BOOK LAUCH

The Ruin to Come.
Walid Sadek.
Motto Books & Taipei Biennial 2016

Thursday 15 June, 2017 starting at 6:00 pm
Venue: Agial Art Gallery, 63 Abdel Aziz St., Hamra, Beirut, Lebanon.

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These collected essays, written in Beirut over a period of 10 years between 2006 and 2016, look at the conditions of living under a temporality theorized as the “protracted now” of a civil war, one structurally capable of perpetuating the conditions of its own dominance. This protracted now, these essays argue, remains untranquil in the many unfinished strains of a troubled history that resist falling back into a settled and distant past.

What unites the diverse essays of this book is an investment in the concept of labor, understood as both interminable and his­torical: the labor of min, the labor of the corpse, the labor of near­blindness and the labor of missing. These labors are interminable since they persist in a disinclination to join the various calls for regeneration and resurrection implicit in state-sanctioned and market-driven projects for the reconstruction of Lebanon. They are also historical since they frame this disinclination as an anti-historicist position open to a non-linear conception of memory that attempts to name the many pasts slighted by a forward-looking rush towards better futures.

Together, these labors develop into a critique of hope as a reac­tionary sentiment that numbs collective action in the present and propose that within the folds of war lie moments of political significance that can be recovered and thought through, in order to initiate a livable living built with the unwelcome but necessary knowledge shouldered by unreconciled survivors.

Brian Kennon at Motto.
Opening reception 06.06.2017
from 6pm

For the exhibition in our courtyard’s vitrines, Brian Kennon will be exhibiting a new series of prints and works on paper.

A survey of 15 years of his artists’ book output will be on display in the shop

http://briankennon.com/

BOOK LAUNCH

SCREEN

Arthur Fouray

Tombolo Presses

ARTIST TALK
Arthur Fouray in conversation with Rachel Walker
7.30 pm

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We are happy to invite you to the launch of Tombolo Presses new publication, an artist book by Arthur Fouray. Its title, “Screen”, embodies his artistic process which spreads here across two main formats : painting/serigraphy on cushions and the artist book. The publication sets a comprehensive entry point into a research Arthur Fouray began in 2015 with his solo show “Spectre” at Espace Quark, Geneva. Through art and decoration history, he questions the shift between painting before the industrial revolution and the cinematographic experience. He proposes to the spectator an art experience which skips interaction by teasing the unsaid.

The launch of the book is accompanied by a talk between Rachel Walker and Arthur Fouray. A bookshelf will display books published by Tombolo Presses in recent years.

ARTHUR FOURAY
Arthur Fouray is a French artist born in 1990. His practice analyses through paintings the exhibition format. He is also curator at DOC Paris, France. In 2015, he co-founded the artist-run-space Silicon Malley in Lausanne, Switzerland.

RACHEL WALKER
Rachel Walker is a curator and art historian based in Berlin. Originally from Brussels, she holds an MA from the Courtauld Institute in London. Formerly director at DUVE Berlin, she has worked at König Galerie and is currently Gallery Liaison at Artsy. She has recently curated exhibitions at Frankfurt am Main and Horse and Pony Fine Arts.

TOMBOLO PRESSES
Co-founded in 2013 by Alexandru Balgiu, Thierry Chancogne, Brice Domingues, Sacha Léopold and Pascal Trutin, Tombolo Presses is a publishing house expanding the web revue “Tombolo” with the affinities and contradictions of the practice & reflection of graphic design.

This association brings editorial, curatorial projects produced with the energy of artists, graphic designers, theorists, students & teachers, all active on theoretical and exchange platform “Tombolo”.

This structure’s ambition is to present experimental publications and/or transitional in the field of graphic design extended to visual arts. The image as text and text as image.

