During the pandemic, Kara Walker made a series of drawings in the style of a medieval "Book of Hours". The disturbing images show the ways and extent of human suffering. They are reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch's macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell, except that in this case it is not about the afterlife, but about our earthly lives. From scenes of biblical and mythological origin to images of historical violence and others suggestive of more recent political unrest, Walker's enigmatic images traverse time and place. Buy ...
For an Exhibition at Aloft at Hermès in Singapore, French artist Xavier Antin created a machine that validates Bitcoin transaction. A fraction of the processed transaction rewards this "work". The cryptocurrency accumulated through the machine is then used to finance automatic delivery of bouquets of flowers to the Aloft Space. This book shows these bouquets, which are beautifully Riso-printed using only orange, green, medium blue, flat gold, yellow and purple. Below each image is a reference to the validated transaction used to pay for the flowers. Buy...
Xavier Corberó (1935–2017) is among the foremost Spanish artists of the last century. His sculptures in rough-hewn stone, marble, and bronze gave form to ideas running through a circle of contemporary surrealist artists. His works are widely and internationally celebrated in institutions like London’s V&A and New York’s The Met. But maybe his greatest artwork is located on the outskirts of Barcelona in the form of the home he built for himself! Over a period of five decades, he created a series of labyrinthine rooms, levels, buildings and vaults, expanding them whenever he had money and re-planning them during morning walks with the local builder. The House of Xavier Corberó, edited by his daughter Ana Corberó, is the first publication to explore this house in Esplugues de Llobregat. It includes original photographs by Daniel Riera and a series of texts by long-time friends and colleagues of the artist: architects Ricardo Bofill and Josep Acebillo, World Architecture Festival programme director Paul Finch, artist and journalist Celia Lyttelton, RBTA director Pablo Bofill, and an interview by filmmaker Albert Moya with Corberó himself. Buy...
We have noticed your calendar is about to run out of months! Chantal Rens can help you out with an animal themed pictorial, consisting of 13 iconic flat-backed beasts. This 2022’s calendar does make us look forward to the new year and will for sure help us braving up to any new wave of restriction. Things to be thankful for: the great outdoors, our pets and hard stuff. Tilburg based artist and publisher Chantal Rens has an other thing coming in 2022: look out for Pantofle press’ breathtaking follow-up of „You run around town like a fool and you think that it’s groovy“, which first volume was reviewed as „perhaps the most unnecessary but absolutely the most funny book of 2016“. Until then, get your kicks from this very fresh, all-analog, tongue-in-cheek, mother of all calendars for 2022! Buy...
The cover of the latest issue of foam features an image of Sarah Bahbah's work. The extraordinary Palestinian-Australian artist reflects on her womanhood and Arab roots through cinematic still images she creates with herself as the protagonist and her inner monologue as the caption. As female sexuality is often considered a taboo subject in Arab culture, Bahbah takes us on a visual journey into her soul, reclaiming her desire, her power and her Arab identity as a whole. In doing so, she takes the upper hand over her own narrative. She frees herself from shame and guilt, two feelings that serve to maintain control over the female body. Her images offer a brave, honest account of what it means to be a woman. From art, literature and media to academia and internet culture, the visual and the written language have crossed paths many a time, creating a genre of their own. Issue 60 of foam looks closely at current crossroads and intersections. What meanings and stories can one medium give or take from the other? And how can they influence our thinking or the way we perceive and navigate a world of fact and fiction. Buy...
The wait is over! This is a reprint from the iconic book of Batia Suter originally published in 2007! If you searched for this book for years, you know this is a now or never occassion. Batia Suter’s work intuitively situates found images in new contexts to provoke surprising reactions and significative possibilities. ‘Parallel Encyclopedia’, which she conceived between 2004 and 2007, contains a precise composition of numerous images taken solely from other books. Significant underlying themes expressed in the Amsterdam-based, Swiss artist’s practice are the “iconification” and “immunogenicity” of old images, and the circumstances by which they assume or become charged with new associative values. Buy...
The Greek natural philosophers, the alchemists, believed that the transformation of substances in nature was possible. They believed that nature strives for perfection and that therefore all earthly metals would one day turn into gold. And so they searched for a "philosopher's stone" that would transform simple base metals into precious gold. Remarkably, after the discovery of radioactivity in 1925, gold was actually produced from base metals for the first time. Such transmutation is possible in particle accelerators or nuclear reactors, but the production costs currently exceed the market price of gold many times over. Jana Hartmann's work is a photographic research on the scientific exploration and conquest of nature from the beginnings of alchemy to the present day. In her photographic works, she takes up various themes that have aroused the curiosity of researchers throughout history, such as the concept of matter. With the aesthetic verve of her motifs - including references to alchemical symbolism, scientific experiments, natural history exhibits and self-built studio models - she entices curiosity about the scientific context. The photo book Mastering the Elements juxtaposes her photographic references with the results of her extensive research of alchemical writings, accounts by contemporary scientists and articles on the ethics of science, initiating a fascinating dialogue between different narrative perspectives - the visual artistic, the allegorical alchemical, the philosophical and the scientific. For the artist, the message we can take from the alchemists is a holistic view of the world in which man and nature, spirit and matter are closely interwoven. Buy...
Enjoy a hint of colour and fluidity thanks to the collection of drawings by renowned designer Ronan Bouroullec! Each publication of his drawings shows transformations in style and concentration of details while remaining all very unique Ronan Bouroullec. Ronan Bouroullec is probably best known for his furniture design practice alongside his brother - but he's also a painter. His works on paper follow the idea of so-called intuitive drawing. This technique allows him to develop new images and reach the subconscious layers of the mind. Even though these are abstract, they give the impression of fabrics, folds, upholstered furniture or wavy glass. The balance of form and color within a few simple lines is astonishing and reassuring. Buy...