After a very brief hiatus we are back on deck and ready to share with you our newest musical arrivals. Make sure to check Motto’s full catalogue for an immersive experience and our Motto Disco page, revived and refreshed especially for your ears.
To hear a selection of sounds from these albums, follow this link to our new mix created by Max Parnell.
The mix features sounds from:
King Gong Accou Richard Scott Kristen Oppenheim YL Hsueh Vladislav Delay & Eivind Aarset Sonic Boom / Papiro DJ Fusiller x Fusiller
Over the years 1919–20, the celebrated medical scientist and doctor Carl Julius Salomonsen began giving public lectures and publishing pamphlets regarding a new “epidemic” that had begun to affect the European populace: the increasing ubiquity of modernist art.
In a 1919 pamphlet titled New Forms of Art and Contagious Mental Illness, he wrote: “We stand, at this moment, before a movement in art which is psychopathic in character, and whose victorious journey through all countries is probably caused by the same spiritual disease that gave the older, religious spiritual epidemic such a powerful spread.” This pamphlet and the accompanying talks were countered by a retaliatory pamphlet published by members of Grønningen, a Copenhagen modernist painters group, to which Salomonsen responded with a further pamphlet.
Translated into English for the first time by literary theorist Andrew Hodgson, the entire altercation is gathered in this book, documenting one of the earliest rejections of modernist art.
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.
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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
Notes by Béla Feldberg is a product of growing up in an international hub and Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt am Main. Designed by JMMP (Hamburg) and written by Dan Kwon (Frankfurt/Seoul), Feldberg’s book is a coming-of-age affair by the emerging artist, and contains minimal text and b/w analogue photography from untold dérives in the compact German city of Europe’s only skyline, aka “Mainhattan”.
The structure of a 1982 Cinderella sticker album formed the basis for Lenard Giller’s Productions, exploring the tension between mass media, memory, empty frames and fulfilling time. Originally conceived to host 360 stickers as a printed synthesis of its cinematic counterpart, Giller reinterprets its configuration offering a new narrative proposition.
In Productions, none of the characters are suitably introduced, confrontations take place without explanation and the resolution is left unresolved. What remains is a broken-up storyboard, a slimmed-down tale told through drawings, the characters becoming innocuous, with their voices from the original film and their emotional journeys entirely absent. It becomes as much about the processes of production as it is about the story, Giller exposes the limits of how entertainment is made, when all is reduced to its core.
This edition of ZIGG is interested in exploring sex as an evolutionary psychology. It brings together contributions from a network of friends, peers, colleagues who have engaged or encountered the makers of ZIGG through intellectual, psychosexual vibrations. It includes text messages, illustrations, drawings, poetry, code, conversation, rants, and essays.
Contributors: Hala Bint, Alex Cecchetti, Common Accounts, Kelly Fliedner, Chitra Ganesh, Drew Gordon, Margaret Haines, Raja’a Khalid and Ahmad Makia, Amanda Lee Koe, and Deepak Unnikrishnan.
ZIGG is a publishing association engaged in critical thinking from Dubai. It circulates amorphous aesthetics, printed matters, and promotes the disciplinary blurring between sex, media, earth matter, magic, and politics.
German artist Kai Althoff (born 1966) is renowned as a figurative painter and creator of all-encompassing poetic environments that incorporate textiles, photographs, drawings and artifacts. Althoff draws from a wide range of literary, cultural and artistic influences in his work, and for his unique display at Whitechapel Gallery in London he pays tribute to British potter Bernard Leach (1887–1979), selecting around 20 of Leach’s ceramic vessels and tiles from the 1920s onward to be displayed in specially designed vitrines.
Yves Klein (1928–62) first traveled to Japan as a young man in 1952, motivated primarily by his interest in judo. During his 15 months abroad, Klein had numerous important creative and philosophical revelations that culminated in the launch of his artistic career upon his return to Paris.
Prepared in collaboration with the Yves Klein Archives, this volume details Klein’s relationship with Japan through nearly 150 archival documents, photographs and letters, inviting the reader on his journey from martial arts to fine art at the very beginning of his career. Along the way we learn of Klein’s important encounters with art critic Takachiyo Uemura, painter Keizo Koyama and design professor Masaki Yamaguchi. “Yves Klein Japon” provides essential insight into the origins of Klein’s oeuvre as both a groundbreaking visual artist and prolific writer whose short-lived career helped to transform postwar art.
This project is dedicated to the research of future actions for the conservation and promotion of biodiversity. The grasslands for insects collected in this book were made possible by several machine learning models.
