Enrico Castellani
The Prada Foundation of Milan recently dedicated a solo show to the oeuvre of Enrico Castellani, curated by Germano Celant, and this extensive volume is the attendant catalogue. The high-quality, color reproductions of the artist’s works are accompanied by critical texts by Germano Celant, Angela Vettese, Bruno Corà, Anty Pansera, Adachiara Zevi, Marco Meneguzzo, and Maria Teresa Roberto. The sequence of photographic documentation is also often interrupted by passages drawn from comments, articles, and letters written by the artist himself. The chronological listing that closes the catalogue is edited by Anna Costantini.

Enrico Castellani, Fondazione Prada (Via Spartaco 8, Milan, www.fondazioneprada.org), 2001, 323 pages, 24 x 35 cm.

Philip Taaffe
This is the catalogue of the photographer Philip Taaffe’s solo show at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea in Trento, curated by Victoria Coen. The volume assembles images of all the exhibited works, beginning with those created in the early ’80s up to the pieces Villa Urbana I and II and Façada, which focus on the iconography of the palm. This illustrative collection of the artist’s work successfully reconstructs the tension in his photographs between representation and iconoclasm, form and decoration, image and ornament. Accompanying texts are in both Italian and English by Victoria Coen and Francisco Pellizzi.

Philip Taaffe, Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta (Foro Buonaparte 52, Milan), 2001, 111 pages, 23 x 27 cm.

Gregor Schneider, Totes Haus Ur
This volume was created to coincide with Gregor Schneider’s participation in the 49^th Venice Biennale. The black and white photographs recapture the difficult route through the various rooms and tortuous corridors of his house, which the artist reconstructed for the event on the interior of the German Pavilion. Together with the photographs there are texts in both German and English by Udo Kittelmann, Elisabeth Bronfen, and Daniel Birnbaum.

Gregor Schneider, Totes Haus Ur, La Biennale di Venezia 2001, Hatje Cantz Verlag (Senefelderstrasse 12, Ostfildern-Ruit, www.hatjecantz.de), 2001, 103 pages, 17 x 23.5 cm.

Ornela Vorpsi, Nothing Obvious
Nothing obvious is a collection of photographs by Ornela Vorpsi—a young artist born in Tirana in 1968 and currently resident in Paris. With sensual precision, Vorpsi has photographed images of female bodies in interior settings that she has observed or spied upon. The artist visually translates the declaration inscribed at the start of the book—“Today, my body belongs to me”—into scenes whose existentially pure and simple forms and colors convey an erotic sensibility linked to an immense capacity for bringing to light the spirit of the figures she immortalizes. Black-and-white photographs alternate with intense, warm red hued ones. Vorpsi’s work reveals a far greater affinity to painting and performance art than to images from the world of fashion photography.

Ornala Vorpsi, Nothing Obvious, Scalo Verlag (Weinberstrasse 22a, Zurich, www.scalo.com), 2001, 144 pages, 28 x 33 cm.

Robert Frank. Hold Still-Keep Going
Published in conjunction with the exhibition hosted at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, which then traveled to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Centro Cultural in Belem, Portugal, this volume is dedicated to the celebrated photographer and experimental film director who was born in Zurich in 1924. The show Hold Still—Keep Going was developed by Ute Eskildsen, curator of the museum’s collection in Essen, in close collaboration with Robert Frank himself, and brings together over a hundred photographic prints, stills and film strips. Particular emphasis is put on Frank’s attempts to go beyond the traditional visual language of mass media towards a new aesthetic. The publication also includes critical essays by Wolfgang Beilenhoff and Christoph Ribbat, as well as an interview with the artist by Ute Eskildsen.

Robert Frank. Hold Still-Keep Going, Scalo Publishers (Weinbergstrasse 22a, Zurich, www.scalo.org), 2001, 168 pages, 20,5 x 26,5 cm.