Vit Havránek in conversation with the artist (5pm) ____________________________________________
Motto – 38 rue du Vertbois – 75003 Paris ____________________________________________
“body to book” is an upcycling project that explores the relationship between the human body and books. It comprises six sculptures assembled from coat fragments and books, each covering a naked body. This arrangement invites explorations of sensuality and intimacy and encourages direct interaction with the subject. Through calling us to examine the subtle interactions between the body and the books, it offers new perspectives for artistic, philosophical and personal reflection on matter, media and the human condition.
Bernhard Cella lives and works in Vienna and Trieste. Recent and past exhibitions include Color Inventory Booklaunch, Secession, Vienna (2024); Location Advantages, Vesch, Vienna (2024); Systema, Marseille (2024); Radical Matter, dieAngewandte, Vienna 2024; Xhibit – Various Exhibition Practices, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna (2024).
Vít Havránek is an art historian and curator with a focus on contemporary art and critical studies. Since 2019, he has served as Vice-Rector at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and currently resides at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. From 2002 to 2019, he was the director of tranzit.cz15(12.5%), part of a network of organizations active in five Central and Eastern European countries. He has also worked as an external editor for JRP Ringier and curated or co-curated exhibitions of various scales on different continents, including In the Matter of Art in Prague, U3 Triennale in Ljubljana, Jakarta Biennial 2017, and Manifesta 8. He is a co-founder of the group PAS, and his articles have been published in books and catalogues by JRP Ringier, Centre Pompidou, MoMA, MIT Press, Sternberg Press, and others.
ED4M Zine presentation and Screening ‘Making of ED4M’
November 8th, 2024 Screening starts 7 pm
+conversation with the artist with K1NO1 ____________________________________________
Motto – 38 rue du Vertbois – 75003 Paris ____________________________________________
The main character is the electric train type ED4M, one of the most common in Russia since the mid-90s. This small detective story unfolds on newsprint, featuring carriage vestibules, doors, handles, and wanted persons. It immerses the audience in the realm between the living and the dead, accompanied by the sound of wheels clattering, exploring space, ritual, collective recognition, and personal experience. The Tbilisi weekly sports newspaper served as the prototype for this book.
ED4M (Electric train Demikhovsky, type 4) is a series of Russian DC electric trains produced from 1996 to 2016 at the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant. The first batch with increased comfort was manufactured for the Moscow Railway between 1999 and 2000. During this period, ED4 and ED4M models became the most significant electric trains for local purposes.
Zine features photographs by Ivan Anisimov taken between 2019 and 2022 before he left Russia. Further shooting was continued by his son Danila, who took four rolls of 35mm film in winter 2023. Zine design by Aeona Melnikova.
Screening is a documentation of the printing process of a zine in a print facility, Tbilisi.
Ivan Anisimov was born in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Russia, in 1988. For more than 10 years, he has been engaged in documentary film and photography, collecting archives from lost photographs and videos. He has carried out several photographic projects and is now based in Paris, France.
The event is organized within the framework of the cinema club and Film Association K1NO1 Paris.
We’re pleased to welcome you to an enchanting evening filled with poetry and music at our courtyard, this coming Friday, June 16th, from 18:30 onwards.
We’ll begin the evening with the remarkable Robert Stastny, a Berlin-inspired artist, who’ll read out pieces from his acclaimed Portraits. He’ll also give us an exclusive glimpse into his latest works. Following Robert’s spellbinding readings, we’ll transition into a vibrant musical performance by Yellow Hotel.
Poetry is an adventure, in itself. A voyage to somewhere, where the world of men and women – and anything you want to be – has less of an influence.
Music connects onto poetry naturally, Yellow Hotel is Roy Estel Hughes, recently transplanted from Austin to Berlin, and Robert.
Together we will travel – from poetry, to music, to somewhere else.
So, come join us at Motto for a relaxed evening filled with amusing poetry, music, books, and refreshing drinks. We can’t wait to see you there!
