Jiří Kovanda

Editor: Edith Jeřábková
Catalogue conception: Edith Jeřábková, Jiří Kovanda

Published by Faculty of Fine Arts and Design – University of Jan Evangelista Purkyne, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic © 2010

Texts: Richard Adam, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Vjera Borozan, Karel Císař, Jan Černý, Jiří David, Guillaume Désanges, gb agency Paris, Františka and Tim Gilman-Ševčíkovi, Vít Havránek, Zdena Kolečková & Michal Koleček, Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Zofi a Kulik, Dominik Lang, Lenka Lindaurová, Petr Lysáček, Ivan Mečl, Josephine Michau, Jan Mlčoch, Pavlína Morganová, Boris Ondreička, Michal Pěchouček, Marek Pokorný, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Rafani, Noemi Smolik, Jana Ševčíková a Jiří Ševčík, Jiří Valoch, Catherine Wood

Supported by Galerie Klatovy / Klenová, Galerie výtvarného umění v Chebu, SVIT Praha, gb agency

First edition
288 pages
800 pcs.

D 43€
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Jiří Kovanda. Bez Názvu

This book features a selection of collages made by the artist between 1970 – 2001 and presented at the CGAC as part of the exhibition Pink Carpet Dec 2008 – March 2009.

Published by Xunta De Galicia, CGAC (Centro Galero De Arte Contemporánea)

D 24€
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Ninja Turtle Sex Museum
James Unsworth
Ditto Press

Every once in a while, you see something that literally takes your breath away. Ninja Turtle Sex Museum by James Unsworth is that thing. Really really really not suitable for children or anyone who objects to lots of TMNT-related gay horror action.

D 12€

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It’s a Book, It’s a Stage, It’s a Public Place

Sonnabend 19. März 2011, 12.00 – 20.00 Uhr
Central-Theater Leipzig
Bosestraße 1

During last year’s Leipzig Book Fair, Spector Books organized a first meeting of independent publishers at the Centraltheater. The event combined trade fair and workshop: visitors could receive information about the programs of the 16 invited publishing projects or listen to talks given on the grand theatre stairs. »It’s a Book, It’s a Stage,It’s a Public Place« was greeted with lively resonance by guests and publishers alike.

That’s why this year, Spector Books would also like to invite more than 20 »Micro-éditeurs« from all over Europe during the book fair to present themselves and their programs on March 19th 2011 from 12.00 to 08.00 p.m. in the foyer of the Centraltheater in Leipzig. We are interested in an exchange on multiple levels: transfer of goods and thought, networking opportunities and debate should come together on the book fair’s Saturday at the theatre. The talks and presentations given on the theatre stairs will be dedicated to the conception and design of book series: participants include, among others, graphic designer Zak Kyes about »Architecture Words«, the AA School of London’s book series, and editor Jan Frederik Bandel about the history of the Fundus series.

A detailed programme with all participants and speakers will be announced by the end of February.

Mit AKV Berlin / Archive Books (Berlin/ Turin) / Argobooks (Berlin) / August Verlag (Berlin) / AA Books (London) / Bedford Press (London) / Eastside Projects (Birmingham) / Edit. Papier für neue Texte (Leipzig) / Edition Fink (Zürich) / Gagarin (Antwerpen) / The Green Box (Berlin) / Hellozine (Köln) / Institut für Buchkunst (Leipzig) / Journal of Aesthetics & Protest (Los Angeles) / Lubok Verlag (Leipzig) / MZIN (Leipzig) / Motto (Berlin) / Space Poetry (Kopenhagen) / Spector Books (Leipzig) / Wolfgang Fietkau Verlag (Kleinmachnow)

Erft Book
Ludomir Franczak

This is an identity project. I want to reveal the family secret, according to which, my real grandfather was a Hungarian doctor named Erft. It is a complicated story from the II World War, which my grandmother- Wanda told her son (my father)- Antoni in a secret. This is a story which little pieces pass by my ears from the beginning of my childhood. My grandmother died in 1996, but she left some documents. My aunt- Bozena who was with her in Budapest in 1944 is still alive…
I want to reveal the real story- by searching Wanda’s papers, looking for some historical documents, talking to Bozena, and looking for the doctor’s family. In the same time I’m interested in the process of remembrance. I want to investigate how the historical facts are being remembered, and modified in a climat of family secret- something whispered behind the closed door.
The story of my grandmother’s escape from Poland in an ambulance- smuggled through the Polish- Hungarian border by her beloved, then living in a camp for Poles in Budapest, finally giving birth to my father in a work camp in Dessau in march 1945 is a great movie story- yet it is just one of many war stories. In the same time it is the story of my family, of my identity.
The purpose of my residence in Budapest is obvious- I want to find my grandfather, my “lost” family. In the same time I’m interested in revealing of the whole process of searching and creating a legend from real story. I’ll collect the documents, record all my conversations with family members in Poland, and people that I’ll find on my way. I also want to create a hypothetical bedroom of my grandmother Wanda, and the Erft grandfather. What if they lived together after the war (Wanda was learning Hungarian in Budapest)? How would it be? How would they home look like? Would I be brought to the world if my father was born in Hungary?