Edition Tsar @ Motto Berlin. 03.05.2017
from 6pm

Featuring: Julien Gremaud, Julien Fischer, Charlotte Krieger et Agathe Zaerpour, Simon Paccaud, Thomas Adank, Adrien Chevalley, Baptiste Oberson, Guillaume Dénervaud, Thomas Koenig, Vianney Fivel and many others

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POP-UP Press @ Motto Berlin. 03.05.2017
from 6pm

Pardon Refused by Alexander Peli, Popup Press 2017
82 pages, A4, Softcover

Alexander Peli is a Canadian photographer who enjoys a raw atmosphere. The time he spent living in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood of West Berlin had a significant impact on his work and he subsequently travelled throughout Europe seeking misconduct of all kinds.
His photographs often follow a sinful narrative; one of lust, gluttony, sexuality, crime and abuse. Pardon Refused acts as a photo diary and uses the streets as a palette, capturing young artists engaged in destructive action as well as candidly documenting strange yet familiar environments. Alexander and the creatives featured in the pages of Pardon Refused don’t apologize for their behaviour and seek no redemption.
All photographs shot exclusively on 35mm film using 5 different cameras, Pardon Refused contains 66 frames spanning over 7 countries.

DINGE UND DIALOGE

Book Launch @ Motto Berlin

Saturday, March 18 2017
6-9 pm

DINGE UND DIALOGE
Ed. by: Barbara Kapusta, Jenni Tischer and Rocco Pagel

The publication Dinge und Dialoge explores the relationship between the material character of things and the physical existence of the observer. The individual contributions in the publication as well as in the exhibition with the same title, that was realized at Scriptings Berlin from December 2015 until January 2016, raise questions about the particular, unique standpoint from which we can speak and perceive. The artists and writers examine the possibilities of seeing differences in objects, recognizing an object as something distinct and our  capacity of seeing and comprehending. The publication traces the proposition that where everyday objects and art objects concur, due to their similarities and differences, their status becomes productive.

With contributions from Daniel Heinrich, Kathi Hofer, Barbara Kapusta, Ulrike Köppinger, Katrin Mayer, Ulrike Müller, Rocco Pagel, Jenni Tischer and texts by Jorella Andrews and Oona Lochner.

Design: studio VIE
Edition: 300 pieces
En./Ger., 84 pages, multi-part, bound by hand, numerous illustrations in color, 21,5 x 30,5 cm, eight different softcovers designed by the participating artists.

http://www.saprophyt.net

€35.00

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Waldo Pardon, Alexandra Myshalov, Nadia de Vries and Adrienne Herr @ Motto Berlin
Saturday March 11th, 6-9pm

‘Class of 2017’ will be a reading in preparation for greater things. Showcasing artists and poets who have little in common, other than their enrollment and an A+ attitude. Come to a presentation of new work by 4 poets.

Most Likely to Get Out of Here:
Waldo Pardon (b. 1997, Belgium) is a writer and filmmaker. For Class of 2017, Pardon will read the first chapter of ‘The Bacterial Anchor,’ his unfinished novel. ‘The Bacterial Anchor’ is a fairy tale that revolves around 4 teenagers, densely keyworded, sinisterly branded, and their pilgrimage to an OG necropolis as soon as they get released from a juvenile detention center in Florida.

Most Likely to Crash on Your Couch:
Alexandra Myshalov (b. 1995 USA) is a writer, globalized subject, and sacrificial object. For Class of 2017, Alexandra will read “Port of call”, a rubric for narcissistic divination that combines confessional narrative and cut ups from Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain.

Most Liked by Parents:
Nadia de Vries (b. 1991, the Netherlands) is a poet and curator. She is the author of First Communion (2015), R.I.P. Nadia de Vries (2016) and Pain in Translation (forthcoming 2017). In 2016, she curated Sisternhood, a poetry anthology featuring work by European women writing in English. She lives and works in Amsterdam.
http://nadiadevries.com/

Most Likely to Succeed:
Adrienne Herr (b. 1991 USA) is a poet who works heavily with video and performance.
http://adriennes.site/

ECOCORE 5 – The Issue of Narcissism – BERLIN LAUNCH @ Motto Berlin

Friday 3rd March from 6-9pm

with a collaborative reading and a performance by Eli Pitegoff and Lukas Hofmann / Saliva: ‘Bringing my phone to its destination’.

