FRANCESCO BONAMI

Gabriele Basilico An introductory monograph on one of Italy's leading fine art photographers.Francesco Bonami Trained as an architect, Italian-born Gabriele Basilico (b.1944) is one of Italy's leading fine art photographers Basilico's photographs of cityscapes, residential buildings and factories transcend reality, revealing the essence of the metropolis, town and village Chronologically presented photographs include the early coastal landscapes of Normandy and the Beirut cityscapes of 1991, with picture-by-picture commentaries by Basilico himself The best introductory monograph to Basilico's work, this book also features an essay by Francesco Bonami - a specialist on the photographer - which assesses Basilico's importance in the history of photography Gabriele Basilico (b. 1944) is one of the most important Italian photographers. Coming from the long-established tradition of landscape art, his is an idiosyncratic representation of architecture and landscape. His photographs of cityscapes, residential buildings and factories seem to deny the presence of the artist and to ask viewers to form their own conclusions about relationships between structures, and between structures and landscape. Stripping bare the urban context of any human activity, his work transcends mere instances and seeks to reveal the very essence of 'place' and of our relationship with it. Basilico is one of the best-known 'documentary' photographers in Europe. He eschews the traditional picturesque forms of landscape imagery to turn his attention the city and the industralized landscape photographed in black and white, with a precision and clarity that is almost alarming. An architect by training, Gabriele Basilico's camera imposes discipline on the buildings on which it focuses - he banishes human life to reveal the life of the building itself. Basilico travels extensively and in-depth, often working with government bodies to catalogue the appearance of the urban landscape for posterity. He travelled to Berlin in 1990, where he documented the gradual demolition of the Berlin Wall. In 1991 he worked in Beirut, capturing the life and remnants of a city after years of war had

Maurizio Cattelan is the best-known Italian artist to have emerged internationally in the 1990s, and his reputation continues to grow. This mini second edition, updated to include all of the artists work to the present, represents a unique collaboration between Phaidon and this important artist. In fact, Cattelan, who often works with shifts in scale in his sculpture, conceived of this mini edition almost as a work of sculpture itself, creating a highly desirable and collectable object/catalogue. The artists uncompromising, often dangerous will to provoke his audience is exemplified in the notorious Frankie and Jamie(2002), an image of two wax-figure policemen leaning upside-down against a wall the artists own ambiguous commemoration of 9/11. Francesco Bonami survey Massimiliano Gioni update Nancy Spector interview Barbara Vanderlinden focus Artists choice Philip Roth Or Not to Be A Collection of Suicide Notes (ed. Marc Etkind) Maurizio Cattelan writings

Gabriele Basilico (b.1944) is a photographer whose work blurs the boundaries between photography and contemporary art. Coming from the long-established tradition of landscape art, his is an idiosyncratic representation of architecture and landscape. His photographs of cityscapes, residential buildings and factories seem to deny the presence of the artist and ask viewers to form their own conclusions about relationships between structures, and between structures and landscape. Stripping bare the urban context of any human activity, his work transcends mere instances and seeks to reveal the very essence of the metropolis, town or village.

Tutti, almeno una volta nella vita, davanti a un'opera di arte contemporanea abbiamo pensato: Ma come! Questa non e arte! Lo potevo fare anch'io!. Eppure i critici ci assicurano che si tratta davvero di capolavori, e celebri collezionisti spendono cifre da capogiro per quadri che sembrano tele imbrattate. Che siano tutti impazziti? Francesco Bonami ci aiuta a capire cosa distingue un grande artista da uno pessimo, cosa ha fatto si che Marcel Duchamp o Andy Warhol abbiano superato la prova del tempo. E se e senz'altro vero che nell'ultimo secolo l'arte si e evoluta al punto da essere quasi irriconoscibile, il lavoro di Bonami ci fa capire perche non e vero che potevamo farlo anche noi.