Motto is pleased to invite you to the book presentation of
Merci Danke Grazie by Sophia Eisenhut, Olga Hohmann, Simon Freund, Leonie Herweg, Paul Jürgens Published by windpark books, 2022
Reading & talk with the authors and designers
Friday 31 March 2023 from 6 pm
Motto (im Hinterhaus) Skalitzer Str. 68 10997 Berlin
Merci Danke Grazie Authors: Sophia Eisenhut, Olga Hohmann, Simon Freund, Leonie Herweg, Paul Jürgens Publisher: windpark books Year: 2022 Pages: 320 Dimensions: 10.5 x 16 cm Language: German ISBN: 978-3-949363-99-3
ca. 100 dog bags collected by Simon Freund, curated by Leonie Herweg, typeset by Paul Jürgens, with texts by Sophia Eisenhut and Olga Hohmann, published by windpark books.
Sophia Eisenhut is an artist and author of theory and prose. In 2021, her volume EXERCITIA S. Catarinae de Manresa: Anorexia and the State of God was published by Merve Verlag.
Olga Hohmann writes essays, short stories, columns and texts for performances. She lives and works in Berlin.
Simon Freund, lives and works without a permanent residence. Freund’s work is available free of charge to all, especially online at simonfreund.xyz. Freund is supported by several patrons with 1€ per month, no more – no less.
Leonie Herweg studied International Relations in Geneva and Tokyo. She participated in various curatorial projects.
Paul Jürgens is a designer who lives and works in Vienna and Cologne.
Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men
Authors: Bernhard Cella Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch Year: 2022 Pages: 152 Dimensions: 12.8 x 20 cm Language: English / German ISBN: 978-3-85164-210-0
Bernhard Cella’s sweeping pictorial documentary of convalescent men present us with an iconography of a century of medical progress and, by the same token, with a typology of the mise en scenes of soon-to-be homecoming patients. These staged pictures open up a counter narrative to that of vigorous, unscathed, and invulnerable masculinity. They invariably invoke calamitous moments, sustained injuries, the scars of war as well as the causes and circumstances preceding a fateful event that no camera was there to capture. Their insistence on calm, deceleration, casual gestures, and lightheartedness in the photographer’s presence cannot hide this fact. Or, as Paul Virilio put it, “images are ammunition, cameras are weapons.”
Bernhard Cellas Panoptikum an rekonvaleszenten Männern – quer durch ein Jahrhundert – demonstriert nicht nur eine Ikonografie des medizinischen Fortschritts und die Typologie der mise en scène der bald wieder in den Alltag Zurückkehrenden. Es legt in seiner jeweiligen Inszenierung auch einen Bruch offen, der dem Bild der vitalen, unversehrten und unverletzbaren Männlichkeit zuwiderläuft. Jedes fotografische Abbild trägt in sich unweigerlich auch den Moment des Unfalls, der Verwundung, der Kriegsverletzung, bei dem kein Aufnahmeapparat zugegen war. Die Insistenz auf Ruhe, Entschleunigung, Unbefangenheit und Unbeschwertheit für das Objektiv kann nicht drüber hinwegtäuschen. Oder wie Paul Virilio formulierte: “Bilder sind Munition, Kameras sind Waffen”.
Art&Girls
Authors: _ Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch Year: 2023 Pages: 204 Dimensions: 14.8 x 10.5 cm Language: English / German ISBN: 978-3-902374-23-3
Text by Valie Djordjević Translation by Andrea Scrima
We see women looking at art, everything an exhibition has to offer: paintings, sculptures, installations. If we’re women, then one could say they’re women looking at women looking at art. And if the Instagram account “art.n.girls,” which reposts images of women looking at art, is also art, then we have women looking at art in which women are looking at art. The images are gleaned from the Instagram accounts of museums, galleries, art magazines, art blogs, and auction houses. Women looking at art embody a particular image of commodified femininity that shows its bourgeois roots. Thus, they reflect the commodification of an art that’s become a mere investment. Their bearing in these PR photos is receptive, moved, submissive, and might be intended as a stand-in for the artwork’s aura, but ultimately it remains empty and devoid of meaning.