ECOCORE is an irregularly published and independent ecology magazine exploring the camouflaged souls of ecology and culture. Published by Alessandro Bava since 2011, its latest release is ECOCORE 5: The Issue of Narcissism, which exploits Narcissus as the symbol of the modern subject. What are we as subjects and why is this question so often explored as a discourse of the body? What is our ‘nature’, and how do we get to it? How do we commune with the external as if it weren’t hostile? How do we cultivate an environment we want to participate in? Our psychic/social ecology meets with the environmental in haemorrhage of inner to outer.

www.ecocore.co

GREEN TEA WILL BE SERVED

YES YES YES Alternative Press, Exhibition & book display @ Motto Berlin

Viaindustriae & a+m bookstore with COLLI Independent

Opening Friday 3rd February from 6:30pm
Exhibition from 4rd February – 11th March, 2017

artists / poster projects:
Dallas, Dexter Sinister, Experimental Jetset, Will Holder, Pauline Kerleroux & Adéla Svobodová, Prill Vieceli Cremers, Studio Hato, Batia Suter.

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YES YES YES Alternative Press
’66-’77 from Provo to Punk

Co-published by VIAINDUSTRIAE publishing / A+mbookstore, Milano
in collaboration with COLLI publishing platform

Edited by Emanuele De Donno / Amedeo Martegani
Graphic Design, Dallas (Francesco Valtolina & Kevin Pedron)

Interviews and texts by Melchiorre Gerbino, David Goines, Matteo Guarnaccia, Steven Heller, James Herod, Coupey Pierre, Trina Robbins, Gianni Emilio Simonetti, Coen Tasman, John Wilcock.

Newspapers and Zines
Aloha, Avatar, Bauls, Berkeley Barb, Berkeley Tribe, Big Muddy Gazette, The Black Dwarf, The Black Panther, The East Village Other, Fapto, Fire!, Freedom News, Friends, Gay, Gay Power, Gay Scene, Gay Sunshine, Georgia Straight, Good Times, The Great Speckled Bird, The Haight Ashbury Free Press, Helix, Hitweek, Idiot International, Iets, Insekten Sekte, The International Times, Juche, Kabouterkrant, Kaleidoscope, King Kong International, Kiss, Liberated Guardian, Los Angeles Free Press, Loving Couch Press, Mondo Beat, Muhammad Speaks, The New York Review of Sex, Nola Express, Old Mole, Open City press, Oracle Los Angeles, Oracle San Francisco, Other Scenes, OZ, Peninsula Observer, Pleasure, Provo, Quicksilver Times, Rat (Rat Subterranean News), Real Free Press, Re Nudo, Revo, Rising Up Angry, San Francisco Ball, San Francisco Express Times, Screw, Search & Destroy, The Seed, Sniffin’ Glue, Southern Free Press, Spy-In, Styng, Suck, Virginity, Washington Free Press, Witte Krant

496 pages: illus. BW and colour
second edition: 1000 copies
language: english
size: 23×31 cm
50,00 €
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Miriam Jung @ Motto Berlin. 20.01.2017
from 6pm

Looking At by Miriam Jung
(edition of 200, softcover, 64 pages, printed in Berlin, Germany December 2016)

In summer 2016 I posted an advertisement on craigslist looking for ‘attractive casual men that are comfortable being naked and looked at for an art project: one on one photo session, b/w on film, no make-up or props, definitely no porn.’ Practically all of the replies were driven by a serious interest in joining the project and I met with 7 candidates for an introduction meeting before setting up a date for the session. All sessions were held under the same condition in a daylight studio with me and the model and an analogue camera using a 50mm lens only.

The sessions gave me room to study the male body and to train my view, to explore my own gaze as an ongoing process actually, and to find my own way of representing it in the picture. Nothing about it is a natural action and it initially evoked questions of power relations and social conditioning.

The book Looking At now gathers a picture selection of 5 photo sessions.