With its stark contrasts between extreme poverty and economic boom, dusty rural landscapes and bustling, overcrowded cities, India has added a new dimension to its cultural heritage. Contemporary Indian artists have made a distinctive mark on today's international art scene, with many becoming mainstays in group shows and solo exhibitions at major museums throughout Europe and the U.S. Among them are well-known figures like Anish Kapoor as well as such emerging artists as: Bharti Kher, Dayanita Singh, Jitish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta and Subodh Gupta. 

Exploring issues surrounding India's rapid economic and cultural expansion, "Indian Highway" offers an overview of a new generation of artists whose work evinces a strong political and social engagement that is often critical of an Indian society in transition. The traveling exhibition opened in 2008 at the Serpentine Gallery, and the show will be redefined by curators at each of its nine subsequent venues around the globe. Although the original catalogue (Worldwide 32604) quickly went out of print, a new and revised edition has been published for the exhibition's fourth and most recent incarnation at the Musée d'art contemporain in Lyon (see Worldwide 33937).

Earlier this year, India's emerging art scene was the subject of the exhibition "India Awakens: Under the Banyan Tree" at the Essl Museum (see Worldwide 33959). The show featured younger, lesser-known artists, and examined the ways in which they have been influenced by broad international aesthetic, cultural and commercial trends, particularly their response to the expectations of Europeans.

A similar concept inspired a major exhibition currently on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris: "Paris - Delhi - Bombay..." (see Worldwide 33982). Intended to promote communication between French and Indian cultures and to establish new and lasting links between the two countries, the show offers perspectives on India from both Indian and French artists, featuring recent works by more than 50 artists whose installations, sculptures, videos, photographs and paintings explore the profound political, social and cultural changes taking place in the largest democracy and the second-most populous country in the world.

Other titles of interest: Being Singular Plural: Moving Images from India (Worldwide 74043), The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today (Worldwide 72752), India Contemporary: Jitish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty, Riyas Komu (Worldwide 72572), Voices of Change: 20 Indian Artists (Worldwide 143537), Forever Foreign: Rina Banerjee (Worldwide 74352).

Small Press Highlights

Like many other library vendors, Worldwide Books carries titles from all of the major art book publishers both large and small, routinely offering our clients comprehensive coverage of new titles produced by scores of leading trade and university presses in North America. But we also pride ourselves on making available to libraries a wide selection of titles from many lesser-known publishing houses that regularly (or occasionally) produce titles of potential interest to our library clients. Many of these smaller publishers are especially passionate about producing well-crafted art books on subjects and themes not necessarily covered by the larger commercial publishers and are strongly committed to making beautiful books available to an appreciative audience, even if commercial potential may be limited.

We would like to introduce you to a few such imprints that we are proud to distribute:

Acanthus Press

Publishing "at the intersection of material culture and architectural history," Acanthus Press chronicles "the lost histories of houses and objects, of clients and designers" and "seeks to publish the undiscovered, the under-appreciated, the rare, and the exceptional." Focused primarily on North American domestic architecture and interior design of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the publisher's recent titles have included Syrie Maugham: Staging Glamorous Interiors (Worldwide 139490); Maurice Fatio: Palm Beach Architect (Worldwide 140515); Houses of Hawaii: Volume I, 1840-1900 (Worldwide 135088); and the just-released An Elegant Wilderness: Great Camps and Grand Lodges of the Adirondacks, 1855-1935 (Worldwide 74616).

Bernard Quaritch

A sister company to Worldwide Books, the London-based antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch produces important titles on the history of photography as well as occasional volumes on other subjects. Serving as their North American distributor, Worldwide stocks several Quaritch titles including History of Photography in China, 1842-1860 (Worldwide 137841) and its recently published companion volume History of Photography in China: Western Photographers, 1861-1879 (Worldwide 142717), as well as Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book (Worldwide 32500), a publication documenting a major artist's book project created in the late 1980s by celebrated Chinese artist Xu Bing (b. 1955).

