Axel van der Kraan has a less than optimistic view of humans and civilisation. He is fascinated by power and bureaucracy and the absurdity of routines and rules that sometimes seem to oppress people more than help them. The artist sees the world as an “unfocused, absurd, and aimless battleground”. His sculptures, however, are characterised by a high degree of inventiveness in their construction and use of materials. New, recognisable images are created from discarded household appliances ...

After Meijer's first artist's book about plants in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 'The MoMA Plant Collection' includes over 400 photographs and drawings of exhibitions at the New York Institution, in which plants feature among the works. Inge Meijer wants to render museum plants visible once again, to make us aware of their real as well as metaphorical importance. Beyond her desire for institutional critique, she is also part of a new moment between nature and culture.

When the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris asked Ari Marcopoulos to curate an exhibition around their acquisition ‘Brown Bag’, a short film on skateboarders in New York that he made in 1993, he was given access to the museum’s collection of over 15,000 works. He looked for themes related to the body, injuries, and architecture, along with what he perceived as challenging and puzzling works. Some of the artists were already familiar, while others were new to him. The process was not so dif...

The Architecture Observer offers an overview of different forms of modern architecture in Central America since the outset of the 20th century. Although modern architectures constituted only a small percentage of the total building production in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, they hold in these countries an evident symbolic significance. Such buildings functioned as models for the desired societal, economic, and cultural changes, or as aspirational placeh...

In the 1960s the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs, and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara. This secret, still-classified programme occurred during and after the Algerian War (1954–1962). Meticulously culled together from numerous sources by architectural historian Samia Henni, this publication’s wealth of materials documenting the violent history of France’s activities in the Algerian desert offers...

In her work, which originates in her ever-growing archive, Ruth van Beek often uses the established visual codes of photography. The images, mainly from old books, become her tools, source material, and context. Van Beek physically intervenes in the pictures – folding, cutting, or adding pieces of painted paper – rearranging and manipulating the image long enough to reveal the universe that lies within. ‘The Oldest Thing’ features numerous collages, archival images, and paintings in a...

Lous Martens has five grandchildren – Jaap, Zeno, Anna, Julian, and Luca – and has begun making an animal scrapbook for each newcomer to the family. Although it is seventeen years since the first, Jaap, was born, none of the five books are finished yet. Consisting of loosely pasted pictures of animals that were clipped from newspapers and magazines about art, literature, and science, plus stamps and photographs from advertising brochures, the books are enjoyable for their small, ever-evol...

At his workspace in the centre of Amsterdam, when the afternoon sun is just right, Thomas Manneke captures still lifes and portraits of his daughter, Laurie, using an 8x10 inch plate camera. Most photographs in this book were made in collaboration with his daughter. The objects in the book are made especially to photograph them. Sometimes they are inspired by found objects, like a small grey stone with whimsical white lines or by a web created by caterpillars. Some objects were inspired by ar...