Crossing China introduces the highly fascinating art scene in China at the dawn of the 21st century.

Like Joseph Beuys, the multifaceted artist and amateur scientist for whom Goethe time and again served as a significant source of inspiration, Nora Schattauer refers in her most recent body of work with salts and sulphates to the ideas and theories of the great German author, philosopher and scientist. And like Beuys and Goethe before her, Schattauer is active within a complex realm located somewhere between the systematic objectivity of science and the intuitive subjectivity of the visual arts. Schattauer's most recent works area so magical that they seem to paint themselves. Tiny drops of clear water-based solutions of alkaline salt, copper sulphate, ammonium dihydrogen phosphate and other salts onto chemically prepared filter paper take on a life of their own as they slowly bloom into vibrant abstract compositions reminiscent of cellular constructs and biochemical samples from a scientific laboratory. Salts, Schattauer's second monograph, documents the creation and evolution of the artists' chemical paintings. Printed in a first edition of 500 copies, with an introduction by Gerard A. Goodrow in English and German.

* German photographer Boris Becker is one of the most prominent representatives of the Düsseldorf School. In his newest series, Staged Confusion, Becker investigates different forms of chaos in interior and exterior spaces. He captures the individual (dis-)order of cities and private interiors-construction sites, excavation sites, the rooftops of Aleppo in Syria, workshops, sweatshops, and kitchens. Composed as single images, these large-format works, which are from different series, are starkly interrelated in terms of form and content in spite of their heterogeneity. The photographs expose the beauty of what appears to be chaotic at first glance. At the same time the ambivalence of ordered and unordered situations brings up questions about the social principles of order. This is an unusual book that encourages you to take a closer look. Text in English and German.