduño is deep rooted in her studies into the fervid cultural climate, full of originality and creative strength, in the Mexico of Manuel Alvarez Bravo (for whom she was both student and assistant) and of Tina Midotti, together with those rich in symbolic value of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Flor Garduño was born in Mexico City in 1957, her two homes are in Stabio (Ticino canton, Switzerland) and Tepoztlán (Mexico). She studied at the San Carlos Academy in her home city, and then became assistant to Manuel Alvarez Bravo until 1980, when she began her independent career as photographer. She published her first book of photography in 1985, Magia del juego eterno (Oax-Mexico). Many others followed, amongst which: Bestiarium (Zurich 1987), Witnesses of Time (1992), Mesteños (1994) and Mummenschanz (1996). Her works are displayed in no less than thirty-five museums, including: Chicago Art Institute, American Society in New York, Creative Photography Center in Tucson, the Fine Arts Museums in Mexico City, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, La Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Stiftung für Photographie in Zurich, Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne. { 96pp, 170x245mm, November 2005; HB, £22.50, 888746944X:9788887469448 , Gabriele Capelli Editore sagl } |
| SPIRAL, THE HAND & THE MÉNORAH : Museum of Jewish Art & History in Paris -- The Visual Identity [Philippe Apeloig] The Museum of Jewish Art and History opened in 1998 in the Marais quarter of Paris. Following the competition for the visual identity of the museum, the application of the graphic designer Philippe Apeloig was accepted, but at the same time the jury asked for a new concept. Philippe Apeloig imagined a different path, simpler and more obvious, but also less original: the menorah, the candelabrum with seven branches. And so he began to evaluate how sensitive the subject is, how strong the contradictions and the constraints are. This book retraces the development of his thoughts, his iconographic research and his sketches. { 36pp, 150x210mm, January 2003; PB, £14.00, 8887469016:9788887469011 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| SPIRITUAL LANDSCAPE : Drawn From the collection of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York [Susan Cross & Vivien Greene] The Spiritual Landscape identifies a charmed moment in the history of twentieth century avant-garde art -- a time when landscape, as a refuge for the soul and a source of spiritual nourishment, was equated with painting predicated on expressive colour and form. As the curators of the exhibition, Vivien Greene and Susan Cross, explain in the following essay, the theory of the spiritual aspect of art is directly connected to the origins of the Guggenheim Museum. { 96pp, 165x240mm, October 2003; HB, £23.00, 888746930X:9788887469301 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| TIN : Between Art & Functionality [Rezio Blass & Ulrich Stalder] The story of the tin as a collection item started in the period following the war. The tin has entered the realm of museum exhibit in every sense, thanks to its singular combination of expert handiwork and industrial production, using a language of extremely varied images and shapes. In time the tin packaging has not only maintained its objective of container and preserver of products of various types, but has assumed more and more the role of visual communicator. The demands of the market, in fact, require that the tins be easily visible, attention grabbing with their colours and shapes, able to be a vehicle for and to reinforce the image of the contents manufacturer in such a way as to favour its purchase by the consumer. And finally, it needs to be acknowledged that the humble tin has taken on new meanings and new cultural significance. It is no longer considered just something useful, to be disposed of after use, but has risen to the rank of object of study of daily life, representing socio-cultural values. The catalogue groups together a large number of items according to precise stylistic and period criteria. The dating is not always reliable, given the difficulty in determining the exact year of manufacture, but it is nevertheless important to attribute a minimum chronological ordering, highlighting that this packaging is the only one of its type and representative of the particular moment in history in which it was created. The history of the tin certainly did not end in 1939, and the exhibition covers not only the fascinating period from 1870 to 1930, but extends through the period between 1950 and 2002. Text in Italian, English and German. { 384pp, 165x240mm, June 2003; PB, £35.00, 8887469393:9788887469394 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |
| VERTIGE : Recent Works by Jules Spinatsch, Cécile Wick, Nicolas Faure Text in English, Italian & German. Whereas the mountains in Swiss art have always occupied a central position in national iconography and, in their powerfulness and unalterability, have been regarded as a constantly recurring symbol of the original Helvetian character, they have recently figured increasingly as a metaphoric territory in which the contradictions in the behaviour of post industrial man towards nature and the landscape are shown in a particularly conspicuous and suspense-filled fashion. In his "Snow Management" photographs, Jules Spinatsch has created an impressive document of the post-modern development of the Alps into a leisure theme park, In precisely illuminated and some-what eerie scenes. he has given a visible form to the alienation of man and the artificiality, of his con-sumption of nature. Prototypical of the "mountain entertainment industry', his work contains shad-owy images that in their alienation and absurdity, express the complex and bizarre relationship of urban man with the mountains. Cecile Wick, on the other hand, took a different course, tracing the remains of sublimity and mystery that the mountains have retained as a myth robbed of its magic in monochrome, black-and-white or delicately tinted light-dark images. She seeks deserted landscapes, unspoilt nature that appears to have resisted the interventions of civilisation, although they have long since been more of a memory than a wilderness. Her occasional use of 'primitive" techniques and blurring, as well as of classical image composition express the remembered character of the landscape, at the same creating a vivid poetry arid beauty that the medium had almost lost. The combination of pathos and absurdity, a longing for nature and remoteness from reality, is the basis of Nicolas Faure's ironic visual criticism. In his photo essay, taken over several decades, he shows the average mountain enthusiast" as a neon visual disturbance in the mountain panorama. In his recent group of works, entitled "Les jeux sont faits", on the other hand, he seeks the scene of his childhood memories in the landscape. With himself as an adult in the woods of his childhood, Nicolas Faure reviews his inner images in the light of their relevance to the present in a sometimes melancholy, sometimes mischievous fashion, and tries to bring his longing in line with reality. No one in recent times has created a more, convincing document of the touching uselessness of "back to nature" with-out falling into a simplistic visual thinking. { 96pp, 165x240mm, February 2008; HB, £21.60, 8887469547:9788887469547 , Gabriele Capelli Editore Sagl } |