Alga Marghen in collaboration with Expanded Media Editions is proud to present the final issue of “Soft Need”, a publication centered on the work of William Burroughs and expanding its deep influences into contemporary consciousness.

Founded in 1973 as a reaction to the aftermath of a three weeks’ stay across Xmas and New Year’s with Gysin and Burroughs by their confidant Udo Breger, “Soft Need“ had its roots in the underground press of the previous two decades and at the same time became a prototype for the forthcoming fanzine scene. Even if only 3 numbers were issued in the 70s (SN#8 in 1973 followed by SN#9 in 1976 and SN#17 “The Brion Gysin Special“ in 1977, all in print-runs of 300 to 500 copies) it quickly became a legendary publication for both Burroughs fans and those interested in counterculture experimental poetry artists’ editions. Almost half a century later, the last edition “Soft Need 23“ is now issued including exclusive material by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin as well as multi-media contributions by eighty international authors and artists.

Issued in an edition limited to 431 copies “Soft Need 23” is a 260-page art book reflecting on the contemporary relevance of historical works by Burroughs and Gysin within the frame of the Beat Generation. Dedicated to Ian Sommerville, the English electronic technician and computer programmer who was collaborating with Brion Gysin to the development of the early Dreammachine and programmed the computer-generated random sequences that Gysin used in his early cut-ups, the book present 190 illustrations, literary essays, photographs, poetry, visual art, caricature, memories and a vast array of ephemera by William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, Louise Landes Levi, Gregory Corso, Jean-Jacques Lebel, John Armleder, Paul-Armand Gette, Peter Weibel (director of ZKM Karlsruhe and curator with Udo Breger of “The Name Is Burroughs” show in 2012), Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Sonic Boom, Papiro, James Grauerholz, Robert Wilson and many, many others.

A large format (32x24cm) book printed in 4/4-color and featuring a thread-sewn visible binding, “Soft Need 23” is a multi-media journey into William Burroughs and Brion Gysin underground world connecting them to the Beat Generation counterculture and revealing their influences on following generations. So step right in, and beyond!

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Which images are made manifest across an artist’s practice and which are the ones that disappear? How do objects—whether seen or unseen—and the knowledge they possess traverse across place and time to avow their resistance? These are amongst the questions asked by artist Nour Bishouty in her artist’s book 1—130, a project that draws upon her ongoing research into the works of her father, Ghassan Bishouty (b. 1941 Palestine – d. 2004, Jordan). In 1—130, she borrows from methods of indexing and object classification to act as figurative codes for identification and cross-reference within the contexts of value and legacy. All the while employing paratactic strategies of text and image to understand the life and work of an artist faced with the discontinuity of deracination.

1—130 constitutes reflexive encounters with a series of 130 selected paintings and sculptures made circa 1965-2004 in Lebanon and Jordan, and concludes with an afterword by editor and curator Jacob Korczynski.

1—130 is designed by Laura Pappa & Lotte Lara Schröder and co-published by Art Metropole & Motto Books.

Nour Bishouty is a visual artist working in a range of media including digital images, works on paper, sculpture, video, and writing. Her multidisciplinary practice draws upon autobiographical and material narratives to explore how dominant notions of value are articulated and exchanged, often focusing on the construction of popular identity in relation to histories of place. Nour was a fellow at the 2014/15 Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. Her work has been exhibited in venues such as Darat Al Funun, Amman; Access Gallery, Vancouver; the Beirut Art Centre, the Helen Day Art Centre, Vermont; Casa Arabe, Madrid and Cordoba; and the Mosaic Rooms, London.

Jacob Korczynski is an independent curator and the recent recipient of a curatorial research fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. He has curated projects for the Stedelijk Museum, Cooper Cole, Western Front, and the Badischer Kunstverein and his writing has been published by art-agenda, Camera Austria, Flash Art, and BOMB. With curatorial projects taking the form of exhibitions, screenings, and publications he is also the editor of I See/La Camera: I (If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution), Andrew James Paterson’s Collection/Correction (Kunstverein Toronto & Mousse Publishing), Jimmy Robert’s Revue (Leopold Hoesch Museum), and Nour Bishouty’s 1-130 (Art Metropole & Motto Books).

