all art is at once surface and symbol. those who go

All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do
so at their peril.
— David Noonan, 2012
This newspaper is published biannually by JRP|Ringier. Issue 3, Spring 2012. Printed by Ringier Print Adligenswil AG. 15 000 copies. Not for sale
We make Books
With Art
This third issue of JRP|Ringier’s journal
contains many updates about our
program, recent releases, and current
projects, and is aimed at our readers,
preferred booksellers, and all art world
professionals. Interviews with artists
and editors, presentations of new books,
as well as information about our two
locations in Zurich and Paris—we offer
you a glimpse of our daily activities
and a chance to enter into the realm of
book making.
At a time when the cultural arena in
Europe is threatened by the politics
of austerity, we would like to reaffirm
our commitment to weigh in on the
art debates by publishing the artists and
writers we believe are currently marking
our culture. And while many publishing
companies, like ours, are suffering from
the still-unknown-but-inevitable paradigm shift to the digital, we are manifesting our trust in books with two very
“physical” changes: the redefinition of
the 8 rue Saint-Bon space in Paris as an
extension of our publishing program,
and the re-opening of Kunstgriff bookstore in the new Löwenbrau in Zurich.
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Highlights
David Noonan, Untitled, 2009 (paper collage)
Ericka Beckman
Martin Boyce
Jef Cornelis
Jimmie Durham
Joana Hadjithomas/
Khalil Joreige
Vít Havránek
Das Institut
Kunstgriff Booksore
David Noonan
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Paulina Olowska
Raymond Pettibon
Clive Phillpot
Kateřina Šedá
Sturtevant
Ai Weiwei
8 rue Saint-Bon
2
David Noonan
Reference Monograph
David Noonan (Photo: Mark Blower)
Your artist’s book “Scenes” (published in 2009)
references educational textbooks; how would
you define your relationship with printed matter
in general and books in particular? One can
see a link between the silk-screening of canvases
and offset printing, but isn’t it also something
about the sequencing and layering of images?
Books and printed matter in
general are central to my work. Almost
all of my work includes found images
from one source or another. The design
aspect and printing, even the paper
stocks of certain books and magazines
are important. As you say, “Scenes,”
as well as an earlier book entitled “Pageant,”
referenced aspects of design, printing,
and format that I admired in some of the
books that I have collected. I use a
monochrome palette, which again is a
reference to the source material that
I use. With the layering of images or collaging of the screen-printed images,
this is where I feel the work moves away
from the aesthetic of the printed page.
I have become increasingly interested
in the surface of my pictures; they are
often heavily built up and can be quite
rough—something that is not always
evident when the work is reproduced.
David Noonan
I like accidents,
mistakes, and
unplanned things
that become
part of the
finished piece
When constructing your paintings and sculptures,
you cull images from various sources, but mostly
from books on dance, theater, religion, etc. How
would you characterize your method of choosing
these images, which have often been qualified
as imbued with a “haunting” quality and a
“cinematic” effect?
It is hard to characterize my method
of choosing images for work. It starts
from collecting material from some of the
areas you mentioned as well as others.
It is quite an intuitive process. I archive
what I find and then I look at it a lot
in the context of the other material in the
archive. Sometimes things emerge and
want to be placed together. Sometimes an
image lies dormant for years until I find
something that activates it. I usually make
work as a series or body of work. Whether
it is pictures or sculptures, they need
to have a connection to one another. The
space of the gallery often influences these
Interview by Lionel Bovier
3
relationships further. My recent show at
Xavier Hufkens is an example of this.
I thought of the figures in the pictures as
being participants in a kind of frozen
performance. Some of the same characters
appeared in various pictures and in different rooms of the gallery creating a narrative connection between the pieces both
in content and spatially. I think people’s
reading of the work as having a cinematic
quality may be attributed to the way I
combine images, they are almost always
a superimposition or a combination of
two layers of varying transparency, like a
cinematic dissolve. The haunting quality,
I am not sure, I think of them as being
perhaps more melancholic than haunting.
Over the last few years, there has been a renewed
interest in craft techniques such as ceramics or
tapestry; how do you position yourself within
these trends and how much are you “invested”
in the craftsmanship of your works?
I have noticed this recent focus on
craft, but I don’t really think about my
position within it. When I was at art school
craft was not really separated from art.
We studied ceramics (we had a class called
“Crafts” in which we learned how to sew)
alongside painting and drawing. I have
been using images of textiles in much of
my work over the last few years—modernist rugs and tapestries and more recently
Japanese Boro fabrics. I see a lot of
connections between these traditional
functional and decorative textiles and
In a recent interview, you mention that you col- 20th-century abstract painting and aspects
of Arte Povera. In terms of an investment
lected a lot of books from the Zurich publisher
in craft in my work I am not sure. The
Zytglogge. These publications from the 1970s
“making” of the pieces is important, there
and 1980s deal mostly with experimental
are quite a number of steps, each with
teaching methods; I think you had a personal
different technical elements from the
experience with some of them? Was this related
actual printing to the construction of the
to a Steiner school?
I did collect a lot of the Zytglogge cat- pieces in the studio. It is important to
me that the work is handmade even though
alogues. I did not use much of it directly
there are mechanical aspects to the
in my work; I was more interested in the
process. I like accidents, mistakes, and
design and the overall aesthetic of the
books and how the philosophy or ethos of unplanned things that become part
of the finished piece. I have recently made
the teaching methods was expressed in
the images and the design. I could not read two tapestries with the Australian
tapestry workshop. It was a really rewardthe text as I don’t read or speak German,
but that was part of the interest for me, it ing experience working with weavers
interpreting my images. Their skill and
was a purely visual engagement. I did
sensitivity was amazing and I guess
not have any direct experience with this
kind of education although I was aware of they took the work into a kind of purely
craft area where in some ways it actually
it while growing up, my mother was a
became an element of what it had set
teacher, and I remember her being quite
out to reference.
open to alternative educational styles.
The Book: David Noonan
Also Available: David Noonan, Scenes
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Edited by
David Noonan
Authors
Michael Bracewell
Jennifer Higgie
Dominic Molon
Author
Jennifer Higgie
English edition
Fall 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-205-4
Softcover, 237 x 286 mm
160 pages
CHF 60 / EUR 40 /
GBP 25 / US 55
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-029-6
Hardcover, 270 x 270 mm
64 pages
Images 24 color / 5 b/w
CHF 45 / EUR 30 /
GBP 20 / US 39.95
4
Also Available
Among documenta 13 participants are
a number of artists we published
books on or by recently: Jimmie
Durham (see p. 6 of this journal);
Roman Ondak, whose book,
“Measuring the Universe,” is still
available (ISBN: 978-3-03764-024-1);
Matias Faldbakken, who published
in the Christoph Keller series some
years ago a beautiful monograph
(ISBN: 978-3-905770-92-6; limited
stocks); Gustav Metzger, who was a
co-editor of “Voids,” an anthology
about “politics of emptiness” (hardcover still available, ISBN: 978-303764-036-4); Ryan Gander, whose
“Catalogue Raisonnable” was
released two years ago (ISBN: 978-303764-146-0); Seth Price, whose
monograph published in the
Kunsthalle Zürich series is now out
of print; Susan Hiller, whose writings have been published in our
“Positions” series (ISBN: 978-3905829-56-3); as well as three others
we feature below:
Documenta 4 | 5
by Jef Cornelis
DVDs by BDV
The current debate about documenta 13, its artists’
selection, its qualities and flaws, is the perfect
occasion to reconsider the history of documenta, the
not-to-be-missed international art exhibition.
Thanks to Belgian filmmaker Jef Cornelis, we can
now dive into two of its most important editions:
documenta 4 held in 1968, and documenta 5 in 1972.
DOCUMENTA 4
Jennifer Allora &
Guillermo Calzadilla
Published in the Kunsthalle Zürich
series this monograph was conceived
in close collaboration with the artists
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-027-2).
