Screening 12.11.2021 @ Motto Berlin – Giselle’s Books presents a selection of Inventory’s films

Posted in Film, Motto Berlin event, video on November 8th, 2021
Tags: , , , , ,

Beton Insel Inventory_Giselle's Books_Motto Books_2021

Beton Insel, Inventory, 2004, Courtesy of the artists

Giselle’s Books and Motto invite you to the screening of Inventory’s film. For the occasion, we will be showing the following videos: Ostalgia (2004), Beton Insel (2004), Sleepwalkers (2003) and Flesh and Stone, a geology of an Urban Existence (2003).
Friday, 12 November 2021 at 7pm

First Screening at 7:15
Second Screening at 8:15

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68, im Hinterhof
10997 Berlin

British art collective Inventory was founded in London in 1995 by Damian Abbott, Paul Claydon and Adam Scrivener. Since 2004, they are based in Kent (UK) and Toulouse (France).
Inventory’s previous solo exhibitions were at the Rob Tufnell gallery, London (2014 and 2016) White Columns, New York (2005); The Approach, London (2004, 2002 and 1999) and at The Modern Institute, Glasgow (1999). Recent collective exhibitions include: Condo London, Rob Tufnell (2018); The Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band, Rob Tufnell, Cologne (2016); Corruption Feeds, Bergen Kunsthall (2014); Make the Living Look Dead, 2nd Cannons Project Space, Los Angeles (2014); Ruin Lust, Tate Britain (2014); Keywords, INIVA (2013); A journey through London’s subculture, the ICA at Old Selfridges Hotel, London (2013), De Appel, Amsterdam (2008); Kunstverein Hamburg (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2007); Kunsthaus Dresden (2006); Aspen Art Museum (2006); Portikus, Frankfurt (2004); ICA, London (2003); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2003); Lenbachhaus, Munich (2002); the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2001); their work is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Tate Gallery, London. Their work is represented by Rob Tufnell.

Giselle is conceived as a system for enabling interactions that focuses on the dissemination and gathering of artistic practices. It was conceived by Lucas Jacques-Witz and Ryder Morey-Weale as an experimental exhibition space and currently operates as Giselle’s Books, an independent Archive Library of foreign Artist’s Books, editions, and printed material in Marseille. The space is dedicated to researchers and amateurs with an interest in contemporary art books.

Eye of the Tiger. Oscar Guermouche. Praun & Guermouche

Posted in Film, photography on September 10th, 2021
Tags: , , , , ,

eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-1 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-2 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-3 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-4 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-5 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-6 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-7 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-8 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-9 eye-of-the-tiger-oscar-guermouche-praun-guermouche-9789198524468-10

The artist’s publication Eye of the Tiger is composed of close-ups of the eyes of 99 male characters from various films. The stills portray the characters in situations where they are driven into some sort of readiness; these stares express everything from controlled calm to furious aggression. The films were all released between 1977 and 2000, the formative years of Guermouche’s childhood and coming of age, including schooling, sexual debut and military service.

The black wooden pattern on the cover, along with the blackened edges and the deep black endpapers, are reminiscent of the installations in the form of barricades that Guermouche has created in recent years, for example the work “You Made Me” (ICIA, 2016) in Gothenburg. The dust jacket is made out of Swedish kraft paper, which draws ammunition packaging to mind. The metallic foiling refers to the machine as a male ideal, and to the steely-eyed stare. The black-and-white images with their graininess and deep black, give the impression of memories rather than direct depictions.

Order here

Richard Maxwell and New York City Players: The Theater Years

Posted in Film, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books, video on September 6th, 2019
Tags: , , , ,

richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_1 richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_2richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_3richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_4richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_5richard-maxwell-and-new-york-city-players-the-theater-years_Motto_6

This is the first publication on the plays of New York–based experimental theater director and playwright Richard Maxwell (born 1967) and his company New York City Players. His plays have been commissioned by The Wexner Center, Columbus; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Performance Space 122, The Kitchen and Soho Rep in New York; and The Barbican Centre, London. The book captures the experience of actually watching the plays by way of screen-grabs and captions, and in doing so documents nearly 20 years of work.

Text by Jim Fletcher, Emily Hoffman, Richard Maxwell, Robert Snowden.
Published by Westreich Wagner and Greene Naftali.

 

€45.00

Buy it here

Gärten der Kooperation / Gardens of Cooperation. Alexander Kluge. Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart & Motto Books.

Posted in Exhibitions, Film, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books, writing on January 16th, 2018
Tags: ,

kluge-garten-motto-1 kluge-garten-motto-2 kluge-garten-motto-3 kluge-garten-motto-4 kluge-garten-motto-5 kluge-garten-motto-6 kluge-garten-motto-7

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.

—-

 

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

 

Buy it

Christa Blümlinger/Harun Farocki: The ABCs of the Essay Film. Christa Blümlinger, Harun Farocki. Harun Farocki Institut & Motto Books.

