Nike and Virgil Abloh reinvigorated 10 icons of sneaker history
In 2016, sportswear manufacturer Nike and fashion designer Virgil Abloh joined forces to create a sneaker collection celebrating 10 of the Oregon-based company’s most iconic shoes. With their project The Ten—which reimagined icons like Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Force 1, and Air Presto, among others—they reinvigorated sneaker culture.
Virgil Abloh’s designs offer deep insights into engineering ingenuity and burst with cultural cachet. Drawing on the genius of the original shoe using lettering, ironic labels, collage, and sculpting techniques, Abloh played with language and sculptural elements to construct new meaning. Inspired by the wit of Dadaism, architectural theory, and avant-garde happenings, he analyzed what makes each shoe iconic and deconstructed it into an artistic assemblage, making each shoe into a piece of industrial design, a readymade sculpture, and a wearable all at once.
ICONS traces Abloh’s investigative, creative process through documentation of the prototypes, original text messages from Abloh to Nike designers, and treasures from the Nike archives. We find Swooshes sliced away from Air Jordans and reapplied with tape or thread, Abloh’s typical text fragments in quotation marks on Air Force 1, and All Stars cut into pieces. We take a look behind the scenes and witness Abloh’s DIY approach, which gave each model in the Off-WhiteTM c/o Nike collection its own unique touch. His deconstructive vocabulary is reflected in the Swiss binding, which showcases an open spine and discloses the production of the book.
The book documents Abloh’s cooperative way of working and reaffirms the power of print. For its design Nike and Abloh partnered with the acclaimed London-based design studio Zak Group. Together they conceived a two-part compendium, equal parts catalog and conceptual toolbox. The first part of the book presents a visual culture of sneakers while a lexicon in the second part defines the key people, places, objects, ideas, materials, and scenes from which the project grew. Texts by Nike’s Nicholas Schonberger, writer Troy Patterson, curator and historian Glenn Adamson, and Virgil Abloh himself frame the collaborative work within fashion and design history. A foreword by Hiroshi Fujiwara places the project within the historical continuum of Nike collaborators.
Balinese homes in harmony with nature
Loved by travelers for its lush tropical scenery and charming people, Bali is one of the most magnificent places on Earth. Spirituality and nature are integral parts of everyday life for the Balinese, so one can easily see why the island’s traditional architecture has a peaceful presence to it, mimicking its surroundings and sometimes blending in with them.
When it comes to Balinese houses, walls are not compulsory, wood is everywhere, earth tones are dominant, and thatched roofs abound. Opening onto gorgeous green landscapes, majestic mountains, or beautiful coastlines, the homes herein ooze relaxing, contemplative vibes. This portfolio of Southeast Asian living features a swath of fresh and inspiring photographs and comes in a compact size, so you can take a little bit of paradise with you wherever you go.
Gazing at these opulent examples of simple and elegant living, it’s a wonder why more people aren’t rushing to move to Bali.
“Once there was a nation that went to war, but after they conquered a continent their own country was destroyed by atom bombs... then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think... although they were very different characters, the architects worked closely together to realize their dreams, staunchly supported by a super-creative bureaucracy and an activist state... after 15 years of incubation, they surprised the world with a new architecture―Metabolism―that proposed a radical makeover of the entire land... Then newspapers, magazines, and TV turned the architects into heroes: thinkers and doers, thoroughly modern men... Through sheer hard work, discipline, and the integration of all forms of creativity, their country, Japan, became a shining example... when the oil crisis initiated the end of the West, the architects of Japan spread out over the world to define the contours of a post-Western aesthetic....” ―Rem Koolhaas / Hans Ulrich Obrist
So Much For So Little!
Big busts + small package = major savings
The Little Big Book of Breasts features over 150 celebrated big breast models from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, including Michelle Angelo, Virginia Bell, Roxanne Brewer, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa DeLeeuw, Uschi Digard, Sylvia McFarland, Chesty Morgan, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Janie Reynolds, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Mary Waters, June Wilkinson, and Julie Wills, plus Guinness Book of World Records bra-buster Norma Stitz in a compact and inexpensive format.
Photos come not just from the original 398-page edition, but from subsequent Big Breast Calendars, meaning that 40% of the content is unique to this edition. Add reduced text to make more room for the stunning black-and-white and color photos and how could anyone—big, small, or in-between—ask for a better deal?
