Since opening its first boutique on the Place Vendôme in Paris in 1906, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels has played a pioneering role in the development of the art of jewelry design. Now, on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, The Art of Beauty explores the history and the accomplishments of the firm through more than 400 of its most celebrated works. Loaned from the Van Cleef &amp; Arpels museum and private collections worldwide, these works include classic timepieces, jewels, fashion accessories and objets d’art; the volume places particular emphasis on Van Cleef &amp; Arpels’ Chinese inspirations. Among the many milestones of jewelry they have produced are the first watch with a leather strap (1923); the famous “Mystery Setting” technique, a paving procedure that uses no visible claws to contain the stone; the Zip necklace, which opens and closes like a zip (1950); and more recently, the Lotus “Between-the-Finger” ring (2001). Van Cleef &amp; Arpels’ highly demanding gemmologists select only the most exceptional stones for the firm’s magnificent creations. With 280 full-color reproductions, The Art of Beauty celebrates Van Cleef &amp; Arpels’ unrivalled excellence and its quest for perfect beauty.

Van Cleef & Arpels: Timeless Beauty

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Editions Xavier Barral

William Kentridge’s recent work is situated on the border between art and science: by examining our perception and understanding of time, he reconsiders the creative process. A work in progress in the truest sense, The Refusal of Time continues and deepens the polymorphic, dreamlike, political and humanist body of work developed by Kentridge from his very earliest days as an artist. An installation with performance elements, The Refusal of Time was conceived by Kentridge and science historian Peter Galison for Documenta 13, and realized in collaboration with video filmmaker Catherine Meyburgh and composer Philip Miller, both of whom worked with Kentridge and Galison for a year. Time in its various manifestations--narrative, fragmented, slowed down and speeded up; distortions of space-time; simultaneity--is explored through various media, including dance, film, music and spoken word. The book itself is a work of art; it includes sketches and notebooks, all the texts read during the performance, pictures from the rehearsals and workshop as well as highlights of the show, interviews and drawings created specially for it by Kentridge.

William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time

Individual Artists

This lusciously produced volume examines the multiple meanings deriving from a single word, also exploring how seemingly similar images can be perceived so differently as a result of our personal associations. ‘Sei’ is a Japanese word which, although always pronounced the same, can be represented by no less than 28 kanji characters with a diverse host of meanings: star, voice, blue, sex, energy, death, betrayal, peace of mind, purity. Here, the photographer Yuriko Takagi opens up this semantic cacophony, in depictions of 28 flower buds, each of which is associated with a separate kanji character. Streaked, folded petals, downy pistils, silken stamens, woolly aigrettes: are these flowers, sexual organs, bits of creased taffeta, or puffed-up tissue paper? Takagi’s images are as polymorphic as the kanji that inspired them.

Yuriko Takagi: Sei

Photography & Video

Since 1982, Paris Audiovisual and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) have commissioned great photographers to capture their views of Paris. Taking up the task after Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, Ralph Gibson, Mimmo Jodice, Bruce Davidson and others, Martin Parr (born 1952) hones in on the city, and on Parisians and the tourists who inundate the French capital. He visits the Notre Dame cathedral, sightseer-laden riverboats, the Champs-Élysées on Bastille Day, the Paris Air Show, the Agricultural Show, along with fashion shows, museums and art fairs. Martin Parr: Grand Paris collects more than 40 of Parr's photographs, most of which are previously unpublished, that range from newly conceived images to the iconic and the oldest of Parisian clichés. This volume, an astonishing and uncompromising portrayal of the French capital, is presented as an accurate Paris map in layout--even including the street index--with Parr's photographs taking the place of the traditional maps.

Martin Parr: Grand Paris

Charlie Chaplin: The Keystone Album brings together 794 images―technically photograms, printed directly from film frames―from 29 of Charlie Chaplin's first 36 short films made with the Keystone Film Company in 1914. The strips trace the evolution of Chaplin's iconic Tramp character as the actor developed his trademark gestures in his short films, before eventually immortalizing the character in the 1915 feature The Tramp. These images were found in a curious document, dubbed "The Keystone Album," laid out almost like a comic book, with handwritten captions giving the titles of the films and their reconstituted scenarios. It was confirmed in 2014 that H.D. Waley, a former artistic director of the British Film Institute, compiled the extraordinary album in the 1940s in order to keep a record of the original versions of Chaplin's first films, which were being restored at the time. This beautiful Japanese-bound volume reproduces The Keystone Album in a facsimile edition that faithfully retains the look and spirit of the original, including all 794 original images and their meticulous handwritten annotations (transcribed at the back of the book) in their original layouts, as well as new texts by Carole Sandrin, Sam Stourdzé and Glenn Mitchell.

