Umelecká monografia.

This accessible yet informative book, the first in its area aimed at a general readership, offers a unique overview of the controversial musical style of Minimalism – a name originally attributed to the movement as a derogatory term, in the same way as Impressionism was first derisively labelled by art critics. Minimalism, perhaps best represented by the American composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass, has always had a mixed reception and is both reviled and revered in equal measure. This book looks at the development of this notorious style and discusses the conflicting opinions surrounding it, while considering the music itself and those that create it within their social, cultural and historical contexts.

Christian Marclay is a New York-based, Swiss American artist who emerged in both the contemporary art and music scenes during the 1980s. He works across numerous visual media - sculpture, installation performance, found objects and collage - along with music and its artifacts, to create a unique, multidisciplinary art. Also a respected composer and DJ. he has collaborated with John Zorn and Elliott Sharp, among many others. In his visual works he sometimes simply evokes the memory of music, as in The Beatles (1989), a pillow crocheted out of Beatles audio tapes. Elsewhere he examines the cliched images of music-making, for example those found on LP record covers, charismatic, classical music conductors, smiling Easy Listening girls and sultry rock stars. These are then carefully sewn together to form hybrid figures echoing the splicing of the music itself (Body Mix, 1991-93).
Marclay has presented his unique sound-and-vision works at the Whitney Biennial, New York, 1991 and 2002, and at the Venice Biennale, 1995 and 1999, among many other key international exhibitions. A major travelling retrospective of his work originated at teh Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, in 2003 and ended its tour at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 2005. The highlight is his tour de force, Video Quartet (2003), a four-screen installation largely combining Hollywood film clips associated with music, edited together with virtuoso precision.

A wonderful book for gardeners and art-lovers, featuring 300 of the most beautiful and pioneering botanical images ever

Following in the footsteps of the international bestseller Map: Exploring the World, this fresh and visually stunning survey celebrates the extraordinary beauty and diversity of plants. It combines photographs and cutting-edge micrograph scans with watercolours, drawings, and prints to bring this universally popular and captivating subject vividly to life. Carefully selected by an international panel of experts and arranged in a uniquely structured sequence to highlight thought-provoking contrasts and similarities, this stunning compilation of botanically themed images includes iconic work by celebrated artists, photographers, scientists, and botanical illustrators, as well as rare and previously unpublished images.

The selection of images includes iconic works by a diverse range of artists and photographers, including Adam Fuss, Georgia O`Keefe, Henry Fox Talbot, Irving Penn, Leonardo da Vinci, Margaret Mee, Marc Quinn, Nick Knight, Nobuyoshi Araki, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Thomas Ruff and Yayoi Kusama. The book features large-scale images, accessible texts and reference information, including a glossary, timeline, biographies, and an introduction to plant taxonomy