Mika Taanila
Monograph published in the Migros
Museum für Gegenwartskunst
series on the Finnish artist and filmmaker (ISBN: 978-3-905701-32-6).
Documenta 4 by Jef Cornelis is the first
title of the new “Archives” series, which is
dedicated to landmark exhibitions and
curatorial practices, and which provides
reference material and moving images
to a growing field of research, that of
curatorial studies and exhibition history.
documenta 4—the last to be directed
by Arnold Bode—was plagued by controversy and debate: artistic, political, generational, and aesthetic conflicts, as well
as tensions between European and
American art were some of the issues
that affected this edition, echoing the
social and political upheavals that were
taking place elsewhere at the same time.
The film reflects this effervescence, giving
voice to the artists, curators, and audience, but also offers a unique approach to
an exhibition in progress. We can watch
Sol LeWitt constructing Three-Part
Variations, Joseph Beuys installing
Raumplastik, Martial Raysse talking about
the role of the artist, Harald Szeemann
defending the concept of the museum,
Edward Kienholz explaining his work from
inside his Roxys installation, and so on.
DOCUMENTA 5
documenta 5 was organized by “master–
curator” Harald Szeeman, and remains
one of the most important international
exhibitions of the last few decades.
Entitled Interrogation of Reality– Picture
Worlds Today, it could be considered the
first instance of an “exhibition as spectacle.” Introducing the different sections
and protagonists, the film is both a report
on the trends and pacesetters of the time,
Gerard Byrne
Edward Kienholz
In this artist’s book, Byrne brings
together the culmination of years of
research into the Loch Ness Monster.
Appropriating formal conventions
from the history of Land art that position landscape as the “other,” he has
compiled a series of images that
deploy Loch Ness as a signifier for the
enigmatic, the unreadable (ISBN:
978-3-03764-271-9).
Text by Clément Dirié | Images: @Jef Cornelis/BRT, Courtesy Argos (Brussels)
being. So when it was held for the fifth
time, documenta could become that keynote player on the stage, crystallizing
many of the debates—indeed conflicts—
and in return it was accorded the role of
a higher instance of legitimation and
prescription, addressed to and used by its
community. Today many people would
still like to see that role as active.”
JEF CORNELIS
Born in Antwerp in 1941, Jef Cornelis
attended a course run by the Amsterdam
Film Academy, alongside the director
Paul Verhoeven and the cameraman Paul
de Bondt. Cornelis then joined a Flemishspeaking Belgian television channel (VRT),
working in the artistic and educational
programs department, and made his first
film in 1964. This was unexplored territory
at the time, allowing daring innovations and
derivative work to develop, in the absence
of a standardized television language.
During the course of his careee, Jef Cornelis
has realized more than 200 films, especially
on architecture, literature, and the arts.
Jef Cornelis (Photo: Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos)
Lawrence Weiner
DVDs by BDV
Recently Published
and an approach to the phenomenon of
documenta, sidestepping and questioning
the definitions of exhibition makers, as
well as of artists, of an exhibition, and of
contemporary art.
In documenta 5, one can see works by
Art & Language, Ben, Joseph Beuys,
Marcel Broodthaers, Edward Kienholz,
Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, and interviews with Jean-Christophe Ammann,
Art & Language, Joseph Beuys, Christian
Boltanski, Bazon Brock, Daniel Buren,
Leo Castelli, Joseph Kosuth, Hermann
Nitsch, Arnulf Rainer, Harald Szeemann,
and Lawrence Weiner.
As art historian Yves Aupetitallot
states: “documenta 5 is one of the absolute
icons of the illustrated history of modernity, the symbolic space in which the epistemological break that would precede,
indeed usher in, the entry of art into the
contemporary era, took place. The exhibition’s structure and its governance, the
main thrust of the event serving a forwardlooking vision, and consequently the
passing of power from one generation to
the next, were stabilized for the time
5
Luigi Ghirri
Including about 220 pictures, an essay
by Elena Re, interviews with Paola
Ghirri, Massimo Minini, and Andrea
Bellini, and extracts from Ghirri’s
writings, this book is like a journey
through the work and a glimpse at
the working process the Italian photographer (ISBN: 978-3-03764-249-8).
Piero Gilardi
The publication is the first comprehensive monograph on the pioneer
of Arte Povera, inventor of a
“relational aesthetics” in the 1960s,
political activist, and advocate
of an ecologically concerned
undertaking in the visual arts
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-242-9).
Tim Rollins & K.O.S.
Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of
Survival) have been collaboratively
drawing and painting on book pages
since 1982. The publication has been
conceived as a guide and includes
newly commissioned critical texts,
thus providing an overview on the
group’s practice and methodologies
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-241-2).
DVDs by BDV
Edited by
Yves Aupetitallot
Edited by
Yves Aupetitallot
English / French edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-257-3
DVD, 54 minutes
CHF 38 / EUR 25 /
GBP 17 / US 35
English / French edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-258-0
DVD, 54 minutes
CHF 38 / EUR 25 /
GBP 17 / US 35
6
Recently Published
Beat Streuli
The monograph “Public Works
1996–2011” is a survey of the Swiss
artist’s work in the public realm.
It includes newly commissioned
essays by Raymond Bellour, Roberta
Valtorta, and Jonathan Watkins
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-206-1).
Luigi Ontani
A new monograph on the Italian artist featuring a complete chronology,
as well as essays by Andrea Bellini
and Jean-Christophe Ammann
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-286-3).
Daria Martin
“Sensorium Test” is a new monograph
on the American artist, based on
her new film of the same title. The
publication includes key texts
selected by Martin into such issues,
as voyeurism and projection,
artificial intelligence and magic,
from a host of leading writers and
thinkers from Mary Shelley to
Wayne Koestenbaum, via Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, Rainer-Werner
Fassbinder, and Laura Mulvey
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-272-6).
Jimmie Durham
Comprehensive Monograph
Jimmie Durham, born in 1940, is one of the most
influential artists today, not least for younger
generations of artists and curators. He says of his
art that it “works against the two foundations
of the European tradition: Belief and Architecture.”
Sculpture, seen as the coming together of object,
image, and word, is fundamental to his practice, but
he is also a poet, essayist, and educator.
Durham’s life as an artist began in the
mid-1960s in Texas. In the early 1970s
he worked in Geneva. In the late 1970s
he was a political organizer with the
American Indian Movement, Director of
the International Indian Treaty Council
and its representative to the United
Nations. In New York around 1980 he
turned once again to art. Between 1987
and 1994 he was based in Mexico, and
thereafter in Europe, or, as he prefers to
say, in Eurasia.
This generously illustrated book is
published to accompany Durham’s
exhibition at M HKA, Antwerp: it is a
comprehensive retrospective featuring
more than 100 works from all his creative
periods. It contains major new essays,
as well as new texts by Durham himself.
Tlunh Datsi, 1985, skull, feathers, fur, turquoise, acrylic paint, shells, wood, 103 × 91 × 81 cm
Private Collection, Belgium (Photo: Maria Thereza Alves)
The Book: A Matter of Life and Death and Singing: Jimmie Durham, Works 1964-2012
Authors
Guy Brett
Bart De Baere
Jimmie Durham
Anders Kreuger
Richard William Hill
Antidote
The catalogue of the Ginette Moulin
& Guillaume Houzé Contemporary
Art Collection, this book includes a
comic by Jean-Marc Ballée and five
curated sections (by Pierre Bal-Blanc,
Claire Le Restif, Alexis Vaillant, Jens
Hoffmann, and Christiane Rekade).
French (ISBN: 978-3-03764-248-1)
and English (ISBN: 978-3-03764-229-0)
editions available.