Wir sehen Frauen, die sich Kunst anschauen – alles, was die Ausstellungsorte so hergeben: Gemälde, Skulpturen, Installationen. Wenn wir Frauen sind, dann könnte man sagen, hier schauen Frauen sich Frauen an, die auf Kunst schauen. Und wenn der Instagram Account “art.n.girls,” der Bilder von Frauen repostet, die sich Kunst anschauen, auch Kunst ist, dann schauen Frauen auf Kunst, auf der Frauen Kunst anschauen. Die Bilder stammen aus Instagram Accounts von Museen, Galerien, Kunstzeitschriften, Kunstblogs oder Auktionshäusern. Die Kunst schauenden Frauen verkörpern ein ganz bestimmtes Bild von warenförmiger Weiblichkeit, die ihre bourgeoise Herkunft nicht versteckt. Sie spiegeln damit die Warenförmigkeit einer Kunst, die lediglich Investitionsobjekt ist. Ihre Haltung in diesen PR-Fotos – empfänglich, bewegt und unterwürfig – soll möglicherweise als Surrogat der Aura des Kunstwerks dienen, bleibt aber letztendlich leer und ohne Bedeutung.
Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig Nikolaus Gansterer & Klaus Speidel Published by Éditions Dilecta, 2022
Book launch
21 January 2023 from 4pm
Galerie Crone Berlin Fasanenstrasse 29 10719 Berlin
How do colours relate to memory? How does language relate to the world (and vice versa)? Can the invisible, such as thoughts, atmospheres or pain, be grasped through art? Artist Nikolaus Gansterer and philosopher Klaus Speidel discuss these and similar questions in their new book Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig, published by Éditions Dilecta and Centre d’art contemporain Les Tanneries. Taking Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations as their starting point, Gansterer and Speidel have developed various works and formats, talking, drawing, assembling or doing all at the same time. Rather than just presenting results, the book documents the joint working process in numerous transcripts, which also reflect the genesis of the book itself.
In the context of Nikolaus Gansterer’s exhibition Strange Wor(l)ds at Galerie Crone Berlin, Fasanenstrasse 29, a book presentation in collaboration with Motto Books will take place on Saturday, 21 January 2023. The afternoon begins at 4 pm with a dialogue between Nikolaus Gansterer, Klaus Speidel and the drawing expert Jan-Philipp Frühsorge. Afterwards, Gansterer and Speidel invite you to the first Berlin Language Game Lab, in which they will work with drawings and objects based on a remark by Ludwig Wittgenstein, resulting in an installation that takes up the methodology developed in the book.
Galerie Crone, Motto Books and Éditions Dilecta cordially invite you to attend.
Playing with Ludwig opens with a conversation between the authors and the book’s designer Grégoire Romanet, where the first graphic ideas are discussed. It ends with the dialogue How to close a book, which prepares the final series of images. Exhibition photographs and works from the first exhibition documenting the research project Figures de pensée at the Centre d’art contemporain Les Tanneries have been annotated, continued or completed in drawings. Different styles and methodologies, which unfold in the chapters of the book, correspond to different methods and themes in Wittgenstein’s work. Two additional precise essays by Eric Degoute, director of Les Tanneries, and Roger Malbert, curator and drawing expert, elaborate on the dynamic relationship between thinking and drawing and reading as a form of friendship. In the series Philosophical Deviations, Nikolaus Gansterer draws on various paragraphs of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, exploring various forms and procedures. Gansterer explains: “It’s important to say that none of these drawings are illustrations. I try to record how the text operates within me, how it influences my ways of thinking and feeling and then to take this movement as a springboard for drawing. It’s not so much about what is being said, but how it moves a reader.” At the centre of the book stand the paragraphs of the Philosophical Investigations themselves, to which the various works and conversations in the book refer, annotated in writing and drawing by Klaus Speidel. Memories of Colour, Just imagine a Rod and Now as One Thing, Now as Another are based on collections of hues, rods, and boxes (respectively). As Speidel, who obtained a PhD in philosophy from Sorbonne University, explains: “In our joint work, I am also interested in exploring the limits of philosophical abstraction. If we fail in our attempt at artistic concretization, this failure can in itself convey new insights in the sense of what Wittgenstein called ‚going against the frontiers of language’. I believe that art production enables philosophical insights.” This interference between philosophy and art can be experienced concretely in the titular series Playing with Ludwig. In this performative experimental arrangement, two or more people sit opposite each other. Starting from a text, a new language game unfolds with drawings and objects.