Charlie Chaplin: The Keystone Album: The Invention of the Tramp

Images of Conviction shows, through 11 cases, how the photographic image is constructed to become evidence. From the scientific methods developed by Alphonse Bertillon, a criminologist who worked for the Préfecture de Police de Paris in the late 19th century, to the first aerial images of the front taken by the army during World War I, to the shots allowing the victims of Stalin's Great Purge to be identified--for over 150 years photography has served as proof, testifying to crime and thus seeming to deliver truths. In the 11 cases presented here, each one situated within its historical and political context, the question of the status of images is acutely posed. Whether it be the famous shots of the Shroud of Turin, the images of the Nuremberg trial, the skull of Josef Mengele or photos taken with cell phones recording the damage of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Israel, forensic images are now part of any police or political investigation.

Images of Conviction: The Construction of Visual Evidence

In December 1962, just two months after the missile crisis, Agnès Varda (born 1928) traveled to Cuba. Like many French intellectuals, she was fascinated by this island and its charismatic leader and wanted to make a film to understand this particular mix of pure socialism, sensuality and cha-cha-cha. In order to preserve her freedom of movement, she traded film for still photography, with the idea of subsequently filming and reanimating her photographs with a rostrum camera. Although they had not been devised as art photographs, the shots from Salut les cubains (1964), presented for the first time in this French-language-only book, are of exceptionally high quality, an example of unhindered street photography. We recognize the sharp but always warm-hearted style for which Varda is known, as well as the tension between still and animated images. Agnes Varda: Cuba also compiles Varda’s archives--notebooks, sketches and editing notes--along with four illuminating essays. Please note that this title is in the French language only.

Agnès Varda: Cuba

Chéroux, Clément

Hourmant, François

Vignaux, Valérie

Though sometimes dubbed "the first wildlife photographer," George Shiras is not a prominent name in the history of photography. While his photos were shown at the Paris World Fair of 1900, Shiras--also a lawyer and politician--did not consider himself an artist; his goal was, above all, to document wildlife from the pre-environmental perspective to which he dedicated his life. In 1893, Shiras perfected the procedure of nocturnal flash photography in various regions of the US and Canada. It was in contact with hunters--and also with Native American guides or trappers--that he became initiated in the ways of wildlife, eventually "exchanging the rifle for the camera," as he himself put it. Despite his aesthetic innocence, Shiras succeeded in capturing the first night-time wildlife photos ever created, thanks to both his use of flash photography and camera-trap equipment. This gorgeous hardcover compiles his prescient nocturnal photography. George Shiras III (1859–1942) was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He served as a member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1889 and 1890 and was elected to the 58th Congress. After his time in Congress, Shiras became engaged in biological research and wildlife photography; he was a member of the Boone and Crockett Club, a conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt. In 1935, he published a two-volume set of over 960 of his wildlife photographs with the National Geographic Society.

George Shiras: In the Heart of the Dark Night

BAILLY, Jean-Christophe

Voss, Sonia

Here, French photographer Patrick Zachmann (born 1955), who has documented shifts in Chinese culture since the early 1980s, creates a portrait of the country in both color and black and white, tracing transformations of urban space and the chasms between urban and rural life.

Patrick Zachmann: So Long, China (French Edition)

A tribute to the sumptuous jewelry and the glamorous history of Van Cleef &amp; Arpels
For more than a century, the designs of the French jewelry house Van Cleef &amp; Arpels have represented the marriage of an unrivaled sense of elegance with an extraordinary level of technical expertise and prowess. The comprehensive monograph Van Cleef &amp; Arpels: The Art &amp; Science of Gems is a glittering, gorgeous tribute to a century of luxurious, glamorous jewelry design and incomparable mastery of materials. Lavishly illustrated with meticulous photographs by Patrick Gries, the book’s pages are filled with sparkling chalcedony, cornelian, rubies, emeralds and colored diamonds, beautifully set off and enhanced by the jeweler’s designs (at alternate moments whimsical or understated, as the materials demand).
Suggesting the complexity and richness of Van Cleef &amp; Arpels’ output, the book is organized thematically around categories such as “Abstractions,” “Couture,” “Nature” and “Icons,” and additionally features some of the legendary stones from the annals of the house’s history, such as the “Blue Princess” sapphire and the “Walska Briolette Diamond” brooch. Texts by art historians, personalities from the fashion world and mineralogists offer context and highlight the full extent of the jeweler’s art. Essential for those who love and lust after jewelry design, this eminently covetable volume celebrates the Van Cleef &amp; Arpels style.

Van Cleef & Arpels: The Art & Science of Gems

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Books by Editions Xavier Barral