Taschen GmbH

Where to stay and what to visit in the City of Love? Among the sumptuously-photographed accommodations hand-picked by Angelika Taschen are the Christian Lacroix-designed Hôtel du Petit Moulin, the Trocadéro Dokhan’s (designed by Frédéric Méchiche), the ultra-chic Hôtel Costes by Jacques Garcia, the charming low budget Hôtel Recamier overlooking the magnificent Place Saint Sulpice or the intimate secret hideaway of Tom Ford and a Marais apartment for rent owned and decorated by fashion designer Azzedine Ala&239&894a. While you’re in town, enjoy her suggestions for everything from a literary café experience to a luxurious perfume boutique or a renowned cheese shop. Everything in this guide is carefully tailored to help make your Parisian holiday as fulfilling as possible.

After the bust out success of The Big Book of Breasts TASCHEN presents the perfect companion, The Big Penis Book. When it comes to pleasure, size doesnt matter; as we all know its quality, not quantity, that counts. But lets admit it: a big penis is undeniably compelling. Big shoulders, big lapels, and big hair may come and go, but the big penis never goes out of fashion. With those possessing more than 8 inches (20 ) making up less than 2% of the worlds population, this rare accessory will always fascinate. In The Big Penis Book we explore the centuries-old fascination with the large phallus, a fascination common to men and women alike. This hefty book is profusely illustrated with over 400 historic photos of spectacular male endowment s, including rare photos of the legendary John Holmes. The majority of the photographs are from the 1970s, when the sexual revolution first freed photographers to depict the male entirely nude. Photographers include Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild, David Hurles of Old Reliable, Colt, Falcon, Sierra Domino, Third World, and Champion Studios, with each of these iconic photographers interviewed or profiled, along with information about each of their models. And if this isnt enough, the book clos es with a special surprise comparable to the Guinness Book of Records Norma Stitz featured in The Big Book of Breasts! Can you guess what body part Dian is dissecting next?

Bob Mizer spent 48 years making photos and films for his Athletic Model Guild, and 41 years publishing Physique Pictorial, America's first, and most explicitly gay physique magazine. His diaries, kept from the age of eight, make it clear that he was openly homosexual from his late teens, but until the age of 42 he lived and worked in his mother's L.A. rooming house, where his strict ethical code prevented him from fully expressing his fantasies. For 24 years he worked in black and white and never showed a completely naked man, but following his mother's death in 1964 Mizer built a kingdom dedicated to the pleasures of male flesh, and photographed fully nude men in explicit poses and psychedelically saturated colors. In the 1970s and '80s Bob Mizer's compound, centered around the old rooming house, became home to dozens of his young models, who lived outdoors on couches and porch gliders among the chickens, geese, goats and monkeys, Roman statuary, cast off Christmas trees and other sundry props that featured in his increasingly quirky films and photography. Sometimes called the Hugh Hefner of gay publishing for his pioneering magazine (republished in entirety by TASCHEN in 1997), Mizer influenced figures in art and society from David Hockney–who first came to America partly to meet Bob Mizer–to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who modeled for Mizer in 1975. Bob's World: The Life and Boys of AMG's Bob Mizer is the first book to celebrate the full-color, deliriously uninhibited carnival of late-period Mizer. Over 250 photos are accompanied by an oral history by contributing artists David Hockney, Jack Pierson and John Sonsini, photographers David Hurles and Hal Roth, models Ben Sorensen and Andrew Sears, and Wayne Stanley, inheritor of the Mizer estate. The book includes a one-hour DVD of Mizer films spanning 1958–1980, specially edited for this edition.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) possessed the rare ability to transform unconscious compulsions into figurative, human-like forms that seem to evoke the raw emotions that bore them. Mixing realism and abstraction, Bacon delves deep beneath the surfaces of things, opening up the human body to reveal the chaos that lies within and struggling with all that is inexplicable. Erotic and grotesquely beautiful is the work of this legendary painter whose haunting, distorted figures have inspired entire generations of painters who seek to emulate his highly original style.

This monograph, compiled with the architect's collaboration, traces his career and features every built work of Shigeru Ban, showing clearly why he is one of the world's most innovative and significant architects. Unlike many of his peers, Ban can create remarkable residences and still find time to design emergency relief housing for disaster areas from Kobe to New Orleans. Ban consistently challenges accepted notions of architecture, designing a house without walls, or an exhibition space made from paper tubes and shipping containers; his designs give new meaning to the term "Paper Architect." Challenging the system with inventive repurposing of everyday materials is just the beginning of his genius, as clearly evidenced in this sweeping monograph.