Domestic Bliss
Innovative, intimate architecture from China to Chile
Designing private residences has its own very special challenges and nuances for the architect. The scale may be more modest than public projects, the technical fittings less complex than an industrial site, but the preferences, requirements and vision of particular personalities becomes priority. The delicate task is to translate all the emotive associations and practical requirements of “home” into a workable, constructed reality.
This publication rounds up 100 of the world’s most interesting and pioneering homes designed in the past two decades, featuring a host of talents both new and established, including John Pawson, Richard Meier, Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Daniel Libeskind, Alvaro Siza, and Peter Zumthor. Accommodating daily routines of eating, sleeping, and shelter, as well as offering the space for personal experience and relationships, this is architecture at its most elementary and its most intimate.
Often imitated but never equaled, Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) left an indelible impression on Renaissance art and paved the way for future realist painters. With its unprecedented precision and masterful use of color, Arnolfini Double Portrait, depicting the wedding of a young couple, is testament to the mastery of the Flemish painter and leader of the Early Netherlandish school. Van Eyck painted both secular and religious subject matter, emphasizing a naturalism and realism that moved seamlessly between 15th-century everyday life and poetic, heavenly settings. Working with oil paint, he innovated the medium, allowing for great intensity and depth of color.
Trace the artist’s impressive oeuvre in this hardcover survey of his work, including altarpieces, religious figures, and commissioned portraits. Featuring enlarged details and close analyses of masterpieces like the Ghent Altarpiece, this publication also offers a chronology of van Eyck’s production, including the output of his workshop which continued even after his death.
Star Wars exploded onto our cinema screens in 1977, and the world has not been the same since. After watching depressing and cynical movies throughout the early 1970s, audiences enthusiastically embraced the positive energy of the Star Wars galaxy as they followed moisture farmer Luke Skywalker on his journey through a galaxy far, far away, meeting extraordinary characters like mysterious hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi, space pirates Han Solo and Chewbacca, loyal droids C-3PO and R2-D2, bold Princess Leia Organa and the horrific Darth Vader, servant of the dark, malevolent Emperor.
Writer, director, and producer George Lucas created the modern monomyth of our time, one that resonates with the child in us all. He formed Industrial Light & Magic to develop cutting-edge special effects technology, which he combined with innovative editing techniques and a heightened sense of sound to give audiences a unique sensory cinematic experience.
In this first volume, made with the full cooperation of Lucasfilm, Lucas narrates his own story, taking us through the making of the original trilogy—Episode IV A New Hope, Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI Return of the Jedi—and bringing fresh insights into the creation of a unique universe. Complete with script pages, production documents, concept art, storyboards, on-set photography, stills, and posters, this is the authoritative exploration of the original saga as told by its creator.
Decades’ worth of images have been distilled down to 512 pages of photographs in this ultimate retrospective collection of Nobuyoshi Araki's work, selected by the artist himself.
First published as a Limited Edition and now back in a new format to celebrate TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary, the curation delves deep into Araki’s best-known imagery: Tokyo street scenes; faces and foods; colorful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As girls lay bound but defiant and glistening petals assume suggestive shapes, Araki plays constantly with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire and with the slippage between serene image and shock.
Describing his bondage photographs as “a collaboration between the subject and the photographer”, Araki seeks to come closer to his female subjects through photography, emphasizing the role of spoken conversation between himself and the model. In his native Japan, he has attained cult status for many women who feel liberated by his readiness to photograph the expression of their desire.
To explore the Tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.
For many in the West, Tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands—mystics and artists often working in collaboration—have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium.
Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in Tarot, the debut volume in TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind more than 500 cards and works of original art, two thirds of which have never been published outside of the decks themselves. It's the first ever visual compendium of its kind, spanning from Medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of Tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of nearly 100 diverse contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward. Rounding out the volume are excerpts from thinkers such as Éliphas Lévi, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell; a foreword by artist Penny Slinger; a guide to reading the cards by Johannes Fiebig; and an essay on oracle decks by Marcella Kroll.
Most commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, the body in motion, and everyday urban life.