Posted in Film, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books, writing on September 19th, 2017
Tags: , ,

Christa_Blumlinger_Harun_Farocki_motto02 Christa_Blumlinger_Harun_Farocki_motto03 Christa_Blumlinger_Harun_Farocki_motto05

In Autumn and Winter 2013/2014, Christa Blümlinger and Harun Farocki worked on the dialogical “ABCs of the Essay Film,” which is published here for the first time in its original German version. In 26 short paragraphs, reacting to key terms suggested by Christa Blümlinger (from “A for Adorno” to “Z for Zidane”), Farocki explores his proximity, but also his distance to filmmakers like Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Artavazd Peleshian, or Alexander Kluge and speaks about specific operations in his films, TV programs, and installations.

The text is complemented by a short text by Farocki which was published in 1987 to accompany a film program at the Berlin Akademie der Künste, where the essay film is described as a film “that is useful without being subservient and without standing to attention.”

 

Buy it

Harun Farocki: Etwas wird sichtbar Document Material. Tom Holert (ed.). Harun Farocki Institut & Motto Books.

Posted in Film, Motto Berlin store, writing on September 8th, 2017
Tags: ,

Harun_Farocki_Etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_01harun_farocki_etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_08Harun_Farocki_Etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_05Harun_Farocki_Etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_04Harun_Farocki_Etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_06Harun_Farocki_Etwas_wird_sichtbar_motto_02

A hybrid attempt at coming to terms with a particular amnesia of the West German left in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Harun Farocki’s 1982 feature film BEFORE YOUR EYES – VIETNAM combines ideas about the distant, image-guided participation in the war in Vietnam with speculations on Vietnam as a laboratory of advanced modes of capitalist production, whilst reflecting intensely on the dyad of love and work.
This publication assembles selected material produced in 1982 to promote the film and make it accessible discursively. It includes the facsimile of a promotional leafleat that provided not only factual information but also directions for reading, a selection of unseen photos from the set and from a tiny piece of film (excavated in the archives of the Harun Farocki Institut), documenting a performative trailer put on an improvised stage by Farocki and actor Ronny Tanner during the Berlin Film Festival in 1982. The brochure is introduced by a commentary penned by the Harun Farocki Institut.

Harun Farockis spielfilmlanger Film ETWAS WIRD SICHTBAR von 1982 ist der hybride Versuch, mit dem in den späten 1970er/frühen 1980er Jahren spürbar schwindenden Gedächtnis der westdeutschen Linken umzugehen. Der Film verbindet Überlegungen zur bildgeleiteten Teilnahme am Krieg in Vietnam aus der geografischen Distanz mit Spekulationen über Vietnam als einem Forschungslabor für neue Methoden kapitalistischer Produktionsweise, während er gleichermaßen kontinuierlich über das Verhältnis von Liebe und Arbeit reflektiert.

Die Publikation versammelt ausgewählte Materialien, die 1982 entstanden sind, um den Film zu bewerben und ihn zudem diskursiv zugänglich zu machen. Sie enthält das Faksimile einer Werbebroschüre, die nicht nur Fotos oder Besetzungsliste, sondern auch Lektürehinweise und ein Interview (das Farocki mit sich selbst geführt hat) bereitstellte, sowie eine Reihe von bislang kaum bekannten Fotos vom Dreh und einer performativen Werbeaktion, die Farocki während der Berlinale 1982 gemeinsam mit dem Schauspieler Ronny Tanner zur Aufführung brachte (und die in einem kurzen Film, der 2016 im Archiv des Harun Farocki Instituts aufgetaucht ist, dokumentiert wurde). Das Heft wird eingeleitet durch einen Kommentar des Harun Farocki Instituts.

Buy it

Harun Farocki: What Ought to be Done / Was getan werden soll. Harun Farocki Institut & Motto Books.

Posted in Film, Motto Books, writing on August 16th, 2016
Tags: ,

Harun-Farocki_Was-Getan-Werden-soll_What-ought-to-be-done_9782940524501_Harun-Farocki-Institut_Elsa-de-Seynes_Motto-Books_2016_1_DeutscheHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_5_EnglishHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_2_DeutscheHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_6_EnglishHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_3_DeutscheHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_7_EnglishHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_4_DeutscheHarun Farocki_Was Getan Werden soll_What ought to be done_9782940524501_Harun Farocki Institut_Elsa de Seynes_Motto Books_2016_8_English

In the mid-1970s, Harun Farocki wrote a two-page call programmatically entitled What Ought to Be Done, followed by a survey addressed to potential collaborators and supporters. He envisioned an institution to “organize a coalition of working people, not from an abstract understanding but from the contact points of their work.” The purpose of this institution, devoted to documentary practices, was twofold. It was “intended to collect, i.e. secure what is there,” but also “to produce, i.e. initiate what is not yet there.” In doing so, it was meant to facilitate social and collaborative processes, comprehensive and interdisciplinary studies without time pressure.

