Mariella Milan

Desmond Morris draws on the legacy of the medieval bestiary – in which descriptions of animals were accompanied by their allegorical, moral or religious significance – and leads us into the realm of the surreal. Combining the expert eye of a scientist with the sensitivity of a painter, he delves into a mysterious realm populated by creatures that crawl, fly and hybridise: these are the eccentric reinterpretations of visionary artists such as René Magritte, Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning or Remedios Varo, who, in portraying them, exorcised their own demons, created parallel worlds, evoked personal memories or conjured the spectre of war. After revealing the symbolism and anecdotes behind some of the most extravagant works of modern art, he allows them to shine in all their enigmatic splendour.More than a mere parade of the bizarre – from Leonora Carrington’s hyena to Salvador Dalí’s elephants, from Max Ernst’s birds to Leonor Fini’s cats – Bestiario surrealista is a lively and witty celebration of one of the most revolutionary movements of the 20th century. A must-read for lovers of Surrealism, zoology and natural history.

Whilst Pop Art may not be a movement characterised by manifestos and group demonstrations, it is at the very least a relatively cohesive trend, a set of practices that utilise images, objects and the languages of mass culture (advertising, comics, packaging, the star system, design) to showcase, celebrate, critique or play with them. This spirit was driven by a desire to experience the contemporary world with a positive rather than a negative attitude, in a climate of exuberant optimism.In this critical overview of Pop Art, written in real time before the movement was canonised, Lucy R. Lippard dissects the phenomenon – which first emerged in England and then independently in America – and its international legacy. She examines both its iconic figures – the spiritual fathers, the precursors and the five ‘diehards’ – and lesser-known names, as well as the artists who preceded them: the Abstract Expressionists.By capturing the energy, contradictions and social context without the retrospective lens of later textbooks, Lippard offers one of the first systematic analyses of how mass visual culture comes to constitute the very language of contemporary art.

Linda Nochlin explores the theme of the fragment as a metaphor for modernity, tracing a long historical and visual trajectory that begins with Füssli’s emblematic drawing, in which the artist is depicted as a small, terrified figure beside an enormous ancient foot – a symbol of the modern condition as the irreparable loss of a past wholeness.With the French Revolution, the fragment takes on a positive value: the mutilation of bodies and the toppling of royal statues express the destruction of the Ancien Régime and the foundation of a new order. In the nineteenth century, the dismembered body becomes an image of trauma and history, and Géricault mocks it by painting severed heads and limbs, always poised between scientific dissection and romantic melodrama. At the same time, the Impressionists and Manet depicted cities and bodies with fragmented compositions: the fragment entered the very structure of the image. Cézanne and Van Gogh worked with sculptural fragments that evoked tensions between tradition and modernity, eros and sacrifice, art and life, culminating in the extreme act of self-mutilation. In the twentieth century and beyond, from the Surrealists (Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer) to Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and others, the fragment destabilises the subject’s identity, gender and integrity.For the author, the fragment should be conceived as a constellation of specific cases and differences within a plural and ever-changing modernity, in which the loss of unity and the search for new totalities coexist in tension.

In 1872, a man photographed a horse. It may seem a trivial act, but it marked the beginning of a revolution destined to change our perception of time and space. The man behind it was a figure as ambitious as he was enigmatic: Eadweard Muybridge, a brilliant landscape photographer and tireless experimenter who sought to ‘split the second’ – that is, to open a breach in time to reveal what the eye cannot isolate: movement.Photography, after all, was born and developed in step with a world that lives, travels and communicates at an accelerated pace, an expanding world made smaller by the telegraph and the railway. And it is no coincidence that the man funding those studies on movement was none other than Leland Stanford, owner of Occident – the champion trotter immortalised in Muybridge’s chronophotographs – and magnate of the Central Pacific Railroad. Not just any patron, but the very embodiment of the tensions between capital, private interests and progress that animated late-nineteenth-century America, and in particular California, the land of dreams reaching towards the future.Un fiume di ombre is not merely the story of a life; it is the account of a technological and cultural gamble. The breathtaking landscapes of Yosemite Valley and the views of San Francisco, created by ‘flaying the city’ and flattening it like an animal’s hide, are not mere backdrops; they are stages on a journey leading to the snapshot and – shortly thereafter – to cinema and the media industries. Rebecca Solnit paints a panorama which, like the grand urban vistas for which Muybridge was famous, weaves together different times and perspectives into a single vision, with a gaze that, starting with a horse, traces the gold rush, delves into the fractured world of Native Americans and reaches as far as Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

‘It is not a profession but an attitude,’ said László Moholy-Nagy, who in the early 20th century fought to free design from the stranglehold of commerce in which it had been trapped since the Industrial Revolution, restoring to it the task of building a better world. In all its many forms, design has always played an important role as an agent of change, acting as an interpreter of social, political, economic, scientific, cultural and ecological issues to ensure a positive impact on our lives.Alice Rawsthorn, one of the most influential voices in this field, explains how new generations of designers are responding to global challenges such as the climate emergency, rising inequality, humanitarian crises and gender discrimination, demonstrating the same ‘resourcefulness and creativity’ that Moholy-Nagy wrote about and carrying out ambitious social projects, using cutting-edge technologies to create new products or recover and put old ones back into circulation, in line with a constantly growing trend.With an eye on historical figures—the pioneers of a design approach attentive to the needs of the individual and society—the author traces the evolution and most recent developments of this discipline, also in relation to art and craftsmanship, from which it is separated by increasingly porous boundaries, and to sectors such as medicine or sociology, to which it now offers a valuable contribution. A priority for attitudinal designers is, in fact, to be more open to collaboration with a variety of specialists, with a view to building a diverse and inclusive community to present a united front against the many challenges of our time.