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-289-4
160 pages, 150 color
CHF 45/EUR 32/
GBP 28/US 45
Sturtevant
New Monograph
7
In recent years, Sturtevant has expanded
her practice to include mass-media
images and her own filmed material. This
has shed new light on her career and
emphasizes how her life-long artistic practice has continuously and effectively
levelled harsh, rebellious, and intelligent
critique at a society that consists increasingly of simulacra and the experience industry. At the last Venice Biennial, Sturtevant
was awarded the Golden Lion for her
lifetime achievement in the arts.
The publication has been realized on
the occasion of Sturtevant’s exhibition
at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and
Kunsthalle Zürich (opening in November
2012).
The Book: Image Over Image
New Releases in the Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst Series
Since her debut in New York in 1965, Sturtevant
has notoriously insisted on the power of thought,
performing investigations into the underlying
structure of art. Her legendary repetitions of works
by other artists is a groundbreaking achievement
in challenging concepts such as originality, authenticity, and the conventions surrounding authorship. Her first artistic statements are contemporary
with, or indeed predate, the most famous essays
and lectures on the subject by Barthes, Foucault,
and Deleuze.
Florian Germann
A first monograph dedicated to the
Swiss artist, the book reunites
real and fictional characters, motifs
(such as lycanthropy), and sources
(often stemming from paranormal
sciences), that constitute the
system of references of his sculptures
and installations
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-270-2).
Ragnar Kjartansson
This book gathers together all of the
Icelandic artist’s works related to
music from 2001 onwards. It offers a
first overview on his practice of performance (ISBN: 978-3-03764-303-7).
Das Kunstfeld
A study of contemporary art’s actors,
this book is edited by sociologist
UIf Wuggenig and Migros Museum’s
Director Heike Munder and includes
the results of a long study and
collection of datas on contemporary
art’s reception. It attempts to map
out the art landscape from the point
of view of social sciences (German
edition, ISBN: 978-3-03764-300-6).
Also Available: The Razzle Dazzle of Thinking
Edited by
Fredrik Liew
Edited by
Sturtevant
Authors
Daniel Birnbaum
Bruce Hainley
Fredrik Liew
Paul McCarthy
Stéphanie Moisdon
Beatrix Ruf
Author
Anne Dressen
Bruce Hainley
Fabrice Hergott
Sturtevant
English / Swedish edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-282-5
Softcover, 130 x 210 mm
108 pages
Images 53 color / 10 b/w
CHF 27 / EUR 19 /
GBP 16 / US 24.95
English / French edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-090-6
Hardcover, 232 x 304 mm
304 pages
Images 110 color / 3 b/w
CHF 58 / EUR 39 /
GBP 25 / US 55
Hans Ulrich
Obrist
8Best-Seller
Photo: Juergen Teller
You’ve often mentioned the importance
of different paces within your curatorial and
critical work, either slowing down or speeding
things up to obtain results that would escape
the routine of “usual formats.”
Lionel Bovier
One can imagine
that, in the
near future,
when the entire
archive is tagged,
the different
protagonists can
start to talk to
each other and
it can all become
an evolving,
never-ending, and
polyphonic novel
of our time
The least one can say regarding publications is
that you’ve chosen the second option … You’ve
become a true “book-machine”! And we, of
course, have added to this with the release of
“A Brief History of Curating,” as it has not only
been reprinted regularly, but also translated into
Italian, Brazilian, and Czech, and soon into
Chinese, Korean, and Russian … I believe that,
behind the energy you put into producing the
content of this book and your generosity in letting it be published in all kind of different contexts, lies a profound interest in the question of
the dissemination and circulation of ideas. In a
way, it connects with projects like “Do it” …
Books have always been an
important part of my curatorial activity.
It started with the first exhibition in my
kitchen, which resulted in a series of
artists’ books in a box. Ever since, I have
been interested in editing artists’ books
and exhibitions in book form, such as
“Do it,” an anthology of artists’ instructions, or the formulas for the 21st century.
Besides this are the interview books; I
have so far recorded 2’500 hours of interviews and this can lead to all kinds of
books. The interviews can be compiled
according to geographies—all my London
interviews or all my China interviews, etc.
Or they can be ordered according to different fields and topics, like all my interviews with composers or architects. The
“Brief History of Curating” book is part of
this category. I became interested to find
out more about the history of my own field,
and who the curators were from previous
Hans Ulrich Obrist
generations who offer a toolbox for the
21st century. Panofsky once said that we
always invent the future from the fragments of the past. Now, to answer your
question on speed and slowness, JeanPhilippe Toussaint has just written an
amazing new book on urgency and
patience; for books we always need both
urgency and patience.
“A Brief History of Curating” has been
acknowledged as a source book for students and
professional alike; for someone like you, who
believes in the importance of “oral history” and
alternative methodologies for art history, I think
it’s an interesting sign of recognition, as well as
a meaningful echo of your understanding of the
curator as a “passeur” in the Benjaminian sense,
a recessive and intermediary figure.
I hope that books can be toolboxes.
“A Brief History of Curating” felt very
necessary, as many of the pioneering curatorial ideas of previous decades are poorly
documented and I felt the urge to follow
Eric Hobsbawm’s “protest against forgetting” and bring these ideas back to life.
The curator is indeed a “passeur” and
Benjamin was an influence; but also Robert
Walser who taught me that everything is
in-between. During my adolescence I read
Carl Seelig’s book about his famous walks
with Robert Walser again and again. It is
this book that gave me the idea to start to
record and write down the conversations
I have with artists. Jonas Mekas gave me
the idea to film them, so since 1994 all the
interviews exist also in film form.
Interview by Lionel Bovier
“A Brief History of Curating” is now, since this
year, available as an e-book, on iPad, Kobo,
and Kindle formats; how do you envision the
importance and the development of these formats
in the near future?
I am excited that “A Brief History”
exists as an e-book and in other digital
formats. I think digital technology will be
very useful for making accessible my
archive of filmed interviews. We have
started a project with the University in
Karlsruhe and the Los Angeles-based
Institute of the 21st Century to digitize
my archive. So all the interviews I did
with Cedric Price were tagged and are
now online and one can put in keywords
like “Fun Palace” and then see all the
moments Cedric talks about this visionary
and unrealized art center. One can imagine that, in the near future, when the
entire archive is tagged, the different protagonists can start to talk to each other
and it can all become an evolving, neverending, and polyphonic novel of our time.
The new volume we are working on, “A Brief
History of New Music,” is an anthology of interviews with avant-garde, experimental, and cult
composers, tracking the evolution of music from
Stockhausen to electro-acoustic, and bringing to
the fore figures such as Tony Conrad, Brian Eno,
and Kraftwerk. I would say that this interest in
music is one of your “horizontal” translations
from the field of visual arts to another field, as
you did with architecture, for instance. Would
you agree?
Alexander Dorner, the most visionary
museum director of the first half of the
20th century, said in his book “Ways Beyond
9
Art” that if we want to understand the
forces effective in visual arts, it is important
to understand what is happening in music,
in literature, in architecture, in science,
etc. After an initial phase focused on art,
I started, from 1991 onward, to carry out
intense research in science and architecture, which led to projects such as “Cities
on the Move” and “Laboratorium.” When
Rem Koolhaas invited me in 2000 to
co-curate with himself, Stefano Boeri, and
Sanford Kwinter, the millennium show
“MUTATIONS,” I focused on the invisible
city, the rumor city, and the city soundscape.
This show triggered an intense research
in sound and many interviews with composers. Many of these interviews are now
gathered together in this book, such as the
conversation that Philippe Parreno and
I had with Pierre Boulez about polyphony
and scores (and scores of scores). This
conversation was itself the trigger for “Il
Tempo del Postino,” the opera Philippe
and I co-curated for The Manchester
International Festival and Art Basel/Beyeler
Foundation at the Stadt Theater in Basel.
In general, how would you describe the importance
of printed matter in your practice and, specifically, how would you define the relationship
between curatorial practice and publishing?