 Charles Lane Press

Showcasing new work by contemporary photographers, Charles Lane Press produces beautiful editions to exceptionally high standards, the books typically featuring original essays commissioned from novelists, poets and journalists. Their small list of titles includes Fall River Boys: Photographs by Richard Renaldi (Worldwide 135970), with a text by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Michael Cunningham; Outerland (Worldwide 139689), featuring the work of photographer Allison Davies; and their newest title, Shen Wei: Chinese Sentiment (Worldwide 145393), with a text by journalist Peter Hessler, author of three other books about China.

MACK 

This new publishing house was founded by Michael Mack, who for many years has been affiliated with Steidl Verlag where he was responsible for their SteidlMack imprint. MACK works with artists, writers and curators to realize "intellectually challenging projects in book form, ranging from sumptuous physical objects to ground breaking digital editions." Among the recent and forthcoming titles being offered by Worldwide are a book on a major new body of work by American artist Taryn Simon on the occasion of an exhibition at Tate Modern (see Worldwide 33968) and La carte d'après nature, an exhibition held at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco that was curated by German photographer Thomas Demand (see Worldwide 74611).

Modernbook Editions

Modernbook Editions is the publishing arm of Modernbook Gallery, a San Francisco gallery that specializes in modern and contemporary photographic art. Recent publications include Fan Ho: The Living Theater (Worldwide 137720); Fred Lyon: San Francisco Then (Worldwide 139052); and The Mind's Eye: Photographs by Jerry Uelsmann (Worldwide 139051).

Perceval Press

Perceval Press is a small independent publisher that produces about a dozen titles each year on art, critical writing and poetry, its stated mission being "to publish texts, images and recordings that otherwise might not be presented." They have published the work of such artists as Yoshitomo Nara, David Newsom and Dennis Hopper, as well as the photographic work of the press's co-founder, American actor and artist Viggo Mortensen, described by the New York Times as an "indie publishing mogul."

Portland Press

Dedicated almost exclusively to the work of Dale Chihuly, Portland Press has produced numerous exhibition catalogues, books and DVDs documenting the work of this important and prolific American glass artist over the past two decades, providing detailed and in-depth coverage of various aspects of his oeuvre. Ten titles published in 2010 have recently become available as a boxed set (see Worldwide 144718).

Sequence Press

The American sister company of British publisher Urbanomic, which publishes books by contemporary artists "whose work engages significantly with issues in philosophy, expanding and changing the debate through their work," Sequence Press is located within Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York City. Recent releases include The Concept of Non-Photography (Worldwide 145435).

Tin Roof Press

Founded in 2008, Tin Roof Press is the imprint of celebrated father-and-son photographers Emmet and Elijah Gowin, who note that "as technology and globalization has made printing photographic reproductions higher in quality and much cheaper than in the past, it is now possible for artists to better control their printed images and begin to think of publications as an extension of their art making.... As print on demand catches up and fuses with traditional offset printing practices, there will be more options for artists to reproduce their images and include books into their artistic repertoire. Tin Roof Press is a response to these possibilities." One of their most recent titles, Maggie: Emmet Gowin/Elijah Gowin (Worldwide 140899), features selections from Emmet Gowin's early photographs of his elderly Aunt Maggie and her extended family from the 1960s and 1970s, including both well-known images and works that have never before been published. Elijah Gowin contributes photographs from his series Hymnal of Dreams (1994-2004), in which Maggie also figures.

Specific titles from these publishers can easily be identified through our Web site by entering the publisher's name in the "Exhibitor, organizer, publisher or series title" field on the Advanced Search Screen of the Web site. To conduct an exact-phrase search that will minimize irrelevant results, enter the name in quotation marks (e.g., "Portland Press"). Approval Plan customers interested in receiving comprehensive or selective coverage of any of these publishers' titles as part of their plan are encouraged to contact David Fogel, Worldwide's Approval Plan Manager.