The Romanian Archeological Photography Index was begun three years ago through the exploration, excavation, photographing and recording of objects found in Romania dating from the time of the two world wars. It saw Bogdan Gîrbovan and Michele Bressan set out in the footsteps of the “magnets” – the locals who search for objects dating from the two world wars in order to sell them as scrap.
The project takes place on three levels. First, there is the presentation of the landscape, which is taken to be their working perimeter. Then, the objects are located, dug up and photographed in situ. These are then removed from the environment in which they were found, i.e. they are decontextualized, and photographed in a controlled environment. Through this latter, objective representation of form, they acquire a clear abstract quality that is suggestive of other forms of interpretation. Together, the three layers comprise a series of archaeological episodes in which photography is used as a means of documentation and a tool of study.

A hybrid object, at the crossroads between history book, photography book and family photo album, this is R.A.P.I. in published form. The final product will contain a wide variety of information and texts intended to create a mapping between the published object, the reader, the authors and the wider context of memory. The design and layout is the work of Matei Câlția.

5 booklets, various formats.

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In Borrowed Territories, Lucian Bran goes to the sites where Hatfield & McCoys was shot, a TV series about two confronting families right after the Civil War, in the second half of the XIXth century. He doesn’t travel to Kentucky, nor West Virginia, but to Brașov, Argeș and Ilfov – because this is where the film shootings took place, borrowing the natural scapes to a history which happened thousands of miles away. Bran brings together in his project images from the movie set and film stills, which alternate with his own photographs taken in the same places which were used as backdrop for the movie.
With contributions by Magda Radu, Augustina Stanciu, Monica Stroe, Bogdan Iancu.

În Borrowed Territories (Teritorii împrumutate), Lucian Bran merge în locurile unde s-a turnat filmul Hatfield & McCoys, despre confruntarea a două familii imediat după Războiul Civil American, în a doua parte a secolului XIX. Nu merge-n Kentucky sau în West Virginia, ci în Brașov, Argeș și Ilfov – fiindcă aici au avut loc filmările, împrumutând cadrul natural unei istorii petrecute la mii de kilometri distanță. Bran adună în proiectul lui imagini de pe platourile de filmare și cadre din film, pe care le alternează cu fotografii făcute de el în locurile care apar ca fundal natural în pelicula americană.

Texte de Magda Radu, Augustina Stanciu, Monica Stroe și Bogdan Iancu.

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Die vorliegende Publikation erscheint im Rahmen der Ausstellung “Alexander Kluge. Gärten der Kooperation” im Württembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart: einer umfassenden Einzelausstellung des Schriftstellers, Filmemachers und Theoretikers Alexander Kluge, die auf der gleichnamigen Schau im Kunstzentrum La Virreina in Barcelona basiert. In enger Zusammenarbeit mit La Virreina sowie Alexander Kluge selbst hat der Kunstverein eine Neufassung und Erweiterung von sieben Eizelaspekten dieses Projektes entwickelt.

Entsprechend der Ausstellung setzt sich auch das Buch aus sieben “Inseln” zusammen, die jeweils mit einem Bild und Text aus Alexander Kluges Büchern eingeführt werden. Darüber hinaus versammelt es eine Auswahl ergänzender Texte von Alexander Kluge, die auch ind er Ausstellung zu finden waren.

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The publication accompanies the exhibition “Alexander Kluge: Gardens of Cooperation” in the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart: a comprehensive solo exhibition by the writer, filmmaker, and theorist Alexander Kluge, based on the show of the same name at the La Virreina Art Center in Barcelona. In close collaboration with La Virreina and with Alexander Kluge himself, the Kunstverein has developed a new version and expansion of seven individual aspects of this project.
The book, like the exhibition, is composed of seven “islands”, each introduced by a picture and text from Alexander Kluge’s books. In addition, it brings together a selection of complementary texts by Alexander Kluge, also found in the exhibition.

German / English

19 x 12.5 cm

ISBN: 9782940524723

199 pages

Co-published by Motto Books & Würtembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart

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Give Up Art is a collection of critical writings by author Maria Fusco. Operating across fiction, criticism, and theory, Fusco’s work forges a contemporary space for critical art writing internationally. Give Up Art brings together nearly two dozen essays, reviews, and smaller pieces published between 2002 and 2017.

Maria Fusco is a Belfast-born writer based in Scotland. Her award-winning writing crosses the registers of criticism, ction, and theory. Her work has been translated into ten languages.