An exhibition in printed-matter form
is as important as an exhibition in an
exhibition space. I have never curated a
show that has not produced either a book,
an artist’s book, or a pamphlet. Curating
is like running a book machine; and as
Anthony Powell wrote, “books do furnish
a room.”
Best-selling Title: Hans Ulrich Obrist — A Brief History of Curating
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Authors
Daniel Birnbaum, Christophe Cherix
Hans Ulrich Obrist
English edition
ISBN 978-3-905829-55-6
Softcover, 150 x 210 mm
246 pages
CHF 24 / EUR 15 /
GBP 12.95 / US 24.95
E-book edition
ISBN: 978-3-03764-264-1
(i-Tunes, Barnes and Nobles,
Kobo)
ISBN: 978-3-03764-292-4 (Kindle)
10
The artist’s book “J.R. Plaza Archive”
sets out to assemble a series of theoretical and literary digressions by
writers, philosophers, and poets, on
20 of the works that Bonillas has
created from the material of an
archive that belonged to his grandfather (ISBN: 978-3-03764-247-4).
Nina Fischer /
Maroan el Sani
This publication shows the process of
developing and realizing the film installation “Spelling Dystopia,” about
the Japanese island Hashima, once
the most densely populated place on
earth, a coal mine until 1974, and
today an abandoned island and the
subject of many fictions in mangas and
movies (ISBN: 978-3-03764-275-7).
Recently Published in the Christoph Keller Editions Series
Inaki Bonillas
Das Institut
Christoph Keller Editions Series
“Das Institut” was founded in New York in 2007
by Kerstin Brätsch (*1979) and Adele Röder
(*1980) as a notional free space in which they
both gave themselves the opportunity of working
independently from the concept of their own
oeuvres, for their promotion and reproduction.
Taking an ironic approach to themselves,
and using great verbal wit, they have
tackled the strategies of (self-)marketing
head on. The fast-tempo artistic pingpong game between the two agency proprietors Brätsch and Röder can be
followed in detail in this artist’s book. Each
smuggles her works into the agency as
models for further processing by the other.
New Relations in Art
and Society
An anthology of texts on sociallyengaged art, stemming from Mischa
Kuball “New Pott” project, including
newly commissioned essays and contributions by Claire Bishop, Thomas
Hirschhorn, Jacques Rancière,
Lawrence Weiner, etc. (English/German
edition, ISBN: 978-3-03764-189-7).
The Robert Johnson
Book
A publication dedicated to the
Robert Johnson club near Frankfurt,
internationally renowned for its
music programming and faithful
attendance (ISBN: 978-3-03764-274-0).
The Book: DAS INSTITUT. Triennial Report 2011—2009
Edited by
Katharina Hegewisch von Perfall
Kathrin Jentjens
Anja Nathan-Dorn
Sandra Patron
Beatrix Ruf
Authors
Manfred Hermes
Seth Price
English/German edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-231-3
Softcover, 210 x 297 mm
376 pages
Images 1200 color / 20 b/w
CHF 60 / EUR 45 /
GBP 38 / US 59.95
Sources of inspiration, costs, sales revenue, and exhibition techniques are frankly
disclosed. What at first looks like a strong
overstatement that treads on a fine line
between art, knitwear, role play, and marketing is at the same time a trenchant
observation of the art scene, and a plea for
artistic experiment and the potential
of painting.
Raymond
Pettibon
New Monograph
New Releases in the Kunsthalle Zurich Series
“Whuytuyp,” Pettibon’s new monograph, focuses
on works made since 2006, offering a comprehensive classification and investigation of this
period characterized as one of meaningful
change. It opens a new perspective on the work
of the American artist, who came to be known
in the art world for his comic-book-like drawings
to which he appends disconcerting and sarcastic
texts. Edited and written by Lynn Kost, the book
assembles 50 large new works, sometimes using
collage and gouache and inspired by a varied range
of literary and cultural sources.
11
Town-Gown Conflict
The book documents a project by
Lucy McKenzie, Verena Dengler,
Lucile Desamory, Caitlin Keogh,
Beca Lipscombe, pelican avenue,
and Elizabeth Radcliffe, exploring
textiles by artists and designers and
questioning (applied) art and fashion
relations (ISBN: 978-3-03764-288-7).
Karl Holmqvist
A new artist’s book, “’K” from Karl
Holmqvist (born 1960 in Västerås,
lives and works in Berlin and
Stockholm), explores different levels
of textual interaction with art. Both
as concrete poems or language
“drawings,” in which words and letters come to form patterns, and
through repetitions somewhere
between sense and non-sense, figuration and abstraction. His work may
also take the form of longer spoken
word poems intended for performance readings, again investigating
the formats of repetition and variation, but with more of a rhythmic
and musical structure tied to memory training techniques and oral tradition. Substantial parts of the
book’s material are in fact gathered
as “loans” from other artists, forming
something of a mini-collection of
language-art practices and references
from Zurich and Berlin Dada,
Futurism, Vorticism, Lettrisme, and
onward to more contemporary
formulations from artists such as
Ferdinand Kriwet and Shannon
Ebner. Softcover, 324 pages, English
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-293-1).
The Book: Raymond Pettibon — Whuytuyp
Edited by
Lynn Kost
Author
Lynn Kost
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-290-0
Hardcover, 205 x 286 mm
64 pages
CHF 38/EUR 25/
GBP 17/US 35
12
Artists’ books are
understood to be
books or booklets
produced by
artists using
mass-production
methods, and in
(theoretically)
unlimited
numbers, in
which the artist
documents or
realizes art ideas
or artworks
Clive Phillpot
Booktrek
Documents Series
A former librarian at Chelsea School of Art in
London, Clive Phillpot became the Director of
the Library at MoMA in New York in 1977, and
mapped out the field of artists’ books from an
institutional point of view. Collaborating with
Printed Matter and Franklin Furnace among other
places dedicated to the medium of the book,
Phillpot helped raise awareness to these objects,
while giving them the necessary credentials to enter museums. This book is a first collection of his
writings and will prove an invaluable reference for
all those interested in the evolution of artists’
books and their perception in the art world.
Text by Clive Phillpot (Excerpted from his Introduction)
more of a radical break in the twentieth
century than Cubism had been, and these
slight publications were manifestations
of this break (…) Over a period of time,
since I was often talking about this phenomenon that I defined then as “book art,”
people began to bring in curious publications to show me, File Magazine for example, while other works simply arrived in the
mail. Then it suddenly struck me that
students might come and visit the library
to see and handle art, not just reproductions of art in conventional publications
via secondary images or presented through
words: they could come for art. Here is
a book that is an artwork! This revelation
presented me with a way to foreground
the college library by presenting future
practising artists with unmediated access
to art, albeit in book form, and to sidestep
the library’s role in compulsory education.
Also Available on the Same Topics
My trek through the fields of artists’ books
began with my arrival at Chelsea School
of Art Library in 1970, after a period
spent in public libraries, latterly in the
south of England. I was dropped into the
art scene in London at a time when the
influence of American art was evident and
when Artforum was required reading (…)
I began to assess my professional role in
this new academic environment, in particular how I might make the library more
relevant to art students (…) Coincidentally
I was gradually becoming aware of certain
unusual publications that were coming
regularly through the mail (…) Among
these publications were, what I would
then have called “odd pamphlets,” but
which might now be called “artists’ books”
(…) They were very different from previous interactions between the artist and
the book. For me conceptualism was even
13
Artist-Run Spaces
Edited by Gabriele Detterer and
Maurizio Nannucci, this volume
brings to light the “network” of
independent and alternative spaces
in the 1960s and 1970s and
underlines the importance of artists’
publications in this context
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-191-0).
In Numbers
A sourcebook on serial publications
by artists since 1955, this illustrated
anthology provides invaluable information on this genre of publication
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-085-2).
FILE Megazine
The complete reprint of one of the
most influential artists’ publication,
edited by General Idea between 1972
and 1989 (ISBN: 978-3-905829-21-1).