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Maximiliane Baumgartner’s Ich singe nicht für Bilder schöne Lieder (I Don’t Sing Beautiful Songs for Pictures) is the first comprehensive publication that contextualizes and traces her artistic practice of the last four years in relation to the fields of painting, action (space) pedagogy, and critical research on the subject of urban planning.

The publication is a joint project of Neuer Essener Kunstverein and Kunstverein München and includes, in addition to an image section, commissioned texts by Elke Krasny, Karolin Meunier, and Moritz Scheper as well as a conversation on the artistic practice of Baumgartner between Luca Beeler, Lucy Kolb, Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, and the artist.

Authors: Luca Beeler, Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, Lucy Kolb, Elke Krasny, Karolin Meunier, Moritz Scheper
Publisher: Motto Books, Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Kunstverein München
Design: Ibrahim Öztaş

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Ich singe nicht für Bilder schöne Lieder von Maximiliane Baumgartner ist die erste umfassende Publikation, die ihre künstlerische Praxis der letzten vier Jahre im Bezug zu den Handlungsfeldern der Malerei, der Aktions(-raum)pädagogik sowie kritischer Stadtraumforschung kontextualisiert und nachzeichnet.

Die Publikation ist ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt des Neuen Essener Kunstvereins und des Kunstverein München und umfasst neben einem Bildteil neue Texte von Elke Krasny, Karolin Meunier und Moritz Scheper sowie ein Gespräch zum Handlungsfeld der künstlerischen Praxis Baumgartners zwischen Luca Beeler, Lucy Kolb, Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay und der Künstlerin.

Autor*innen: Luca Beeler, Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, Lucy Kolb, Elke Krasny, Karolin Meunier, Moritz Scheper
Herausgeber*innen: Motto Books, Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Kunstverein München
Design: Ibrahim Öztaş

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Motto is pleased to announce our new collaboration with Polígrafa, Barcelona.

Michael Snow – Sequences – A history of his art, Gloria Moure (Ed.)
Medardo Rosso. Pioneer of Modern Sculpture, Gloria Moure (Ed.)
The Architecture of Life, Iwona Blazwick (Ed.)
Sigmar Polke: Paintings, photographs and films, Gloria Moure (Ed.)
Gordon Matta-Clark – Experience becomes the object, Pedro Donoso (Ed.)
The Feeling of things. Writings on architecture, Adam Caruso (Ed.)
Marcel Broodthaers – Collected Writings, Gloria Moure (Ed.)
Eduardo Chillida. Open-Air Sculptures, Giovanni Carandente (Ed.)
TAKING
 THE COUNTRY’S SIDE. AGRICULTURE AND ARCHITECTURE, Sébastien Marot
ECONOMY OF MEANS, Éric Lapierre
NATURAL BEAUTY, Sébastien Marot
INNER SPACE, Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli
QUADERNS #270: Europa Europa, Moisés Puente (Ed.)
QUADERNS #271: About Buildings & Food, Xavier Monteys (Ed.)
QUADERNS #272: Cosmetic Techniques, Nuria Casais, Ferran Grau (Eds.)

All photos are courtesy of the artist and Eirikur Mortagne

List of works:

 1. a Lanscape

 2. Lights

 3. Self-Portrait with Moustaches

 4. Self-Portrait with Moustaches

 5. Various Pens

 6. New Painting

 7. New Painting

 8. New Painting

 9. New Painting

10. Moustaches

11. New Painting

12. New Painting

13. Beer Painting

14. New Painting

15. New Painting

16. New Painting

17. New Painting

18. New Painting

For the next weeks, we’ll try to send online orders as efficiently as possible. (some information here)

Order 2 books and get 1 surprise book for free.

Order 5 books, and get 2 surprise books for free.

