Nowhere, Imagining the Global City (2021)

“During the paused time of the pandemic, Frank van der Salm’s images feel different. They take on the quality of prophetic realism. (..) His urban vistas, his bucolic landscapes, his portraits of super modernity, are mostly empty of human presence.”

MONOGRAPH

NOWHERE, Imagining the Global City shows a world in which Instagrammability seems to rule; in which the new reality is dictated by the seductive image that may (later) be made of it. Architecture, design and urban landscape, directed by the mechanisms of global big business. The same antiseptic beauty, all over the world.

The image of a consumer-oriented, imaginary metropolis rises from this book, designed by Irma Boom. Images - sometimes upside down - question each other about the reality they represent. Together, they form the image of a city that, all of a sudden, seems to be simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, yet: here now.

Textual contributions link Frank van der Salm’s oeuvre to the world of design, architecture, urban development, art and photography. The book includes all of his works from the past 25 years, either large scale or small scale in a chronological overview, printed on the glossy side of the fold out pages. , whereas the matt outside of the fold outs show a representation of the AI driven videowall in the accompanying exhibition.

2021
Publisher: Markus Hartmann Books (Stuttgart) & Paradox (Edam), Graphic Design: Irma Boom / Irma Boom Office
Authors: Urs Stahel, Aaron Betsky, Shumon Basar.
Printed by: Zwaan-Lenoir
32 x 24 cm, bound, softcover
360 pages, 241 images (full colour), 16 foldouts.
Language: English

Comes in 3 different cover w/ bellyband editions.

ISBN: 978-90-828708-3-1

Available in the webshop soon