The Book: Clive Phillpot: Booktrek
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Authors
Christophe Cherix
Clive Phillpot
English
Winter 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-207-8
Softcover, 150 x 210 mm
160 pages
Images 50 b/w
CHF 30 / EUR 20 /
GBP 15 / US 29.95
14
Paulina Olowska
Reference Monograph
In the past two decades, Poland has emerged as
a nexus for switched-on contemporary art.
Among the main figures of this vivid Polish scene
is Paulina Olowska, born in 1976 in Gdansk,
and now living in the region of Krakow, near Rabka,
after years in London, Berlin, and the US.
Painting can be
the most radical
medium as it has
this great power
that it can derive
from history
Since the beginning of the 2000s, Paulina
Olowska is building a body of works that
combines a wide variety of influences:
references to modernist utopias encounter
the autobiographical; pop culture
meets the visual remains of Warsaw Pact
Socialism. Painting, collage, but also
design, performance, neon works, books,
film, and curating are all tools she’s
using to synthetize capitalism’s vision of
Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe’s
vision of Western world. In her series of
paintings “Applied Fantastic” (2010) for
instance, she shows models striking poses
in snazzy 1980s knitwear. Typically, this
take on consumer mores is shot through
with Soviet bloc touches, from a knitted
Cossack hat to a male model’s copious
moustache. Indeed, rather than referencing
ads for branded clothing lines, the paintings are based on Polish patterns for fashion-forward home-knitters. In her work,
Paulina Olowska often refers to feminine
figures such as the Polish painter and
graphic designer Zofia Stryjenska, the
Belgian dancer Arakova, the fashion
designer Elsa Schiaparelli, or the writers
Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. She also
created projects with Bonnie Camplin,
Frances Stark, and Lucy McKenzie.
With the latter, they run the now legendary Nova Popularna bar in Warsaw, 2003.
Paulina Olowska conceived the graphic design and wall paintings of the Puppet Theater in Rabka
Text by Clément Dirié
15
New Releases
Jason Rhoades
Delayed for almost a year, the book
revisits Rhoades’ most important
installation, “Perfect World” (2000).
It includes a complete documentation on the project as well as commissioned essays by Eva MeyerHermann, Paul McCarthy, and Ralph
Rugoff (ISBN: 978-3-03764-226-9).
Paul Thek
Written by Susanne Neubauer, the
book contains unpublished
documentation on Thek’s first
space-filling environment,
“Pyramid/A Work in Progress.”
English edition
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-253-5).
Paulina Olowska’s studio, March 2012
Paulina Olowska in front of the Tadeusz Kantor’s “cricoteka” theater, Krakow
John Miller
The Ruin of Exchange
A new anthology of critical texts by
the American artist, edited by
Alexander Alberro. English edition
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-194-1).
The Book: Paulina Olowska
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Authors
Adam Szymczyk
Jan Verwoert
English
Fall 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-287-0
Softcover, 237 x 286 mm
160 pages
Images 100 color
CHF 60 / EUR 40 /
GBP 25 / US 55
Art and the City
Edited by Christoph Doswald, this
anthology includes contributions
by artists such as Doug Aitken,
Ai Weiwei, Lara Almarcegui,
Los Carpinteros, Valentin Carron,
Martin Creed, Roe Ethridge,
Matias Faldbakken, Yona Friedman,
Hamish Fulton, Christian Jankowski,
San Keller, Paul McCarthy,
Matt Mullican, Taiyo Onorato/
Nico Krebs, Manfred Pernice,
Charlotte Posenenske,
Bettina Pousttchi, Fred Sandback,
Frank Stella, and Oscar Tuazon
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-296-2).
New release: Raymond Pettibon, “Whuytuyp” (ISBN: 978-3-03764-290-0)
18
John Armleder
Emory Douglas (Photo: © V.L.)
Scott King (Photo: © V.L.)
Information
8 rue Saint-Bon
is open on
Fridays and
Saturdays and
by appointment
Contact: +33 (0) 1 58 30 39 39
[email protected] & Facebook
For more information about
the program of the five partners:
www.lespressesdureel.com
www.annasandersfilms.com
www.editionsmacula.com
www.bureaudesvideos.com
www.jrp-ringier.com
8 rue Saint-Bon,
Paris
New Location
Since 2010, 8 rue Saint-Bon has established itself
as an independent project space in Paris, dedicated to curatorial propositions born from the editorial programs of the five partners sharing this location—the film producer Anna Sanders Films;
the publishing houses Les presses du réel, Macula,
and JRP|Ringier; and the art video distribution and
production company Art View/bureau des vidéos.
Curated by Lionel Bovier and Clément
Dirié (Art View), 8, rue Saint-Bon regularly
organizes events, book launches, and
exhibitions. Among its recent projects: an
exhibition of drawings by John Armleder;
“Tubular Bells” by British artist Scott King;
the presentations of publications by Karma
Books (New York) and MAMCO (Geneva);
an exhibition of posters conceived in
the 1970s by the Black Panther Ministry of
Culture Emory Douglas; and “Vive le
Lettrisme!,” a show dedicated to the French
Lettrist movement, exhibiting rare editions
and photographic documentation of one
of the last avant-gardes of the 20th century.
In the months to come, the eclectic
and dynamic programming at 8 rue
Saint-Bon will include, among others,
the Brazilian poet Augusto de Campos,
Kateřina Sedá, Yto Barrada, and Atelier,
a label founded by fashion designer
Beca Lipscombe and artist Lucy McKenzie.
Kunstgriff
Bookstore,
Zurich
New Location
19
Markus Schmutz & Lionel Bovier
Lukas Haller
The new Kunstgriff bookstore by JRP|Ringier
is situated at the main entrance of the new
Löwenbräukunst, the Swiss hub for contemporary
art in Zurich, which hosts the Kunsthalle
Zürich, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst,
as well as the new ARTUMA space, established
galleries such as Hauser & Wirth and Bob
van Oursow, and up-and-coming ones such as
Freymond-Guth & Co.
Kunstgriff ’s display includes a wide range
of reference monographs and artists’
books, as well as sold-out and hard-to-find
books, an eclectic selection of magazines,
and special editions and multiples. It
regularly hosts events and book launches
and this year it is the special venue for
Artists’ Records.
Experienced Bookstore Manager
Markus Schmutz and his team (including
his dog Beuys) will be happy to
present you his internationally-focused
selection of contemporary art books
at Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich.
Information
Kunstgriff
Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zurich
Switzerland
Contact: +41 (0)44 272 90 66
www.kunstgriff.ch
[email protected]
20
Vít Havránek
Vít Havránek
Associate Editor
Vít Havránek
Vít Havránek (*1971) is the director of tranzit
space in Prague and has been an Associate Editor
at JRP|Ringier since 2004. A curator and critic,
he has acted as an indefatigable “passeur” (in
the Benjaminian sense) of many projects originating in Central and Eastern Europe into the
publisher’s program.
What is your background and how did you come
to head the Czech tranzit space?
I studied art history at the Charles
University in Prague; it was a rather classical education in art history. Then I
worked as a curator at the National and
then the Municipal Gallery in Prague,
the two state-run modern and contemporary art museums in the city. When we
started tranzit, in 2002, we didn’t want a
stereotypical “public space”: the plan
was rather to work on the basis of producing artworks, events, and books. After a
few years, when the activities multiplied,
it was suddenly clear that tranzit needed
its own space to systematically negotiate
with various partners. Today, we run
the space in collaboration between two
entities, tranzit and display gallery, former
artists-run spaces. What is the importance of publications within
your curatorial activities, and do you think books
are particularly relevant within art’s development in former Eastern European countries?