"You voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death by attending". 100 miles from the gambling town of Reno, in the wilderness of northern Nevada, lies a vast, hostile plain known as the Black Rock Desert. The region has been an empty and windswept dry lake bed for most of the past 10.000 years. Except, that is, for one brief week at the end of the summer, when a temporary city rises out of the barren clay. This is the Burning Man festival, one of the most remarkable gatherings on the planet. Baked by the sun, and blinded by dust, the event acquires different meanings for different people: temporary community, spiritual adventure, performance stage, desert rave, social experiment. It's also the incubator of some of the most pure site-specific outdoor art ever made. A mechanized fire-breathing octopus. A towering wooden temple 15 meters tall. And the eponymous Man himself-a skeletal sculpture set ablaze at the festival's conclusion. In their sun-scorched desert location. these huge installations and happenings exist for no clearer purpose than because someone wanted to express something. Participatory, collective, and often designed to last only for the festival duration, their value resides far beyond the ego, commerce and power play of common cultural output. This book assembles fifteen years of Burning Man images from writer and photographer NK Guy. Epic, awe-inspiring, even reality-shifting, the pictures are a testimony to one of the most uninhibited and expressive centers of our time.

The notoriously exclusive Pirelli Calendar, featuring glamorous shots of beautiful women, was first published in 1964. Reserved for important clients and VIPs, the calendar has since grown into a legend of its own, showcasing the beauty of models such as Alessandra Ambrosio, Gisele Bundchen, Naomi Campbell, Laetitia Casta, Cindy Crawford. Penelope Cruz, Milla Jovovich, Heidi Klum, Angela Lindvall, Sophia Loren, and Kate Moss. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the now-legendary institution that is the Pirelli Calendar, TASCHEN brings you a retrospective volume reproducing the complete calendars, photographed by Richard Avedon, Peter Beard, Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight, Karl Lagerfeld, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Sarah Moon, Terry Richardson. Herb Ritts, Mario Sorrenti, Bert Stern, Mario Testino, Bruce Weber, and many more. Bonus features include rarely and never-before-seen behind-the-scenes images of the shoots, the unpublished 1963 calendar, and a selection of "censored" images deemed too risque by the editors of the time. Finally, the canceled 1986 Helmut Newton calendar will be revealed.With an introduction by Philippe Daverio and an interview with art directors Derek Forsyth and Martyn Walsh. The Pirelli Calendar was a marketing revelation when it debuted in the l960s-it took a familiar, even throwaway concept (the pin-up "garage calendar") and infused it with top fashion models, photographers, and the most desirable locations in the world. To this day it has retained its ability to fascinate and titillate all those who are fortunate enough to obtain a copy. This resplendent volume, for fans new and old alike, is the biggest and baddest ever devoted to the subject.

Get closer than ever to the movie that changed the movies. This behind-the-scenes spectacular of 2001: Space Odyssey sheds light on the lead actors, senior production designers, special-effects experts, who together with the intricate mastermind of Kubrick himself, revolutionized science fiction and the art of cinema. Previously available as part of the multi-volume and instant sell-out Collector's Edition, this exhaustive visual record includes on and offset photographs, pre-production paintings, conceptual designs, and publicity materials from the Kubrick archives. With numerous fold-outs, these dazzling images offer insight both into Kubrick's meticulous directorial methods, and into the mysteries and magnetism of a film at once vast in scope and intricate in its human interest. Written and researched over several years by the outer space, special effects, and technology journalist Piers Bizony, this compendium is both an exhaustive labour of love and a monument to a masterpiece of 20th century culture.

Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus school developed a revolutionary approach that fused fine art with craftsmanship and engineering in everything from architecture to furniture, typography, and even theater. Originally headed by Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus counted among its members artists and architects such as Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Marcel Breuer. In 1930, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took over as the leader, but soon after, in 1933, the Nazi government shut down the school. During its fourteen years of existence, Bauhaus managed to change the faces of art, architecture, and industrial design forever and is still hugely influential today.