//
Wie sind Farben mit Erinnerungen verknüpft? Wie verhält sich Sprache zur Welt (und umgekehrt)? Lässt sich Unsichtbares wie Gedanken, Atmosphären oder Schmerz künstlerisch fassen? Diese und ähnliche Fragen diskutieren der Künstler Nikolaus Gansterer und der Philosoph Klaus Speidel im neu erschienen Buch Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig, publiziert von Éditions Dilecta und Centre d’art Les Tanneries. Ausgehend von Ludwig Wittgensteins Philosophische Untersuchungen, auf die sie sprachlich, zeichnend und performativ reagieren, haben Gansterer und Speidel verschiedene Arbeiten und Formate entwickelt. Anstatt nur Ergebnisse zu präsentieren, dokumentiert das Buch in zahlreichen Transkripten auch den gemeinsamen Arbeitsprozess, bis hin zur Entstehung des Buches selbst.
Im Rahmen von Nikolaus Gansterers Ausstellung Strange Wor(l)ds in der Galerie Crone Berlin, Fasanenstrasse 29 die zahlreiche Werke aus dem Buchkorpus und auch viele neue Werke zeigt, findet dabei am Samstag, 21.1.2023 eine Buchpräsentation in Zusammenarbeit mit Motto Books statt. Der Nachmittag beginnt ab 16 Uhr mit einem Gespräch zwischen Nikolaus Gansterer, Klaus Speidel und dem Zeichnungsexperten Jan-Philipp Frühsorge. Danach laden Gansterer und Speidel zum ersten Berliner Language Game Lab ein, bei dem sie ausgehend von einer Bemerkung Ludwig Wittgensteins mit Zeichnungen und Objekten arbeiten, so dass am Ende entsprechend der Methodologie von Playing with Ludwig eine Installation entsteht.
Dazu laden Galerie Crone, Motto Books und Éditions Dilecta herzlich ein.
Zu Beginn von Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig steht ein Gespräch der Autoren mit Grégoire Romanet, dem Designer des Buches. Am Ende steht der Dialog How to close a book, der die letzte Bildstrecke vorbereitet. Ausstellungsphotographien und Werke der ersten großen Projektausstellung Figures de pensée im Centre d’art Contemporain Les Tanneries werden zeichnerisch kommentiert, fortgeführt oder komplettiert. Die unterschiedlichen Stile und Methoden der Werke entsprechen dabei verschiedenen Themen und Methoden, die sich in den Kapiteln des Buches entfalten. Zwei Essays, einer von Eric Degoutte, Direktor von Les Tanneries, ein anderer von Roger Malbert, Kurator und Zeichnungsexperte runden das Buch ab und diskutieren einerseits die Beziehung zwischen Denken und Zeichnen und andererseits das Lesen als Freundschaft. In Philosophical Deviations reagiert Nikolaus Gansterer zeichnend auf verschiedene Paragraphen von Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations (Philosophische Untersuchungen). Gansterer erklärt: “Keine dieser Zeichnungen sind Illustrationen. Ich versuche festzuhalten, wie der Text in mir wirkt, wie er mein Denken und Fühlen beeinflusst und dann diese Bewegung als Sprungbrett für das Zeichnen zu nutzen. Es geht nicht so sehr darum, was gesagt wird, sondern wie es den Leser bewegt.” Im Zentrum des Buches stehen die Paragraphen der Philosophischen Untersuchungen selbst, auf die sich die verschiedenen Arbeiten und Gespräche des Buches beziehen. Klaus Speidel hat sie schreibend und zeichnend annotiert. Die Kapitel Memories of Colour, Just imagine a Rod und Now as One Thing, Now as Another basieren auf Sammlungen von Farbtönen, Stäbe und Kisten. Speidel, der an der Sorbonne in Philosphie promoviert hat, erklärt: “Mich interessiert bei unserer gemeinsamen Arbeit auch das Ausloten von Grenzen philosophischer Abstraktion. Wenn wir beim Versuch einer künstlerischen Konkretisierung scheitern, kann das im Sinne eines ‚Anlaufens gegen die Grenze der Sprache‘, wie Wittgenstein es nennt, neue Erkenntnisse vermitteln. Ich glaube, dass Kunstproduktion philosophische Erkenntnisse ermöglicht.“ Diese Interferenz zwischen Philosophie und Kunst wird in der titelgebenden Serie Playing with Ludwig konkret erfahrbar. Bei dieser performativen Versuchsanordnung sitzen zwei oder mehr Menschen einander gegenüber. Ausgehend von einem Text entspinnt sich ein neues Sprachspiel mit Zeichnungen und Objekten.
Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig Authors: Nikolaus Gansterer, Klaus Speidel, Eric Degoute, Roger Malbert Publisher: Éditions Dilecta, Paris Year: 2022 Pages: 160 Dimensions: 21 x 28 cm Language: bilingual English / French Graphic Design: Gregoire Romanet ISBN: 978-2-37372-165-2
Motto Books is pleased to invite you to the presentation of Panya Routes, hosted by the African Centre for Cities and Stokvel Gallery with guest Mokena Makeka.
22 October 2022 from 12pm
Stokvel Gallery *NEW ADDRESS* 27 Boxes 4th Ave, Melville Johannesburg, South Africa
Independent art spaces on the African continent have flourished, particularly over the past twenty years in tandem with a youthful population in fast-urbanising cities. This book takes the reader on a journey to discover their DIY-DIT working principles: horizontality, second chance, elasticity, performativity and convergence. The itinerary begins at an empty plinth in Cape Town to closely track the performative and artistic afterlife of a colonialist statue whose toppling turned public space into common space. Next stop: Nairobi, Accra, Cairo, Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam — all rapidly changing cities of flux. The author visits five non-profit platforms that build narratives in public space by stitching together art and everyday life. They create their own panya routes, or backroad infrastructures of divergent kinds, in response to prevailing uncertainty. Working largely in collaborative economies and solidarity networks through refusal and reimagination, these “off-spaces” demonstrate institution building as artistic practice. By thinking and dreaming beyond the status quo, they fast-forward to creatively inhabit city futures that have already arrived in the global South. The key platforms featured in the book’s research are: The GoDown Arts Centre, ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge, Townhouse Gallery, Zoma Museum and Nafasi Art Space.
Edited by Mika Hayashi Ebbesen Graphic design by Márcia Novais Published by Motto Books, 2022
Please join us for the research presentation of “The secrets of Lake Balkhash: community narratives, memories, and landscapes of past and futures” with author Aigerim Kapar.
Following the first launch in Bor, this event co-hosted by Slavs and Tatars will also serve as the Berlin launch of the publication As you go… the roads under your feet, towards the new future (Mousse/Rockbund Museum, 2022).
21 October 2022 from 6.30 pm
Motto Berlin Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof) 10997 Berlin
“The secrets of Lake Balkhash” focuses on the study of local values of Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan and how these values impact the everyday lives of local communities. Lake Balkhash is one of the biggest endorheic water bodies in the world and has a millennia-long history of sociocultural life, ecological traditions, and seminomadic management methods. The region also represents the position of the Kazakh Steppe, where the interests of China and Russia intersect. Today, the industrialization and militarization of the colonial Soviet period continue to prevail and frame the basin as a zone of ecological and social crisis. Lake Balkhash may disappear in twenty years and faces a similar situation to the drainage of the Aral Sea by the Soviet government in the 1950s for the purposes of agricultural production.