In the case of collective exhibitions
or similar events, I always try to think and
conceive of the publication in parallel to
the exhibition. By “parallel,” I mean independently from certain functions that an
exhibition routine imposes on a catalogue, for instance. Of course a publication can be a record of a temporary event,
document a site-specific installation in
the space, or provide an overview of the
artist’s work, but I think a book has much
more interesting potentials: one can compare the book editing process to an architectural methodology, one that may let
various aspects (social, formal, emotional,
or even mystical concepts) organize the
Eva Kotatkova, collage, 2011
Interview by Lionel Bovier
21
discussion and to re-inscribe them into a
field of referentiality, mainly for contemporary artists to be able deal with the
exceptional figures of the 1960s and 1970s.
What new publishing projects you are working on?
Right now we are working on a artist’s
book by Eva Kotatkova, an artist who is
deeply interested in the methods and effects
of the education that she underwent during
the 1980s in Communist Czechoslovakia.
She is trying to deconstruct or analyze
The “tranzit” series you are editing for JRP|Ringier the frustration stemming from this rather
bridges generations in a quite unusual way, not
rigid conception of a child in the adminonly by simultaneously publishing artists of the istrative totalitarian system. She has taken
1960s and 1970s and of the 1990s and 2000s,
an existing book—an educational “bible”
but also by organizing collaborations between of this period—and intervenes in it
them. How do you explain this specificity?
with her drawings and collages, and also
The main motivation of this intergen- includes “discriminated” voices, those
erational perspective comes from the fact
missing in the “normal” education of a
that the split of generations in this region child of this period. We are also working
was quite radical, and created a situation of on a book mapping out the activity of
strong fragmentation of aesthetic practices, two photographers—Martin Polak and
discourses, and theoretical statements; we Lukas Jasansky—who provide an ironic
thus try to bring them back to a common
record of everyday life from the 1980s. Atlas of Transformation
Eva Kotatkova (Photo: Jiri Thyn)
presentation of an art practice or any
knowledge. So far, books like “Atlas of
Transformation” (conceived as a dictionary
structured around subjective graphs and
maps), tranzit’s contribution to the last
Manifesta catalogue (a gigantic poster that
was cut a posteriori to enter the book),
and “Autobiographies” (a collection of autobiographies written by artists participating
in a group exhibition), are the best examples of the potentials of this development.
Promises of the Past — A Discontinuous History of Art in Former Eastern Europe
Edited by
Zbynek Baladran
Vit Havranek
Edited by
Christine Macel
Nataaa Petresin
Authors
Hakim Bey, Homi K. Bhabha
Boris Groys, Karl Holmqvist
Frederic Jameson, Ilja Kabakov
Viktor Misiano, Chantal Mouffe
Lia Perjovschi, Slavoj Zizek
Authors
Vit Havranek, Christine Macel
Joanna Mytkowska, Natasa Petresin
Jan Verwoert, Igor Zabel
Slavoj Zizek
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-099-9
Softcover, 220 x 280 mm
256 pages
Images 176 color / 110 b/w
CHF 68 / EUR 44.9 /
GBP 35 / US 65
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-147-7
Softcover, 160 x 220 mm
724 pages
Images 54 color / 82 b/w
CHF 48 / EUR 32 /
GBP 24 / US 45
KwieKulik
Boris Ondreicka — Hi! Lo.
Edited by
Lukasz Ronduda
Georg Schöllhammer
Edited by
Vit Havranek
Authors
Jacek Dobrowolski, Maciej Gdula
Klara Kemp-Welch, Zofia Kulik
Przemyslaw Kwie, Ewa Majewska
Sitkowska Maryla, Pawel Moscicki
Luiza Nader, Tomasz Zaluski
English edition
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-234-4
Softcover, 340 x 210 mm
400 pages
Images 110 b/w
CHF 42 / EUR 30 /
GBP 24 / US 39.95
English
October 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-299-3
Hardcover, 240 x 300 mm
576 pages
Images 791 color / 1017 b/w
CHF 65 / EUR 49 /
GBP 39 / US 69.95
22
Ericka Beckman
DVDs by BDV
Your Super-8 Trilogy (1978–1980) makes direct
reference to Piaget’s theories of learning processes.
Additionally, these works make use of rules, games,
and, more precisely, sport as a spatial and social
transcription of these rules. How did you become
interested in these questions and how did
they come to structure your early works as a whole?
As a young artist I was looking
for a language to explain the relationship
between the knowledge of self and movement in the physical world. I knew that
movement was a language we learn long
before we learn the language we speak. I
discovered, through making short experimental works, that sound and image
could be substituted for each other as
long as the viewer understood the temporal and spatial coordinates. Somehow
physical reality was a system more deeply
ingrained in our consciousness than the
expressive forms of language, image, or
even music. So I abandoned all my philosophical readings and delved into Piaget.
The first one I read was Genetic Epistemology,
a very short book that synopsized all his
research to date. That’s when I started the
Super-8 Trilogy.
The first film, We Imitate; We Break Up,
deals with imitation and the formation of
a stable identity. When challenged by
change, it is through establishing regularity that identity becomes stable. The film
is a display of physical actions between
characters, or characters and obstacles,
which start as uncoordinated and then
achieve balance or stability. Then the
actions displayed in the film become
internal; creating a symbol that can stand
in place for the action.
In the second film, The Broken Rule, I
set out to show how rules are formed. There
are two kinds of rules. There are the rules
or truths that you live by that are formed by
a social consensus through the process of
testing and acceptance. Then there are
Ericka Beckman
rules that are created by the individual that
provide a sense of purpose and self-worth.
They both carry real consequences. The
question I carried as I made this film was:
What makes a game more than a game? The
Broken Rule was also, in part, a celebration of
the artist Mike Kelley, who I had just discovered in California, and whose work and
energy I felt represented the individual
commitment to self-established rules,
which I was embracing in this film. I created the final performance for him.
The third film, Out of Hand, was a
depiction of memory formation. I don’t
exactly know what Piaget book I read for
this film; it could have been a combination of Play and Imagination and The
Creation of Myth and Memory in a Child. The
boy in Out of Hand is the quintessential
Peter Pan, who can’t move into adolescence and holds back to locate a nostalgic
object from his childhood. However, his
maturation is unavoidable. The first scene
sets up the problem. He wakes up from a
dream in which he sees himself being
removed violently from his home. The
film shows the path his mind takes as he
searches his past for something he can
only find in his future. To move into
adulthood he must abandon his attachment to toys, and embrace a symbol that
can represent those toys in his memory.
The toy that comforted him as a child
becomes the handle of a shield that protects him or shields him from the world
beyond his home. In the last shot he lets
go of it. This film represents the struggle
in the emotions between childhood love
In Conversation with Lionel Bovier and Fabrice Stroun
You have mentioned in the past the influence of
Jack Goldstein’s short films of the end of the
1970s–early 1980s. Do you remember what
effect they had on a young artist like yourself
coming out of CalArts? Was his notion of a “distanced spectacle” relevant to you at the time?
I went to CalArts as a graduate student for two reasons: because I liked the
percussionist John Bergamo who taught
there and because I saw Jack Goldstein’s
loops when I was visiting the campus
before attending. Jack, who was living in
New York at the time, was in Los Angeles
producing those first loops and he was
kind enough to show me his work. (...)
This term “distanced spectacle” was
not in my head at the time (...). A friend of
mine, Tony Conrad, and I discussed distance in the mid-1980s in terms of
performance and identification in film
viewing. We met to talk about super-8
film, which we were both engaged with. He
had this theory that there was a distance
between the screen image and the viewer
and the distance between the viewer and
his memory. If the distance between these
three points is contracted there is immediate identification. The cues directed at
you from action and image on the screen
immediately register as real and pick up
confirmation from your memory.
However, once this distance is
greater, it takes longer to either register
what you see or understand what you see.
This distance sets up a delay in your
response. Your memory has to catch up
and confirm what you see, making it
somehow real. Tony was doing a lot of
thinking about structural film and perception. I immediately saw how I could
manipulate this distance by taking the
easily assimilated images from my childhood and my culture, and perform them
differently, so the audience could not rely
on what they expected to see but instead
had to assign a new meaning to them.