Lobsters and lunacy: The zaniest Surrealist of them all Painter, sculptor, writer, film-maker, and all-round showman Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis to art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as the soft watches or the lobster telephone, now hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general. Dalí frequently described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” Their tantalizing tension and interest resides in the precise rendering of bizarre elements and incongruous arrangements. As Dalí himself explained, he painted with “the most imperialist fury of precision,” but only “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.” Revolutionizing the role of the artist, the mustache-twirling Dalí also had the intuition to parade a controversial persona in the public arena and, through printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and film, to create work that could be consumed and not just contemplated on a gallery wall. This book explores both the painting and the personality of Dalí, introducing his technical skill as well as his provocative compositions and challenging themes of death, decay, and eroticism. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features: •a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance •a concise biography •approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was considered the most important figurative painter of his generation. Master portraitist and specialist in nudes, Freud used impasto to create depth and intensity while restraining his color palate to muted hues. His portraits may be physically unflattering to their subjects, but they are honest and unapologetic.

God’s architect: Gaudí’s ravishing symbiosis between built environment and natural world From the towering Sagrada Família to the shimmering, textured facade of Casa Batlló and the enchanting landscape of Park Güell, it’s easy to see why Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) gained the epithet “God’s architect”. With fluid forms and mathematical precision, his work extols the wonder of natural creation: columns soar like tree trunks, window frames curve like flowering branches, and ceramic tiling shimmers like scaly, reptilian skin. With this outstanding attention to natural detail, his inspirations from both neo-Gothic and Orientalist aesthetics, and a lifelong commitment to Catalan identity, Gaudí created a unique brand of the Modernista movement which transformed, and defines, Barcelona’s cityscape. With seven of Gaudí’s projects listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, this book introduces the architect’s extraordinary vision and unique legacy, exploring the influences and the details which allow his buildings to impress, inspire, and amaze, one century after their construction. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture Series features: •an introduction to the life and work of the architect •the major works in chronological order •information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions •a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings •approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts and plans)

Frida Kahlo's arresting pictures were in many ways expressions of trauma. The daughter of an immigrant German photographer father and a Mexican mother of Indian origin, Kahlo (1907-1954) was involved in a serious road accident at the age of 18, which left her with lifelong health problems, including the inability to have a child. This richly illustrated Basic Art book offers a both accessible and informed introduction to Kahlo's life and work, looking at the artist's dramatic, colourful canvases which combined religious Mexican tradition with Surrealist elements. These paintings can be seen as reflections both of Kahlo's physical distress and of her volatile marriage to world-famous mural painter Diego Rivera - a tumultuous relationship fraught with furious tempers, numerous extra marital affairs, divorce, and remarriage. Many works also explore the Communist political ideals Kahlo and Rivera shared. Kahlo's work received posthumous recognition in the late 1970s and was declared the property of the Mexican state in 1983. Today, she is considered one of the most important 20th-century painters, a feminist icon, and a pioneer of Latin American art.

Gustav Klimt's ornate art expresses the apocalyptic atmosphere of Vienna's upper middle-class society around the turn of the 20th century - a society devoted to the cultivation of aesthetic awareness and the cult of pleasure. The ecstatic joy which Klimt (1862-1918) and his contemporaries found - or hoped to find - in beauty was constantly overshadowed by death. And death therefore plays an important role in Klimt's art. Klimt's fame, however, rests on his reputation as one of the greatest erotic painters and graphic artists of his times. His drawings in particular, which have been widely admired for their artistic excellence, are dominated by the sensual portrayal of women.

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo remains the quintessential Renaissance genius. Creator of the world's most famous painting, this scientist, artist, philosopher, inventor, builder, and mechanic epitomized the great flowering of human consciousness that marks his era. And yet, so wide-ranging and prolific were his interests that he brought hardly any major undertaking to a final end. In his thousands of notes and sketches, Leonardo would not only demonstrate his graphic genius but also anticipate some of the great discoveries and inventions that would follow him, from key points in anatomy - such as the principles behind blood circulation - through to plans for armoured military vehicles, planes, helicopters and submarines. Leonardo also advanced numerous artistic techniques, achieving a complex psychology in such paintings as The Last Supper and the enigmatic La Gioconda, or Mona Lisa, which continue to mesmerize visitors from around the world to this day.

A revolution in painting: The mysterious genius who transformed European art Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi daCaravaggio(1571 1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run.This work offers acomprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio s entire oeuvrewith a catalogue raisonne of his works. Each painting is reproduced in large format, with recent, high production photography allowing fordramatic close-ups with Caravaggio's ingenious details of looks and gestures.Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggio's artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking realismwhich allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer. An accompanyingartist chronologyfollows Caravaggio's equallytumultous personal life. This is the definitive work about Caravaggio for generations to come, to be delved into and put on display, with its slipcase neatly converting into a book stand."