“The secrets of Lake Balkhash” aims to rethink the history of the region through a decolonial lens and study the future of the region reimagined by local communities. The research project is part of Artcom Platform’s Care for Balkhash initiative, and As you go… the roads under your feet, towards the new future, a long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts of Ethiopia, Serbia, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, China, Kazakhstan. It was conceived and initiated by Biljana Ćirić in 2019 after conducting curatorial research in East Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Europe, where the project is now situated. The three-year project has been conducted via individuals, cells, organizations, and institutions: Zdenka Badovinac (Ljubljana), Robel Temesgen and Sinkneh Eshetu (Addis Ababa), What Could/Should Curating Do? (Belgrade), Artcom Platform (Astana/Almaty), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), and Public Library (Bor). The project does not attempt yet another critical investigation into Chinese colonialism, but rather seeks to unpack the complexities that certain regions are confronting within their current connections to the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as their established commonalities.
Aigerim Kapar (b. 1987, Kazakhstan) is an interdependent curator, interdisciplinary researcher, and a decolonial activist based in Almaty and Astana. Kapar founded Artcom Platform, a Central Asian community-based contemporary art and public engagement organization in 2015. She has also been organizing Art Collider, a school where art meets science bringing communities together since 2017. Kapar curates a hybrid reality project Steppe Space, an important space for contemporary art and culture of Central Asia, and initiated projects of care for lake ecosystems SOS Taldykol and Balqashqa Qamqor in 2020. Her key previous works include Re-membering: Dialogues of Memories (2019), an international intergenerational project in memory of survivors and victims of twentieth-century political repressions in Kazakhstan, and Time&Astana: After Future (2017–18), an urban art research and engagement project. Kapar is currently a resident at Slavs and Tatars’ program in Moabit. www.instagram.com/aigerimkapar
Photo courtesy of Mousse Publishing
As you go… the roads under your feet, towards the new future. Published by Rockbund Art Museum and Mousse Publishing, 2022 Edited by Biljana Ćirić
Contributions by Zdenka Badovinac, Aziza Abdulfatah Busser, Robert Bobnič, Biljana Ćirić, Marija Glavaš, Sinkneh Eshetu, Chen Liang, Salem Mekuria, Aigerim Kapar, Dragan Stojmenovič, Larys Frogier, Nikita Yingqian Cai, Robel Temesgen, Jelica Javanovič, Alex Ulko, Kaja Kraner, Tara McDowell, Оasphy Zheng, Enanye Kibret, Gebeyehu Desalew, Manuel Borja-Villel, Mabel Tapia, and Ocean & Wavz.
Please join us for the presentation of Simulacrum Magazine’s thirtieth anniversary issue het Reflectienummer with editors Mirna Vrdoljak and Kenneth Geurts.
14 October 2022 from 6.30pm
Motto Berlin Skalitzer Str. 68 10997 Berlin
* Simulacrum is an arts and culture magazine based in Amsterdam. Since thirty years, it functions as an accessible and high-quality platform for students and experts from various fields to publish together. Simulacrum is a quarterly thematic publishing project that aims at fostering transdisciplinary connections among contributions that explore both historical and contemporary perspectives of the European cultural landscape.
On 14 October, Simulacrum is coming to Motto Berlin to celebrate the magazine’s thirtieth anniversary issue titled het Reflectienummer. For this issue the editors delved into the full archive and asked contributors to reflect on their submissions. These reflections offer insight into how art, culture, and historiography have changed over the course of thirty years. However, the eleven reflections bundled together do not only refer to the past. Reflection is an exercise with an eye to the future; it is a moment of standing still and thinking about how it was, how it is, and how it could be.
Editors Mirna Vrdoljak and Kenneth Geurts will hold a discussion on the blurring of boundaries across disciplines in the humanities, and the magazine’s role in adequately responding to the reciprocal influence between academic and artistic spheres. Bearing in mind the magazine’s primary focus on art historical research thirty years ago, we will speak from our own experiences with the diverging range of submissions, as well as the questions that arise with the use of new media platforms and digital modes of archiving. There will also be a moment to introduce Simulacrum’s freshly printed autumnal newspaper on documenta fifteen, The documenta Issue.
