Contemporary Art

In her elective home country of Mexico, the artist Olga Costa (1913–1993), a native of Leipzig, has long been established as an important female voice of Mexican Modernism. This volume presents impressively her autonomous artistic work between Mexican and European Modernism, and follows the traces of her life from Germany out into the world and back again.

Recent events have pushed artists to visualize ideas of closeness in a new light. "Kinship", published on the occasion of the National Portrait Gallery’s next “Portraiture Now” exhibition, features the work of eight leading contemporary artists who explore familial relationships through photography, painting, sculpture and performance.

The significance of the street is complex: it is a place of representation, self-dramatisation and communication, of resistance and protest. In this lavishly illustrated volume we encounter the bandwidth of this highly topical subject and its implementation in painting, graphics, photography, film, performance and installation during the 20th and 21st centuries.

In 1991, the town of Pulheim initiated the Stommeln Synagogue art project, a permanent process of examination of this historically significant location. Since then it has continued to make a contribution to a culture of remembrance. A wide-ranging overview of remarkable works is being assembled on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the synagogue.

For the first time, the Lebanese-American writer and artist Etel Adnan is being honoured with a comprehensive retrospective in Germany. This volume presents her fascinating work from all creative phases and media. Politically, poetically and metaphysically – Adnan’s texts and pictures reflect the lively exchange between the Arab and the Western world.

A hall of art surrounded by nature, supported by 121 individually designed pillars created by famous artists from all over the world: Bernd Zimmer has been pursuing this idea and its realization for over 30 years. The volume is lavishly illustrated and documents its creation, showing all the artists’ pillars in detailed individual photos.

As we navigate the early decades of a new epoch defined by the measurable human imprint on the earth, the question of how we will reconcile our behaviour with the evidence of its catastrophic effect is yet to be answered. With her works on sustainability, US artist Mary Mattingly (b. 1979) examines how we can connect and reconnect to Earth.

Jin-me Yoon is an important Canadian lens-based artist who has been working steadily since emerging on Vancouver’s contemporary art scene in the 1990s. "About Time" focuses on Yoon’s monumental and multifaceted production of the last decade, which typically combines photography, video, performance and installation.

The famous international German artist Georg Baselitz has donated a collection of works on paper to both the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. The publication combines the 100 sheets to create a representative retrospective, providing by virtue of its concentration an important contribution to the understanding of his entire oeuvre.

Kabul was once famous for being a city of blossoming gardens. Today our perception of the Afghan capital is dominated by images of suffering and destruction. Considering Kabul’s gardens as part of its cultural heritage, Afghan and non-Afghan artists reflect on a different Kabul, without ignoring the crises of the past and present.