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.

Despite its traditional resistance to technological innovation, the art world is not immune to the upheavals caused by artificial intelligence: its impact and growing presence, in both sales and creative processes, are plain to see for all those in the industry, from the most sceptical to the most enthusiastic.This volume offers an overview of the possible applications of AI within common practices in the art market – such as authentication, attribution and the valuation of works – where it acts as an assistant capable of enhancing human capabilities. As well as promoting transparency and objectivity in a world notoriously opaque and poorly regulated, emerging technologies are proving to be valuable tools in the hands of gallery owners, curators and artists who wish to promote their work through exciting immersive experiences. The rise of AI-generated art and the emergence of a new category of collectors interested in online markets and NFTs are among the highly topical issues addressed by the author, who does not overlook, finally, the ethical implications and legislative challenges posed by artificial intelligence regarding artists’ rights.Through the testimonies of industry professionals attuned to these epoch-making transformations, Jo Lawson-Tancred invites us to reflect on a present – and a future – in constant evolution, in which the interaction between art and technology is not only inevitable, but perhaps even desirable.

‘Jewish by blood, Hamburg at heart, Florentine in spirit’: this is how Aby Warburg (1866–1929) liked to describe himself, a phrase that aptly captures his obsessive quest for self-discovery—cultivated through self-narration—and the significant shifts in direction that marked his life’s journey. If he is recognised today as one of the most influential art and cultural historians of the 20th century, it is in spite of his fragile mental health and a life as an ‘outlaw’, convinced that true insight belongs only to those prepared to deviate from society’s ordinary expectations.Having renounced his role as the eldest son in Germany’s wealthiest banking family and rejected Jewish orthodoxy, Aby followed his own intuitions and embarked on a journey through the world of symbols that took him from the Wild West to the heart of the Renaissance, in Florence. An independent scholar and free thinker, intolerant of the compartmentalised structure of the university yet in dialogue with the most progressive intellectuals of his time, Warburg pioneered a holistic methodology that integrates historical and artistic inquiry with sciences such as anthropology, medicine and psychology. This interdisciplinary approach guided his research into the survival of antiquity—distilled in his famous unfinished work Atlas Mnemosyne—and the creation of his extraordinary library, now housed at the Warburg Institute in London, a valuable resource for academics worldwide.Hans C. Hönes paints a detailed and intimate portrait of a man who, despite countless personal and professional difficulties, was ahead of his time, laying the foundations for contemporary art history.

An anthology of quotes by the artist David Hockney covering a wide range of topics, including drawing, photography, nature, creativity, his relationship with technology and homosexuality: a sort of intellectual autobiography in miniature. My Eyes on the World offers an enchanting and engaging distillation of the inimitable spirit of one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists through observations – some previously unpublished – collected over the years by the writer and art critic Martin Gayford.Hockney has a talent for capturing profound truths in concise statements, ranging from the most everyday – ‘The eye is always moving; if it isn’t moving, it’s because you’re dead’ – to statements on art or opinions on other image-makers, such as Caravaggio, Cézanne and Walt Disney.

It was the year 1993 when Dave Hickey, the enfant terrible of art criticism, galvanised by the controversy surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe's Portfolio X exhibition, decided to launch a ferocious attack against the academic establishment by dragging a bygone theme into the spotlight: beauty.Demonised and accused of connivance with the logic of the market, the latter had long since wandered like a spectre through the ruins of the aesthetic debate, sowing embarrassment within the new ‘therapeutic’ institutions - museums, galleries and the entire art system. Like priests of a mystery cult, following the dogmas of Greenberg and Barr, the professors had mystified artistic practice with lofty theoretical disquisitions, underpinned by a corrosive distrust of all that was loveliness and seduction, ‘beauty’ in fact.In these four essays - more like a manifesto than a polite discussion - the Texan critic aims straight at the target and recalls how over the centuries authors such as Raphael, Caravaggio and Warhol have exploited pure form to establish an immediate relationship between the observer and the content of their images, in a democratic and liberating process.Thirty years after its first publication in the United States, the dragon evoked by Hickey once again spreads its wings and pours forth, sparing no-one, its fiery, provocative and unfiltered prose. Completely indifferent to the antipathies it may arouse.

Class of '92, artist and sex worker Sophia Giovannitti tells it like it is. She proudly signs her name both in artistic performances and when meeting clients. She does not hide behind a puritanical sense of guilt: free of prejudice, she does not allow anyone to degrade her for the way she has chosen to live.Inhabiting a world where capitalism has ended up commodifying not only our free time, but also those activities that have always been considered intimate and sacred, namely art and sex, has made it possible for someone to make money from both, creating a short circuit for which, despite fully participating in the system, one is still mercilessly stigmatised. We are all bent to the market logic that controls every aspect of our lives, and yet there are those who have raised their heads, those who, from the margins, exploit this very mechanism to reclaim their space, whether in the gallery or in the bedroom, and remain uncomfortable to the hypocritical and well-considered world. Sophia then continues on her way, the best that allows her to pursue what she loves and also profit from it. In an ironic 'confessional' style, she lays bare her occupations, giving them extreme seriousness and legitimacy. Rough, brash, provocative, capable of quoting The Sopranos and Foucault in a loose and self-conscious manner, Sophia Giovannitti writes a book that is more than contemporary: a necessary reflection on the markets of art, work and sex as they were, as they are and as one dreams they will be tomorrow.

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.