The revised and extended BMW Art Guide by Independent Collectors presents nearly 300 private collections of contemporary art accessible to the public—featuring large and small, famous and the relatively unknown. Succinct portraits of the collections with countless color illustrations take the reader to more than 40 countries, often to regions or urban districts that are off the beaten path. This practical guide is a collaborative publication stemming from the partnership between BMW and Independent Collectors, the international online platform for collectors of contemporary art. To date, neither the Internet nor any book has ever contained a comparable assembly of international private collections, including several that have opened their doors to art lovers and connoisseurs for the first time.

For quite some time now, ethnographic museums in Europe have been compelled to legitimate themselves. Their exhibition-making has become a topic of discussion, as has the contentious history of their collections, which have come about through colonial appropriation. Clearly, this cannot continue. That the situation can be different is something that Clémentine Deliss explores in her current publication. She offers an intriguing mix of autobiographically-informed novel and conceptual thesis on contemporary art and anthropology. Reflections on her own work while she was Director of Frankfurt's Weltkulturen Museum (Museum of World Cultures) are interwoven with the explorations of influential filmmakers, artists and writers. She introduces the Metabolic Museum as an interventionist laboratory for remediating ethnographic collections for future generations. CLÉMENTINE DELISS has achieved international renown as a curator, cultural historian and publisher of artist's books. In her role as Director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, as a curator, and as a professor and researcher at eminent institutes and academies, she focuses on transdisciplinary and transcultural exchanges. She is Associate Curator of KW Berlin and Guest Professor at the Academy of Arts, Hamburg.

As museums worldwide shuttered in 2020 because of the coronavirus, New York-based cultural strategist András Szántó conducted a series of interviews with an international group of museum leaders. In a moment when economic, political, and cultural shifts are signaling the start of a new era, the directors speak candidly about the historical limitations and untapped potential of art museums. Each of the twenty-eight conversations in this book explores a particular topic of relevance to art institutions today and tomorrow. What emerges from the series of in-depth conversations is a composite portrait of a generation of museum leaders working to make institutions more open, democratic, inclusive, experimental and experiential, technologically savvy, culturally polyphonic, attuned to the needs of their visitors and communities, and concerned with addressing the defining issues of the societies around them. The dialogues offer glimpses of how museums around the globe are undergoing an accelerated phase of reappraisal and reinvention. Conversation Partners: Marion Ackermann, Cecilia Alemani, Anton Belov, Meriem Berrada, Daniel Birnbaum, Thomas P. Campbell, Tania Coen-Uzzielli, Rhana Devenport, María Mercedes González, Max Hollein, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Mami Kataoka, Brian Kennedy, Koyo Kouoh, Sonia Lawson, Adam Levine, Victoria Noorthoorn, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anne Pasternak, Adriano Pedrosa, Suhanya Raffel, Axel Rüger, Katrina Sedgwick, Franklin Sirmans, Eugene Tan, Philip Tinari, Marc-Olivier Wahler, Marie-Cécile Zinsou

Berlin's Gemäldegalerie is known for its outstanding collection of European paintings from the thirteenth to eighteenth century. Each chapter in this book is dedicated to one painting from the collection. In the breadth of this idiosyncratic selection, painting, as it discovers itself becomes a medium for the formulation of modern subjectivity. Each painting in focus unfolds its own making and its artistic concerns as they reflect contemporary issues, today. What are the paradoxes within which art is made by women? How does the primordial drive to destroy works of art affect today's art discourse? Where did the modern struggle of painting against the picture begin? Why does the Wild Man from early German Renaissance still haunt us? And why doesn't it matter whether Jan Vermeer used an optical device for his paintings? Twelve Paintings highlights the currentness of the Old Masters.

The Swiss artist Miriam Cahn (*1949, Basel) deals with political and social themes in oil paintings; charcoal, chalk, and colored and lead pencil drawings; and in photographs, films, and installations. Strong color is characteristic of her work, forming a stark contrast to the recurring motifs of violence, tenderness, war, destruction, and physical infirmity. Her habit of commenting upon her work in writing is a golden thread running throughout Cahn's career. She illuminates her own art, commenting in the process on art and world events, and she sets up the texts opposite her artworks in exhibitions and publications. WRITING IN RAGE is the first compilation of her writing by itself, and includes essays, journal entries, and correspondence with friends, foes, family members, and gallerists. The book provides very personal insights into Cahn's life, her family, and the art market, introducing the reader to a disputatious, independent spirit. The Swiss artist MIRIAM CAHN (*1949, Basel) deals with political and social themes in oil paintings; charcoal, chalk, and colored and lead pencil drawings; and in photographs, films, and installations. Strong color is characteristic of her work, forming a stark contrast to the recurring motifs of violence, tenderness, war, destruction, and physical infirmity. Her habit of commenting upon her work in writing is a golden thread running throughout Cahn's career. She illuminates her own art, commenting in the process on art and world events, and she sets up the texts opposite her artworks in exhibitions and publications.

Procurement analysis, sales planning, customer orientation, brand management--the art market is changing more rapidly than ever before. The price that a work of art commands influences its place in the art-historical canon. Auction houses have become dominant avenues of distribution, as have art fairs, galleries and art dealers. Even today the ritual dramaturgy of the auction resembles an archaic competition, captivating participants and bystanders. At the center of the action is the auctioneer, whose performance is increasingly critical to the success of the auction. This volume tells the story of the art auction business through portraits of auctioneers. Key events in cities such as New York, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Stuttgart and Pompeii come alive, and show how the auctioneer is emerging from the anonymity of a service provider and stepping into the limelight as a star of the show.

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) is considered to have introduced the practice of socially engaged painting, and he is viewed as one of the most important representatives of Realism. The direct and honest depictions of Realist painters challenged the idealized subject matter of academic painting and scandalized the Parisian society of the nineteenth century. Courbet became a leading figure of the rebellious artistic bohemia and cultivated a lively exchange with the predominant poets and artists of his era. However, he was not merely an anti-establishment provocateur; he significantly revolutionized landscape painting. With seven essays, this volume offers an introduction to selected aspects of the artist's life and work. His paintings will also inspire even those who may not be well versed in the world of art. Courbet's incredibly rich oeuvre and his exciting biography make him an artist worth discovering again and again.