I believe a lot of my friends and
myself looked to images that we could
appropriate from our past, because we
were transformed so radically by the TV
and radio we watched and listened to.
Inner time and maturation were marked by
episodes of TV shows and music. We clung
to their short-lived status and listened and
looked deep into their sounds and images.
The media experience of my youth was linear and each new sequel, news story, or
new album changed or wiped out the one
before, in a blotter effect.
New Releases in the First Monograph Series (Fall 2012)
and direct attachment to objects of love,
to a more mediated reality, where love can
exist in your mind and no longer be in
your present. The toy is no longer present
but has been absorbed in this new understanding; it exists as a vibrant symbol in
the formation of this new understanding.
At this time in my life when I made
the Super-8 Trilogy, I read Piaget’s books
very loosely, almost with a poetic freedom
to just enjoy his tests and the children’s
response to his tests. But I also tried to
deeply absorb his definition of the successive levels of intelligence leading up to
the acquisition of language. It established
in me a love of logistics. His books
showed how he structured the proof to
support his theorems. This reading of
Piaget’s scientific process gave me confidence to build my own logical systems.
23
Ross Chisholm
British artist (*1977) Ross Chisholm
uses altered found photographs and
imagery mined from centuries of
visual culture to realize his paintings.
With a newly commissioned essay
by Jonathan Griffin and an interview
by John Reardon
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-261-0).
Ante Timmermans
The Belgian artist (*1976) is one
of the most active figures in the
contemporary drawing scene. The
monograph exists in three editions,
English (ISBN: 978-3-03764-278-8),
French (ISBN: 978-3-03764-279-5), and
German (ISBN: 978-3-03764-295-5).
Pierre Joseph
With his fellow French artists Philippe
Parreno, Dominique GonzalezFoerster, and Pierre Huyghe, Pierre
Joseph (*1958) contributed in the
early 1990s to what is now called
“the relational aesthetic.” This first
monograph includes essays by
Nicolas Bourriaud, Stéphanie Moisdon,
and a discussion with Liam Gillick
(ISBN: 978-3-03764-285-6).
The DVD: Ericka Beckman: The Super-8 Trilogy
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Authors
Ericka Beckman
Fabrice Stroun
English
Winter 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-259-7
DVD, 83 minutes
CHF 50 / EUR 37 /
GBP 30 / US 49.95
24
In our work, 9-11
was a turning
point. the world
had been reduced
to more binary
terms, and it was
necessary for
us to find ways
to express its
complexity
Joana
Hadjithomas &
Khalil Joreige
Reference Monograph
Since the mid-1990s, Lebanese artists Joana
Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (b. 1969, live and
work in Beirut and Paris) have worked together
in the visual arts and cinema, shooting documentaries and fiction films such as “I Want To See,”
starring Catherine Deneuve and Rabih Mroué and
screened at the Cannes Festival in 2008.
Their practice is imbued with a distinctive aesthetic that occupies spheres of
the visible and the fictional, nourishing a
fascinating back and forth between life
and fiction. Investigative processes, excavation, and the representations of historic, social, cultural, and political factors
are at the heart of their work.
possess distinct circuits of production and
distribution, a dual terrain in which
they have established richly fertile ground.
Through their practice the artists address
and look to redefine existing regimes of
representation to engage with questions
of identity and memory and the individual
and social subject. As artists for whom
the practice of art constitutes a culturally
“Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige work multivalent carving out of a public space
primarily with the mediums of photogra- in which discourse and discussion are posphy and film. The reception of their work sible, the urgency of their practice cannot
spans cinema and the visual arts, worlds
be separated from the urgencies of life.”
that, while increasingly connected,
—Suzanne Cotter, in her essay “Stranger than Fiction”
The Book: Joana Hadjithomas / Khalil Joreige
Edited by
Clément Dirié
Michèle Thériault
Authors
Suzanne Cotter
Jean-Michel Frodon
Michèle Thériault
English
Winter 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-240-5
Softcover, 237 x 286 mm
160 pages
Images 100 color
CHF 60 / EUR 40 /
GBP 25 / US 55
French edition
ISBN: 978-3-03764-294-8
Ai Weiwei
Critical Anthology and DVD
25
In 2007 Ai Weiwei (*1957 in Beijing), the wellknown Chinese artist, architect, curator, and
documentary filmmaker, presented “Fairytale”
at Europe’s most innovative five-yearly art event,
documenta, in Kassel: he invited 1001 Chinese
citizens of different ages and from various backgrounds to Germany to experience their own
fairytale for 28 days… The project was judged one of
the most sensational artworks of documenta 12.
After producing a 152-minute film documenting the whole process last year
(English edition, ISBN: 978-3-03764-153-8),
we are now releasing the long-awaited
reader on the project and its repercussions in critical and theoretical fields.
Gathering together commissioned essays
by Roger M. Buergel, Artistic Director of
documenta 12; Catherine Wood, Curator
of Contemporary Art/Performance at Tate
Modern; Raphael Gygax, Curator at the
Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in
Zurich; Christian Höller, editor of
“Springerin” magazine; and a discussion
between the artist and Daniel Birnbaum,
Director of Moderna Museet in
Stockholm. Published with Galerie Urs
Meile, Beijing/Lucerne.
The Book: Ai Weiwei: Fairytale: A Reader
Also Available: Ai Weiwei — Fairytale / Documentary
Edited by
Lionel Bovier
Salome Schnetz
Authors
Daniel Birnbaum
Roger Buergel
Raphael Gygax
Christian Höller
English
Fall 2012
ISBN: 978-3-03764-210-8
Softcover, 160 x 230 mm
248 pages
Images 100 b/w
CHF 32 / EUR 22 /
GBP 18 / US 34.95
Filmed by
Ai Weiwei
English
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-153-8
DVD, 152 minutes
CHF 38 / EUR 25 /
GBP 17 / US 35
26
Kateřina Šedá
Reference Monograph
Among the artists living today in Eastern Europe
and developing their practice from the great
shift that the year 1989 and its aftermath brought
about, Kateřina Šedá (born in 1977 in Brno) is
one of the most successful in linking contemporary issues and this post-Communist history. She
uses media such as video, drawing, installation,
and performance to develop her projects, usually
in close relation with a community.
I try never
to define my
practice as
“art,” especially
when I am trying
to convince
ordinary people
to take part in my
projects
“Kateřina Šedá’s work has often been
described using metaphors borrowed
from archaeology, since it establishes a
specific analytical relationship with the
past. However, archaeology proper is dedicated to the study of given strata that may
be buried, but can still be uncovered by
accident or systematic research and thus
shed some light on the moment in which
we live. Conversely, the artist’s aim is to
actively procure the past while reading, as
it were, the actual history through the
eyes of common people. The artist narrows the field of experiment to peripheral
places and their populations. These places
are usually considered “uninteresting” by
the public at large, for, as the succinct
title of one of Šedá’s projects states,
There’s Nothing There. At best, this blank
urban and social space generates weak
meanings and barely audible messages
that seem to contradict the TV-governed
Text by Adam Szymczyk (Excerpted from the Monograph)
27
colorful picture of neoliberal spectacle,
which is permanently administered to
post-communist societies in the former
Eastern Bloc. Where no event and no past
can be articulated, Šedá comes in: she
works through the blurred pictures of
urban history tainted with individual stories in order to reveal the social and psychological dimension that remains hidden to the protagonists, who usually come
to live in these places from ‘somewhere
else.’ She applies the notion of archaeology to everyday life. ( … ) People possess
and retain knowledge. The artist sees her
task as making this knowledge a common
good. Rendering things visible is a precondition for empowerment. It is an
archaeology à rebours, in which the find is
constituted in collective effort and
emerges as circles of trusted friends or
staged them in the presence of random
passers by who were mostly unaware that
‘art’ was happening in front of their eyes.