The elder scion of a wealthy family, Degas cofounded a series of exhibitions of “Impressionist” art, but soon disassociated himself from the group in pursuit of a more realist approach. His subjects centered on the teeming, noisy streets of Paris, as well as its leisure entertainments, such as horse racing, cabarets, and, most particularly, ballet. With often ambitious, off-kilter vantage points, his images of ballerinas numbered approximately 1,500 works, all deeply invested in the physicality and the discipline of dance.
Through illustrations of Foyer de la Danse (1872), Musicians in the Orchestra (1872), and many more, this book provides an essential overview of the artist who created a category all his own, a world of classical resonance, bold compositions, and an endless fascination with movement, which together produced some of the most striking and influential works of the era.
A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. This monograph gathers all of Klimt’s major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged access to the artist’s archive.
With top quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Frieze, the book follows Klimt through his prominent role in the Secessionist movement of 1897, his candid rendering of the female body, and his lustrous “golden phase” when gold leaf brought a shimmering tone and texture to such beloved works as The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold.
Through luminous spreads and carefully curated details, the monograph traces the repertoire of Japanese, Byzantine, and allegorical stimuli that informed Klimt’s flattened perspectives, his symbolic vocabulary, and his mosaic-like textures. Drawing upon contemporary critics and voices, the book also examines the art world’s polarized reception to Klimt’s pictures as much as his own stylistic trajectory. From his landscape painting to erotic works to the controversial ceiling for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, we see how Klimt’s admixture of tradition and daring divided the press and public—becried by some as a pornographer, hailed by others as a modern maestro.
Whether you’re thinking of getting a tattoo or just want to see to what lengths others have gone in decorating their bodies, this is the book to check out. This edition of 1000 Tattoos explores the history of the art worldwide via designs and photos—from 19th-century engravings to tribal body art, from circus ladies of the ‘20s to classic biker designs—giving a fascinating insight into the art of tattooing.
Though numbering just 35 known works, the oeuvre of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is hailed as one of the most important and inspiring portfolios in art history. His paintings have prompted a New York Times best seller, a film starring Scarlett Johansson, and record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington.
Vermeer's subjects focus on daily domestic activities, from letter writing to music playing to preparations in the kitchen. The scenes astound with their meticulous detail, majestic planes of light, and with Vermeer's extraordinary ability to draw out narrative intrigues. In such beloved paintings as Lady Standing at a Virginal, A Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid and, most famously, the enigmatic, wide-eyed, and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer evokes not only the effects of substance and texture, but also the many stories and secrets that reside beneath the surface.
Featuring all Vermeer's known works and succinct, accessible texts, this essential introduction explores Vermeer's leading place in art history and his unique ability to transform oil paint into a living, breathing scene of human life.
Andy Warhol was a relentless chronicler of life and its encounters. Carrying a Polaroid camera from the late 1950s until his death in 1987, he amassed a huge collection of instant pictures of friends, lovers, patrons, the famous, the obscure, the scenic, the fashionable, and himself. Created in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, this book features hundreds of these instant photos.
Portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Yves Saint Laurent, Pelé, Debbie Harry are included alongside images of Warhol’s entourage and high life, landscapes, and still lifes from Cabbage Patch dolls to the iconic soup cans. Often raw and impromptu, the Polaroids document Warhol’s era like Instagram captures our own, offering a unique record of the life, world, and vision behind the Pop Art maestro and modernist giant.
Back in 2002, Simon “Woody” Wood was dreaming up schemes to get free sneakers. Two weeks later, he was the proud owner of Sneaker Freaker and his life was never the same.
From its early roots as a punk-style fanzine to today’s super-slick print and online operations, the fiercely independent publication has documented every collab, custom, limited edition, retro reissue, Quickstrike, Hyperstrike, and Tier Zero sneaker released over the last 15 years.
Woody’s original premise that Sneaker Freaker would be “funny and serious, meaningful and pointless at the same time” has certainly been vindicated in The Ultimate Sneaker Book. With more than 650 pages jam-packed with insider knowledge and his own irreverent observations, the insane historical detail and otaku-level minutiae is beyond obsessive.
Traversing 100 years of history, each chapter paints a rollicking picture of the sneaker industry’s evolution. Air Max, Air Force, Adi Dassler, Converse, Kanye, Dapper Dan, Dee Brown, Michael Jordan, and Yeezy—along with obscure treasures like Troop, Airwalk, and Vision Street Wear—are all exhaustively documented.
This is a definitive source of knowledge. This is… The Ultimate Sneaker Book!
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