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The Serving Library Annual comprises a number of individual “Bulletins” organized around a theme for an international audience of designers, artists, writers, and researchers. Newly published by ROMA Publications in a yearly format, this inaugural issue is realised in collaboration with Public Fiction, a journal and exhibition-maker based in Los Angeles. It deals with acts of civil disobedience and other forms of resistance, particularly in view of the relationship between entertainment and power. Contributors include Hilton Als, Tauba Auerbach, Anne Carson, Mark Leckey, Adrian Piper, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms.

Public Fiction’s next project, which runs broadly concurrent to this new Annual’s lifespan, is named The Conscientious Objector — a multifaceted endeavour commissioned by West Hollywood City Council that unfurls in parts from September 2017 to April 2018. Curated by Public Fiction founder Lauren Mackler and Serving Library editor Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey, The Conscientious Objector comprises a series of “commercials” produced by artists for public access TV, an exhibition of artworks and performances at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture’s Schindler House in West Hollywood, and the present publication.

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Published by Bergen Kunsthall in 2017 on the occasion of the exhibitions:

The Noing Uv It
Bergen Kunsthall
9 January – 15 February 2015

The Showing Uv It
Simon Ling
Bergen Kunsthall
27 February – 5 April 2015

Curated by
Martin Clark and Steven Claydon

Texts by
Martin Clark, Steven Claydon, Timothy Morton, Martin Herbert, Russell Hoban, Martin Westwood

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Installations and arrangements by Buku Akiyama.
Photographs by Buku Akiyama, Kiyotoshi Takashima, Masahito Yamamoto.
English translation by Yuki Okumura with Linda Dennis.

Texts by Koichi Munakata, Koki Tanaka, Lei Yamabe, Tami Yanagisawa, Tohru Horiguchi.

Design by Shin Akiyama /edition.nord.
Edited printed and bound by Buku Akiyama.

“Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989 – 2017” extended version of 6 / second edition of 100.

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On the occasion of the launch of the SangBleu typeface, Swiss Typefaces issues a book for lovers of the printed letterform. On 128 pages, “SangBleu Typeface: The King, His Court, The Explorer & The Gift” celebrates cutting­edge typography in general and the SangBleu fonts in particular. Devised as a collector’s item, it provides a unique combination of design and content: at the heart of the publication is a novella by Daniela Party, specifically written for this purpose. The book starts off with illustrations of a skull and a beheaded female warrior, followed by serpents and an Aztec ghost figure. This dark and savage imagery sets the atmosphere. Giant initials, printed in loud pink, lead into the book like drumbeats in the jungle – S – B – G – U… The title page presents the names of the five collections that form the SangBleu typeface: Empire, Kingdom, Republic, Versailles, Sunrise. Each family is displayed on a spread of 20 pages, in a layout that was freely inspired by a type specimen for Caslon Old Face from 1924. The sample pages emulate all kinds of text types, from novels and magazines to drama and poetry, in sizes big and small. Some pages feature large headlines or block quotes in italics. Others show off spectacular drop caps and strongly contrasting sizes or weights. Designers interested in seeing the Cyrillics do not miss out either. The scope and versatility of the SangBleu collection is exhibited in its entirety. All text is taken from Daniela Party’s novella. Set in the late 17th century, an era of absolutism, superstition, and colonialism, it narrates the story of Meztli, an indigenous Mexican woman with extrasensory powers. Captured by French explorer La Salle, she is sent as a gift to Louis XIV, the Sun King – a gift that would set off a series of macabre events involving witchcraft, lust, envy, and death. Designed by Swiss Typefaces, the SangBleu Typeface book was printed in five colors, four of them Pantone spot colors including metallic and neon inks, and is further enriched by a special binding with several fold­out pages – all made in Switzerland.

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“First the air is blue and then / it is bluer and then green and then / black I am blacking out and yet / my mask is powerful / It pumps my blood with power”

And Yet My Mask is Powerful emerges from an exhibition by multimedia artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, held at Carroll / Fletcher in London in 2016. Carrying on from their earlier project The Incidental Insurgents (2012-2015), the artists address the apocalyptic logic of perpetual crisis that characterizes the contemporary moment. The project takes its title from Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving Into the Wreck,” and like that of the poem, its mise-en-scène is a field of wreckage. Here, the artists visit destroyed villages in occupied Palestine, documenting groups of Palestinian youths wearing copies of Neolithic masks. These masks, some of the oldest in the world, were originally found in the West Bank and are now stored in private Israeli collections; they have been copied and 3D-printed by the artists from online exhibition photographs.

The book uses computer screenshots of images framed in software windows, layering them across the pages along with scans and typographic interventions. The work suggests a sense of collapse and return, but one oriented toward futurity, reworking the Arab world’s apocalyptic imaginary into another, parallel, unrealized time.

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