Taschen

An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag "SAMO," before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barely a decade, he remains a cult figure of artistic social commentary, and a trailblazer in the mediation of graffiti and...

Archaeology and imaginationImpossible staircases and startling ruins from Italy s master engraverThe most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 1778) made his name with etchings of ancient Rome. His startling, chiaroscuro images imbued the city's archaeological ruins with drama and romance and became favorite...

A magnificent pictorial document of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, the Hortus Eystettensis is in a class of its own when it comes to the range of flowers engraved.First published in 1613, the 367 copperplate engravings by Basilius Besler (1561 1629) capture the spectacular diversity of the palatial gardens of...

With his smooth, warm, red face which radiated light in all directions, Chairman Mao Zedong was a fixture in Chinese propaganda posters produced between the birth of the People s Republic in 1949 and the early 1980s.Chairman Mao, portrayed as a stoic superhero (a.k.a. the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Helmsman, the Supreme Commander),...

Clothes define people. A person's attire, whether it's a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Founded in 1978, the Kyoto Costume Institute recognizes the importance of understanding clothes from sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world's most...

They say that in life, there are winners and there are losers. Though the movies we selected for this two-volume collection are winners indeed, those that didn't make the cut aren't losers. We just didn't like them quite as much. It was a tough, soul-searching process, but after much debate and deliberation TASCHEN settled on what we believe to be...