At the occasion of Farocki’s working paper, the Harun Farocki Institut, founded in 2015, historically situates Farocki’s initiative and reflects upon the proximities and differences between creating an institution in 1976 and forty years later.

The publication includes Farocki’s text, a commentary by Tom Holert, Doreen Mende and Volker Pantenburg, as well as a letter written in 1975 by documentary filmmaker Peter Nestler in response to Farocki’s circular.

Editorial responsibility: Elsa de Seynes.

€5.00

Buy it

Fireflies #3. Claire Denis & Jia Zhangke. Annabel Brady-Brown, Giovanni Marchini Camia (eds.)

Posted in Film, magazines on April 25th, 2016
Tags: , , , ,

fireflies_3_motto_1 copyfireflies_3_motto_2 copyfireflies_3_motto_4 copyfireflies_3_motto_5 copyfireflies_3_motto_6 copyfireflies_3_motto_7 copyfireflies_3_motto_8 copyfireflies_3_motto_9 copyfireflies_3_motto_10 copyfireflies_3_motto_11 copyfireflies_3_motto_12 copyfireflies_3_motto_13 copy

 

Essays: Peter Baxter, Andrew Chan, Jordan Cronk, Dan Edwards, Adam Nayman, Vadim Rizov, Ellena Savage, Oscar Schwartz, Esther Yi

Postcards From The Cinema: James Butler, Mark Cousins, Tomas Hachard, Molly Lukin, Chiara Marchini, Christine Smallwood

Visual Art: Dar Al Naim, Berliac, Anthony Cudahy, Samuel Davison, Pat Larkin, Gaurab Thakali, Amanda Vähämäki, Miguel Angel Valdivia

Poetry: Paul Cunningham, Gareth Evans, Aurelia Yueyi Guo

Fiction: Dom Amerena, Monika Kalinauskaitė, Aoko Matsuda (trs. Asa Yoneda), Tod Wodicka, Justin Wolfers

Interview with Claire Denis by Giovanni Marchini Camia.

15€
buy it

Jonas Mekas: Scrapbook of the Sixties: Writings 1954 – 2010. Anne König (ed.). Spector Books

Posted in Film, history, literature, poetry, writing on December 10th, 2015
Tags: , , , ,

jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_0 jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_1 jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_3jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_4 jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_14jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_13jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_12jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_11jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_10jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_9jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_8jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_7jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_6jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_5 jonas_mekas_scrapbook_of_the_sixties_writings_1954_2010_spector_books_anne_konig_motto_distribution_15

Scrapbook of the Sixties is a collection of published and unpublished texts by Jonas Mekas, filmmaker, writer, poet, and cofounder of the Anthology Film Archives in New York. Born in Lithuania, he came to Brooklyn via Germany in 1949 and began shooting his first films there. Mekas developed a form of film diary in which he recorded moments of his daily life. He became the barometer of the New York art scene and a pioneer of American avant-garde cinema. Every week, starting in 1958, he published his legendary “Movie Journal” column in The Village Voice, writing on a range of subjects that were by no means restricted to the world of film. He conducted numerous interviews with artists like Andy Warhol, Susan Sontag, John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Erick Hawkins, and Nam June Paik. Some of these will now appear for the first time in his Scrapbook of the Sixties. Mekas’s writings reveal him as a thoughtful diarist and an unparalleled chronicler of the times—a practice that he has continued now for over fifty years.

Jonas Mekas (*1922, Semeniškiai / Lithuania), lives and works in New York. Film-maker, writer, poet and co-founder of the Anthology Film Archives one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde film. Mekas’s work has been exhibited in museums and festivals worldwide.

92 black-white images, adhesive bound softcover

Designed by Fabian Bremer and Pascal Storz

 

€28.00

Buy it

Plassein. Joji Koyama. Toupée

Posted in Film on September 8th, 2015
Tags: , , ,

Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_1Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_2Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_3Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_4 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_5Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_6 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_7Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_8 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_9Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_10 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_11Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_12 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_13Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_14 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_15Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_16 Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_17Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_18Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_19  Plassein_Joji_Koyama_Toupee_motto_distribution_20

Plassein is a collection of short stories, told through a series of sequential drawings that intertwine to create unsettling, dissonant dreamscapes. The stories observe the forms and textures of the built world and trace their strange, melancholic entanglements.
Set out like a storyboard for a speculative film, with a single frame per page, the images accumulate into fleeting scenes and shifting narratives at once familiar and otherworldly.

About the author
Joji Koyama is a filmmaker, animator and graphic artist. His short films and animations have screened internationally. In 2015 he published his first book of short visual stories Plassein, and an illustrated colouring book Elsewhere, for Penguin books. He is currently working on a film in collaboration with musician and songwriter Tujiko Noriko.

Graphic design: Dan Solbach with Katerina Trakakis

€25.00

Buy it