Mariella Milan

At Black Mountain College, the experimental school in North Carolina that had welcomed the Albers fleeing Nazism, Anni would tell her students: “We have to go where no one was before us.” A bold attitude that did not stop her from looking back over things to gauge the progress made in the arts and design. Only by knowing exactly where we stand can we dispel the confusion that prevents us from consciously experiencing the creative act and opening up new paths. This collection of writings, with a foreword by Nicholas Fox Weber, gives us access to the enlightened thinking that she developed over 50 years – from her time at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau to the 1980s in the United States – drawing on her experience in the field as well as her theoretical and philosophical readings. Anni Albers returns to various themes she found particularly meaningful: the supremacy of timeless and anonymous design that is functional and not self-referential; the importance of struggling with the material; the idea that limitation from the outside stimulates inventiveness; the value of audacity; and the belief that the act of creation is the strongest emotion there is. Her writings on design and the art of weaving are still studied in universities throughout the world and her teaching continues to be an inexhaustible font of inspiration.

For decades, the issue of cultural property illegally removed from its original context has fuelled global debate, which has heated up since public opinion turned the spotlight on prestigious Western collections holding treasures from countries that now claim ownership. Alexander Herman gives us a wide-ranging and up-to-date overview of the most controversial cases, such as the ongoing dispute over the Parthenon marbles or the partial repatriation of the Benin bronzes, not to mention the objects stolen from the Summer Palace in Beijing and paintings requisitioned by the Nazis. Restitution is more complex than it seems, not only because it forces us to come to terms with the abuses perpetrated by our forebears, but also because applying a contemporary idea of justice to instances of the past can have an unforeseen cost. It is now deemed unacceptable for symbols of a religious cult wrested from indigenous communities to be on display in the museums of the “predators”. But in many cases these are artifacts that have been part of their collections for centuries; indeed, some of them have acquired an enormous cultural, and even financial value for the institutions that house them, and they may be unwilling to give them up. While deliberating on how restitutions can be negotiated, this volume also questions the paradigm shift we have entered into: our obsession with rectifying past injustices could have an irreversible impact on the cultural sector for years to come.

In the 21st century, the private museum has become a cultural, social and economic phenomenon of global scale. Over the last twenty years, a fulsome landscape of successful modern-art institutions has been created by collectors, even businesses, with noteworthy examples being the museums of François Pinault, as well as foundations affiliated with leading fashion brands. Closely tied to their founders’ tastes and visions, private museums are often derided as “trophy sepulchres” or expedients for tax purposes, and yet the actual situation is far more nuanced and complex.This overview –which Georgina Adam arrived at after researching more than fifty private museum entities in the United States, Europe, China and elsewhere – combines hard facts with the declarations of those directly involved, tracing the underlying motives and implications of the boom. Why do collectors create their own facilities instead of donating works to local institutions? How do they finance them? Are these nothing more than vanity projects or are they genuine philanthropic initiatives? With great acumen, the author explores the thin line between personal ambition and public good, providing a glimpse of individuals and scenarios both controversial and intriguing.

This book is much more than just an autobiography. It is a jazz improvisation featuring a fusion of personal memoirs and ideas for a better society. It encompasses projects, drawings and photographs, partnerships and disputes. The author expresses his passion for big cities and public spaces, his love for his family and friends, his trust in education and active citizenship. However we want to read it, it makes us realize how architecture is a fundamental tool for tackling the two great challenges of our age: social inequality and climate change.Born in Florence in 1933, amidst the modernist structures designed by his cousin Ernesto Nathan Rogers and a view of Brunelleschi’s dome, Richard Rogers soon grasped that good architecture has to reflect changing technology and the spirit of the age. Consequently, having completed his studies at Yale – where he met his future partner Norman Foster – he embarked on a road trip in search of innovative ideas and design solutions: the strong colours of California and Mexico, the open structures of industrial architecture, and the lightness and transparencies of the Case Study Houses proved great sources of inspiration, becoming a constant feature in that visual vocabulary that he brought with him when he returned to London. Parkside, the Wimbledon home built for his parents between 1968 and 1969, was the first result of his American experience and encapsulates his entire architectural ethos: the daring use of colour and eco-sustainable prefabricated elements, the importance of transparency and flexibility. It was a prototype for a building that lends itself to multiple changes of use, embodying our “long-lasting, widely adaptable, low-energy” diktat. It was also his last family building project before he was swallowed up, together with Renzo Piano, in the whirlwind of the competition for a major public building in the heart of Paris.Today, more than forty years after the deluge of criticism that surrounded its construction and opening, the Pompidou Centre continues to be an undisputed icon of modernity and one of the pulsating hearts of city life, demonstrating that architecture has the power to shape our lives: good architecture brings humanity and civilization, bad architecture brutalizes.

The cat – that most elegant, stubborn and artful of creatures – has been a subject favoured by artists of every culture and period since time immemorial. The spectacular stone carving created in Libya 7,000 years ago is possibly the earliest depiction of a cat fight, marking the beginning of a long uninterrupted visual tradition. A profusion of images that is not always matched by unequivocal sentiments for the cat which, while being among the most blessed of domestic animals, has often been a victim of hate and persecution over the centuries. From sacred animal in ancient Egypt to deterrent for rodents in the Babylonian civilization, an ally of man against the fatal bite of the viper, valued for its hunting prowess and immortalized as a good hunting companion, the cat gradually relinquished such practical activities to become the lazy friend of man, who opened the doors of his home to it. The cohabitation did not, however, last long and the relationship went through further ups and downs. At the end of the Middle Ages cats were mainly seen as the maleficent companion of the devil, a view that coincides with the sinister role allocated to it in paintings. It rarely, if ever, appears as protagonist in the work of the great masters but rather as a mere accessory, curled up at the feet of a female figure. It would have to wait for the arrival of Victorian sentimentalism before it could make a come-back, when this radical change in status saw it portrayed in intimate family scenes. This was the best time to be a cat, a golden age both for the affectionate relationship with its human companion and for the central role it played in works of art, where it is finally master of the scene. The greatest zoologist of our time, aware of every feline nuance, writes about history of art through the lens of cat-loving artists. For Pablo Picasso it was a symbol of ruthless violence, depicted as a fierce predator; for Balthus it was the supreme emblem of female sexuality; it was a very popular subject among cartoonists and caricaturists and used by Banksy as a vehicle for political protest.  The cat is an inexhaustible source for visual exploration and flights of fancy.