Kirjahaku

African photographers' innovative role is highlighted in the process of understanding generational and social changes. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence for seventeen African countries, the Museum for Fine Arts in Brussels in partnership with the Royal Museum of Central Africa presents during Summer 2010 the festival L'AFRIQUE VISIONNAIRE (VISIONARY AFRICA). This catalogue is published to accompany an exhibition celebrating fifty years of African photography, illustrating how collective identities of postcolonial Africa were built. Panafricanism has become something concrete in the exchange between artists, above all in connection with the elaboration of common aesthetic and research. Photography, in the process of emancipation and the writing of an endogenous history, is undoubtedly the best support: African photographers' innovative role will therefore be highlighted in the process of understanding generational and social changes. The catalogue will include an introduction by Simon Njami and a text by Jean-Loup Pivin.

The visionary work of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) had an enormous impact on the course of twentieth-century art. His unsettling 'Metaphysical' imagery - with its illogical perspectives, looming mannequins and bizarre juxtapositions of objects - anticipated Surrealism's fascination with the irrational and the workings of the subconscious by many years. Even before the First World War, de Chirico had declared: "To be really immortal a work of art must go beyond the limits of the human: good sense and logic will be missing from it. In this way it will come close to the dream state, and also to the mentality of children." Although best known as a painter, de Chirico was fascinated by sculpture throughout his career, believing it to possess a mysterious spectral quality. Statues set in deserted city squares were a key element of his iconography from 1909 onward, and toward the end of the 1930s the artist began to experiment with sculpture, creating terracotta versions of the enigmatic figures that had long populated his paintings. In these works, which reflect de Chirico's enduring fascination with classical subjects, characters from mythology such as Hector and Andromache take on the forms of tailors' dummies or intricately constructed automatons. During the 1960s he produced bronze versions of such works, and subsequently began to create multiples, often with highly-polished gold or silver finishes.

Published to accompany an exhibition in 2014, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, the book's premise builds on the artist's topical work Turbulence (2012), a 4 x 4 metre square composed of thousands of glass marbles laid directly onto the floor. Placed exactly at the centre of the exhibition, this installation lies at the heart of a linear but non-chronological trajectory whereby a number of unexpected juxtapositions echo the complexity through which the artist (Beirut, Lebanon, 1952) has managed to challenge, and at times disturb, our experience of the ordinary. The choice of the notion of turbulence as a conceptual framework for the exhibition is derived from the thematic and formal dichotomies inherent within the artist's work. These render it familiar yet perplexing, allowing for an intense aesthetic experience that is both inviting yet impenetrable, or, in other words, turbulent. Text in English and Arabic.

This volume offers the first overview of American photorealist and Pop painter Howard Kanovitz (1929-2009), dubbed by Barbara Rose the grandfather of photorealism. Howard Kanovitz's landmark 1966 Jewish Museum solo exhibition is widely deemed to have launched the genre of photorealism.

Deus Swank Rally is an international event, bizarre, eccentric and highly amusing. The name says it all: elegance, swank, but it's still a rally, so motorbikes and riders inevitably douse themselves in mud and dust. All the motorbikes are welcomed: studded specials, enduros with carburettors, even the most inappropriate. During the day gentlemanly competitions are held, self-timed, no cheating; in the evening there is a party among friends. What happens at a Swank Rally? It's all been captured in the beautiful pictures of this book. Text in English and Italian.

One of the most prestigious contemporary art awards, the Marcel Duchamp Prize was created in 2000 by the ADIAF, Association for the international diffusion of French art which groups together 400 contemporary art collectors rallied around the French scene. Its ambition is to bring together the most innovative artists and help them raise their international profile. Each year, the Marcel Duchamp Prize is awarded to one of four artists, either French or living in France, all of them working in the field of the plastic and visual arts. Since the outset, this collectors' prize benefits from a close partnership with the Centre Pompidou who invites the four nominated artists for a 3-month group show in its Galerie 4. The winner is chosen by an international jury of collectors and directors of leading institutions. Text in English and French.

After studying architecture at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Aymeric Zublena, born in September 1936 in Paris, graduated in 1963 and completed his training in urban planning at the Tony Garnier 'seminar'. In 1967 he won a Second Grand Prix of Rome on the theme 'A House of Europe in Paris'. In the same year, he became chief architect of the new town of Marne la Vallée, directing the studies of the regional urban centre for nearly 15 years. He developed the principle of diversity and urban density organised around powerful public transport. During this same period, he was the architect of the French mission of study in charge of the master plan of Greater Buenos Aires, foreseeing the creation of two new linear cities along the Rio de la Plata. For each of his programs, Aymeric Zublena is looking for a singular architectural response that strongly marks the host site with an emblematic sign making it easily identifiable: the 'hospital street' of the Georges Pompidou European Hospital, a long glass gallery that inscribes a new axis in the heart of Paris, the cover of the Stade de France which floats above the stands and the forecourt, the crescent of the Istanbul stadium, the bird wing of the Suwon stadium. The 'butterfly' metal lifting structures of the Rouen bridge, the monumental mobile door of the DASES on the Quai de la Rapée in Paris. Text in English and French.