Every order above 50€ gets a free Erik Steinbrecher ephemera or poster.

We offer free delivery in Berlin, within reasonable distance, until we can’t do it.

Write us with any requests to: support (at) mottodistribution.com

Anne Neukamp Book Launch at Motto Berlin. December 13, 6-9pm

This monograph presents the first comprehensive survey of Anne Neukamp’s work. It embraces a vast
selection of the artist’s works from the past seven years alongside texts by Kassandra Nakas, Reinhard
Spieler and Johanna da Rocha Abreu, thereby offering the reader an immersive insight into the world of
Neukamp’s painting.

‘A stage is being set for us. Forms are blocked and angled into space, complete with consideration of the
need to bridge a distance and to draw the viewer in. As we approach the canvas, the beautiful execution,
the smooth surfaces painted by hand, the neutral yet lush bottom layer almost lulls us into complacency.
But then come the black and white strokes, like slashes, laid over or intersecting the crisp outlines of—
well, what is it? A face or a bifurcated B? It doesn’t matter. Assertions held about the symbols and image
being to shift. The flatness falls away and you find yourself eye-to-eye with the openings and gaps in the
canvas like tunnels, and you finally have to let go of any lingering inertia. The figurative associations, the
meaning both historical and implies, don’t ask for definition, they ask you to completely recondition the
means by which you seek definition.’ —Johanna da Rocha Abreu

Kathy Acker (1971-1975)

Presentation:

This book is the first attempt to produce a critical edition of a large number of Kathy Acker’s unpublished early works. Apart from the posthumous publication, in 2002, of the early manuscript Rip-off Red, Girl Detective and The Burning Bombing of America: The Destruction of the U.S. by Amy Scholder and Grove Press in one volume, in 2002, as well as Gabrielle Kappes’ chapbook, no other important publication had been attempted in this field.

These – mostly unpublished – texts were all composed between 1969 and 1976. Yet they are representative of Acker’s published output only for the period running from 1971 to early 1974. These texts all exist as “clean” typewritten copies, probably intended to be kept, shown, maybe even published. The editor chose not to include Acker’s manuscripts. The transcriptions in this volume were made directly from the original typescripts. Original pagination, manuscript addenda, missing pages and other idiosyncrasies of each file have been preserved; our editorial notes at the end of the texts all feature a material description of the source version used.

The organization of this volume is chronological. The texts’ respective date of composition is often the result of an estimate based on their content and form (an estimate that is then justified and defended).

Such a collection shows how prolific, diverse and always in-progress Acker’s production was in those years. It isn’t, however, Acker’s complete early works. More typescripts exist at the Fales Library which aren’t featured or alluded to in this book. Their publication and analysis may in the future suggest a whole new set of interpretations that will, or might not, contradict the present editor’s exegesis. Moreover, the comparison of the typescripts with manuscript versions will undoubtedly inspire new perspectives on Acker’s creative process and intentions during those years.