Artists in Eastern Europe embraced
Conceptual art as a means of unmediated
communication and a way out of the
deadlock of the official public sphere,
which was entirely regulated by the rulers
and their ideology. Under these gloomy
circumstances, everyday life could assume
new meaning as an ongoing personalpolitical statement.”
The Book: Katerina Seda
Edited by
Fanni Fetzer
Authors
Fanni Fetzer
Michal Hladik
Vladimir Kokolia
Ales Palan
Adam Szymczyk
English / German
Available
ISBN: 978-3-03764-273-3
Softcover, 237 x 286 mm
160 pages
Images 239 color / 114 b/w
CHF 60 / EUR 40 /
GBP 25 / US 55
Martin Boyce
28
Turner Prize
Winner 2011
From our Backlist
When he disturbs the substance of the works of
Arne Jacobsen, Mies van der Rohe, and Charles
and Ray Eames, or when he builds his “fragile
landscapes,” Martin Boyce (*1967, lives and works
in Glasgow and Berlin) underlines the continuity
between style, human habitat, and life. Distilling
elements of familiar, anonymous urban environments, often appropriating iconic visual languages
of classic modernist design, cinema, and architecture, Boyce weaves a complex web of associations
in a process of describing and abstracting cultural
and social spaces. The disquietening balance of
opposites, of intimacy and distance, interior and
exterior, beauty and tension within his installations, seems to amplify the unlocatable anxiety,
paranoia, and dysfunction in contemporary
cities at the same time as it encourages an almost
nostalgic reverie.
From our Backlist
29
The Book: Martin Boyce
Authors
Paul Elliman
Catrin Lorch
Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith
English
Available
ISBN: 978-3-905770-74-2
Softcover, 237 x 286 mm
160 pages
Images 79 color / 26 b/w
CHF 60 / EUR 40 /
GBP 25 / US 55
French
ISBN: 978-3-03764-041-8
German
ISBN: 978-3-03764-040-1
30
Prizes for Books in 2011
Most Beautiful
Swiss Books 2011
5 Bookshops
Five Bookshops We Love
ARCANA: Purveyors of fine new, out of
print, and rare books on photography, art,
fashion, design, architecture, and cinema
since 1984
Wade Guyton
Black Paintings
The Historic Helms Bakery
8675 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232
T +1 310-458-1499
[email protected]
www.arcanabooks.com
Artist’s book
Design: Joseph Logan
Production: Musumeci, Aosta
ISBN: 978-3-03764-166-8
Tue–Sun 11 am–7 pm
Fernand Baudin Prize
Prize 2011
Molla Nasreddin
The publication is part of the
series of artists’ projects edited by
Christoph Keller
Edited and designed by Slavs and
Tatars
Production: Die Keure, Brugge
ISBN: 978-3-03764-212-2
Photo-Eye Magazine:
The Best Books of 2011
Elad Lassry
First monograph, Kunsthalle Zürich
series
Edited by Beatrix Ruf
Designed by Nicolas Eigenheer
Production: Musumeci, Aosta
ISBN: 978-3-03764-152-1
Libreria OOLP: Art bookshop in Italy, with Cobra Libros: THE art bookshop of
a wide range of recent publications and a Buenos Aires!
special focus on the art of gardening
Cobra Libros
Libreria OOLP
Via Principe Amedeo, 29
10123 Torino
Italy
T +39 011 7122782
[email protected]
www.libreriaoolp.it
Aranguren 150
Caballito
C1405CRD Buenos Aires
T. +54 9 11 5943 3133
[email protected]
www.cobralibros.com.ar
Mon–Sun 4.30–8.30 pm
Mon 3.30–7 pm
Tue–Fri 9.30 am–7 pm
Sat 10 am–1 pm/3.30–7 pm
Shelf: Shelf is a bookshop specializing
in photography books
Izumi Building 3-7-4
Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
150-0001 Tokyo
Japan
T +81 3 3405 7889
[email protected]
www.shelf.ne.jp
Mon–Fri 12 am–8 pm
Sat–Sun 12 am–6 pm
Múltiplos: Múltiplos is a bookshop in
Barcelona, located in the Raval neighborhood, surrounded by MACBA (Museum of
Contemporary Art), and many contemporary art galleries
“Múltiplos is specialized in artists’ books, and our catalogue
includes international publications, with a main focus on
those produced in Spain, Portugal and South America, which
we also distribute worldwide.”
Lleó, 6
08001 Barcelona
T +34 933015818
[email protected]
www.multiplosbooks.org
Mon–Sat: 11 am–2 pm/5–9 pm
Collectors’
Editions
Information and Orders at [email protected]
Hedi Slimane’s limited edition of “Anthology of
a Decade”: 50 copies of the 4-volume publication
are gathered together in a special clamshell
box designed by the artist (each box is signed
and numbered)
31
Philippe Decrauzat
“Trois films photographiés,” is a book
published by the Centre d’édition
contemporaine, Geneva, in a limited
edition of 400 copies (288 pages,
181 × 284 mm). Each is made of 16-page
signatures randomly assembled by the
binder and is stamped and numbered
on the front cover.
Scott King
Second-hand record sleeves printed in
hot-foil with the famous motif of
Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” album
Edition of 40, each one unique
Loris Gréaud
“Cellar Door Deluxe Edition” has been
produced by GREAUDSTUDIO
EDITIONS in 2011, as a showcase for
the eponymous book published by
JRP|Ringier. Engraved Plexiglas case,
33.7 × 46.5 x 5.1 cm, edition of 50 copies,
signed and numbered
David Noonan
Silkscreen print, 26 x 26 cm
Includes silkscreen, artist’s box,
and cloth-bound copy of “Scenes”
Edition of 35
32
Marcel Duchamp
and the Forestay
Waterfall
Valentin Carron
Learning from
Martigny
Tom Burr
Extrospective
Liam Gillick
Factories in
the Snow
Linder
Works 1976–2006
Sturtevant
The Razzle
Dazzle of
Thinking
Mark Leckey
7 Windmill
Street W1
Stefan
Brüggemann
The Future Has
A Silver Lining
Genealogies
of Glamour
A selection of 10 preferred titles from our backlist
by design legend Peter Saville, whose book, “Estate,”
belongs to the classics of JRP|Ringier’s program
Photo: Wolfgang Stahr
Half Square
Half Crazy
Peter Saville’s
Top 10
Contacts
Distributors
JRP | Ringier
Letzigraben 134 / CH–8047 Zurich
T +41 (0) 43 311 27 50
F +41 (0) 43 311 27 51
JRP | Ringier books are available
internationally at selected
bookstores and from the following distribution partners:
E [email protected]
www.jrp-ringier.com
ISBN 978-3-03764-281-8
© 2012, the authors, the artists, the photographers,
and JRP | Ringier Kunstverlag
DesignGavillet & Rust/Devaud, Geneva
TypefacesGenath by François Rappo (www.optimo.ch)
Nameit by Jeremy Schorderet
Top Ten
For a list of our partner
bookshops or for any general
questions, please contact
JRP | Ringier directly at
[email protected], or visit
our homepage www.jrp-ringier.
com for further information
about our program.
Switzerland
Germany & Austria
AVA Verlagsauslieferung AG,
Centralweg 16, CH–8910
Affoltern a.A.,
[email protected],
www.ava.ch
Vice Versa Vertrieb,
Immanuelkirchstrasse 12,
D–10405 Berlin,
[email protected],
www.vice-versa-vertrieb.de
France
UK & other European
countries
Les presses du réel,
35 rue Colson, F–21000 Dijon,
[email protected],
www.lespressesdureel.com
Cornerhouse Publications,
70 Oxford Street,
UK–Manchester M1 5NH,
[email protected],
www.cornerhouse.org/books
USA, Canada, Asia,
& Australia
ARTBOOK | D.A.P.,
155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor,
NY 10013, [email protected],
www.artbook.com