D 12€
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Ruchomy Pamiętnik / Mobile diary

The last part of the Mobile Diary series. It is a book based on memories of people, who came to Slupsk in 1945-50 to live in a new land. The book includes double record cd/dvd with radio theater by Marcin Dymiter, and video work by Ludomir Franczak. Published in Polish and German languages.

Authors: Daniel Odija, Marcin Dymiter, Ludomir Franczak, Magdalena Franczak
Layout: Ludomir Franczak
Edition of 500, 112p., cd/dvd, hard cover, 2010
Published with the financial help of The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and City of Slupsk

Rocznik 1934
First book of the Mobile Diary project – based on years 1945-51 in Pomerania, when Polish and German culture was coexisting in the territory. Published in Polish and Kaszebe.

Authors: Brzozaki Group, Weronika Fibich
Layout: Ludomir Franczak
Edition of 500, 16p., soft cover, 2010
Published with the financial help of The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and City of Slupsk

Second book of the Mobile Diary project. Contemporary interpretation of the project’s idea made by 3 visual artists, and art historian. Published in Polish and German.

Authors: Adam Witkowski, Hubert Bilewicz, Paweł Kula/Maria Stafyniak
Layout: Ludomir Franczak
Edition of 500, 64p., soft cover, 2010
Published with the financial help of The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and City of Slupsk

D 20€
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Brussels Beauties

Collected & edited by Erik Kessels.
The third in the found photography series collecting images of attractiveness from around the world. After Bangkok Beauties and Bombay Beauties, Kessels focuses on the smaller scale story of one Belgian girl. Unaware of her own prettiness, she turns a pensive face to the camera in image after image. The repetitive pictures build a quietly intense atmosphere, like stills from an old movie. We are left to speculate on almost everything about her: age, period when the photos were made, exact location (the Belgian capital of the title is absent inside). Only the consistency of her ambiguous expression is a certainty. A mini Mona Lisa, she seems alternately sadly happy, and happily sad, a strangely complex and mature set of emotions for one of her years.
Black & white, 170 x 255 mm, 40 pages, soft cover, edition of 500.

D 15€
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Bombay Beauties

Collected & edited by Erik Kessels. A sequel to Bangkok Beauties, this collection of found photographs comprises a selection of pieces discovered by Erik Kessels in Mumbai. It depicts a rich mix of ordinary subjects, from hairdressers’ models to family shots to wedding images. Mixed in with this cross section of typical folk are rare shots of Bollywood actors and stars. Taken together, these show the rich diversity of the city, hinting at its untold stories and lives. Black & white, 170 x 225 mm, 60 pages, soft cover, edition of 500.

D 15€
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Bangkok Beauties

Beauty captures the eye as well as the imagination. There is something naturally alluring and distracting about loveliness; something in its purity, its naivete, its promise and its hopeful inspiration. We all tend to gravitate with passion towards the ideal. In Bangkok Beauties, Erik Kessels provides a look at a specific photographic series that depicts attractive women during a beauty contest sometime ago. Here we see the contestants displaying themselves in such a way as to be judged by their poise, their posture and their most of all by their appearance. The photographs have become even more precious and lovely in their decay. Over the years, the pictures have deteriorated, been scratched and suffered weather all of which serves to enhance their beauty both as images and as objects. In fact, we can hold these rescued beauties and see them front and back thereby join in the admiring contest that continues even still. Black & white, 170 x 225 mm, 28 pages, soft cover.

D 15€
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American Zoo

Collected, edited and designed by Jennifer Skupin, text by Zack McDonald.
Aristotle once observed that “man is by nature a political animal.” Art Director Jennifer Skupin takes this age-old profundity quite literally, compiling images of American presidents and the animals which they most resemble. It turns out that Fillmore is a mallard, Grant is a grizzly and Obama a llama. For all those hungry for the ultimate series in presidential non-human doppelgangers, American Zoo is the feast you’ve been awaiting. Black & white, 170 x 255 mm, 100 pages, soft cover, edition of 500.

D 14.50€
Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com