Table of contents:
Acknowledgements and Foreword – Editor
Are You Surprised that Kathy Acker Was an Aries Because I’m Not — Claire Finch
The Golden Woman (ca. 1969-1970) — Kathy Acker
Section from: Diary (1-2/1971) — Kathy Acker
Portraits (7/1971) — Kathy Acker
Portraits and Visions (ca. summer 1971) — Kathy Acker
Diary Warmcatfur (1/1972) — Kathy Acker
Politics (pub. 5/1972) — Kathy Acker
For H. (ca. 5/1972) — Kathy Acker
Revolutionary Diary of an Anarchist (ca. 5/1972) — Kathy Acker
Journal Black Cats Black Jewels (summer 1972) — Kathy Acker
Gold Songs for Jimi Hendrix (ca. summer 1972) — Kathy Acker
Breaking Up (ca. summer 1972) — Kathy Acker
[Letters to Bernadette Mayer] (summer-fall 1972) – Kathy Acker
Homage to LeRoi Jones (fall 1972) — Kathy Acker
[Letter to Bernadette Mayer] (ca. fall 1972) — Kathy Acker
Entrance into dwelling in paradise (fall 1972) — Kathy Acker
[Exercises] (fall 1972) — Kathy Acker
Stripper Disintegration (2-3/1973) — Kathy Acker
Section from Diary (3/1973) — Kathy Acker
[Letter to Bernadette Mayer] (6 / 2? / 1973) — Kathy Acker
The beginning of the Thesmophoriazusae (7-9/1973) — Kathy Acker
Part I of Breaking Through Memories into Desire (11 / 1973) — Kathy Acker
Part II [of Breaking Through Memories…] (ca. 1 / 1974) — Kathy Acker
Conversations (1/1974) — Kathy Acker
Talking as Music (2/1974) — Peter Gordon
From Part III of Breaking Through Memories… (2-3 / 1974) — Kathy Acker
[Letters to Alan Sondheim] (2-3 / 1974) — Kathy Acker
[Letter to Bernadette Mayer] (3 / 3 / 1974) — Kathy Acker
[Untitled Tape] (3/1974) — Kathy Acker & Alan Sondheim
[About the Untitled Tape] (ca. 3/1974) — Emily Cheng
[Untitled Tape 2] (ca. 3/1974) — Kathy Acker & Alan Sondheim
Various Memory Experiments, I (4/1974) — Kathy Acker
[Letter to Bernadette Mayer] (4-7 / 1974) — Kathy Acker
[Postcard to Kathy Acker] (7/24/1974) — Alan Sondheim
[Letters to Bernadette Mayer] (10 / 1974-10 / 1975) — Kathy Acker
[Songs] (1974-1975) — Jill Kroesen
[Flyer for the Whitney Museum] (11/1976) — Kathy Acker & Alan Sondheim

About the “Blue Tape” (2012) — Alan Sondheim
[About the Untitled Tape 1] (2018) — Emily Cheng
14th Street studio and Fun City (2019) — Justin Gajoux
Kathy Acker and Sex Work in the Section from Diary (2019) — Justin Gajoux
Porno-graphing Actions of the “Blue Tape” (2019) — Anna Maria Pinaka
Afterword — Matias Viegener
Pages: 656
Language: English.

First critical edition of Kathy Acker’s unpublished early writings from (1969-1976). Comprises almost all the typescripts from that period present in the Kathy Acker’s archives.
Features also the transcription and presentation of Acker’s two 1974 experimental videos.
Editor: Justin Gajoux.
Critical notes: Justin Gajoux & Claire Finch.
Also with texts of: Alan Sondheim, Emily Cheng, Jill Kroesen, Peter Gordon, Claire Finch, Anna Maria Pinaka, Matias Viegener, Justin Gajoux.
Artwork: Satarina Cantos.
Isbn: 979-10-97450-03-8.

Print run: 500 numbered copies. Offset printed, on paper Munken Print White 80g and Arjowiggins Popset 240g; signatures sewn, cold glue.

BUY

BILL 2 — Magazine launch
Friday 19 April from 6pm

Berlin friends, please join us at Motto bookstore for a presentation of BILL 2. BILL is a magazine of photo stories. Prioritizing visual reading without distraction, all the images that appear in the magazine are printed without accompanying text. Published by Roma Publications, the magazine is offset printed by monks in Bavaria and every contributor can occupy 16 pages on a different paper stock.

The second issue of BILL includes contributions by Linda van Deursen, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Jason Dodge, Archiv Hans Hollein, Inge Ketelers, Jochen Lempert, Raimundas Malašauskas, Bart Julius Peters / T L P S, Reto Schmid, Megan Francis Sullivan, Tadanori Yokoo by Tadashi Kurahashi, Ann Woo, Jiajia Zhang and RareBooksParis (advertiser)

Editor and designer Julie Peeters will be there, as well as contributors Jason Dodge (reading), Megan Francis Sullivan and co-editor Elena Narbutaite.

Drinks will be served and magazines available.

http://billinprint.com/
https://www.romapublications.org/