Behind Reason

Posted in Editions, poster on January 11th, 2024
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A series of prints on the overlooked story of mysticism within modernity, made to accompany Beyonsense, Slavs and Tatars’ Projects 98 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

2012
mimeograph print,
dimensions variable (if framed 70 x 100 cm)
edition of 30 (+1 AP), numbered

300€ plus tax and shipping

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Nothing – Liza Kin

Posted in Motto Berlin store on January 2nd, 2024
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Nothing exhibition / Liza Kin @ Motto Berlin

from 10.10 until 11.11.2023

Brain Drain – Alexander Rosenkranz

Posted in photography on January 2nd, 2024
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BRAIN DRAIN

20 photographs from Istanbul, taken in September 2023

Photography and edit by Alexander Rosenkranz
Printed on Konica Minolta Bizhub C220

Edition of 50 copies

Self published
2023, Alexander Rosenkranz
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Wiggle – “Best of” USB Drive

Posted in Japan, music on January 2nd, 2024
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Wiggle “Best of” USB Drive
A USB drive disguised as a cassette tape created for the Berlin concert at Panke Gallery in 2023. Contains tracks selected from all of their releases to date (1996-2023) as well as a megamix of most of their songs.

Handmade by Gil Kuno using glitching techniques on a laser cutter.

Wiggle “Best of 1996-2023”

01 Boik
02 Warning
03 Daisuki Me (Alternative Mix featuring Sexy Funko)
04 Signal Fault (featuring Cristian Vogel)
05 Feedback
06 Headbash (featuring Ken Ishii)
07 Krictl
08 Wadjala Spirit (featuring Ken Ishii)
09 Pejuta (featuring Tatsuya Yoshida [Ruins])
10 Let It Wiggle (featuring Ken Ishii)
11 Fridgeon
12 Amphibian
13 Discoship
14 Megamix

Wiggle members (past and present): Gil Kuno, Simon Bennett, Brett Boyd, Tatsuya Oe, Linda, RinaRina, Murochin, Eiichiro Suzuki

Wiggle website: wiggle.band


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(In)dependent Contemporary Art Histories. Various.  LTMKS

Posted in writing on December 22nd, 2023
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(In)dependent Contemporary Art Histories 
Artist-run initiatives in Lithuania

This is the third attempt (1st volume of the book was published in 2011, the 2nd in 2014) to compile stories about the genesis and evolution of contemporary art in Lithuania from the period of cold 1980s, Revival (1987) and the restoration of Lithuania’s Independence (1990) to this day. History unfolds in the critical texts by art critics and artists themselves, as well as in first-hand accounts – conversations with the initiators of art events. Texts are accompanied by abundant visual evidence – the documentation of forty-two years’ worth of events and works of art. The book offers a captivating kaleidoscope of subjective stories about artists’ and curators’ initiatives in Vilnius and other cities in Lithuania as well as abroad.

Tai trečias bandymas (I tomas išleistas 2011 m., II tomas – 2014 m.) sudaryti istorijų rinkinį apie šiuolaikinio meno genezę ir raidą Lietuvoje nuo šaltųjų 1980-ųjų, Sąjūdžio ir Nepriklausomybės atkūrimo iki šių dienų. Istorija skleidžiasi kritiniuose menotyrinink(i)ų bei meninink(i)ų tekstuose ir liudijimuose iš pirmų lūpų – įvykius ir meno renginius inicijavusių meninink(i)ų, kritik(i)ų ir kuratorių pasakojimuose. Tekstus gausiai papildo vaizdiniai liudijimai – keturiasdešimt dvejų metų renginių ir kūrinių dokumentacija. Knyga patraukia subjektyviomis istorijomis apie menines ir kuratorines iniciatyvas ir savivaldas įvairiuose Lietuvos miestuose ir užsienyje.

Conversations with artists, curators and art critics /
Pokalbiai su menininkais, kuratoriais ir menotyrininkais 

Česlovas Lukenskas, Rūta Drabavičiūtė-Lukenskienė, Ramūnas Paniulaitis, Arūnas Kulikauskas, Aleksas Andriuškevičius, Darius Čiuta, Redas Diržys, Sigitas Krutulys, Benas Šarka, Juozas Milašius, Audrius Šimkūnas, Armantas Gečiauskas-Arma Agharta, Vita Zaman, Mantas Kazakevičius, Tomas Danilevičius, Reda Aurylaitė, Rolandas Marčius, Skaistė Marčienė, Ignas Gleixner, Saulius Paukštys, Rytis Bartkus, Stasys Banifacius Ieva, Inesa Brašiškė, Gerda Paliušytė, Lina Rukevičiūtė, Laurynas Skeisgiela, Milda Dainovskytė, Justina Zubaitė, Tomas Lučiūnas, Simonas Nekrošius, Živilė Lukšytė, Marius Juknevičius, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Aistė Kisarauskaitė, Aistė Ulubey, Kristina Savickienė, Robertas Narkus, Evelina Šimkutė, Juozas Laivys, Lina Praudzinskaitė, Jurgita Žvinklytė, Tomas Karklinis, Laura Garbštienė, Elena Juzulėnaitė, Stanislovas Tomas, Gintaras Čaikauskas, Sabina Daugėlienė, Margarita Kaučikaitė, Matas Šiupšinskas, Šarūnas Petrauskas, Svetlana Šuvajeva, Ilja Budraitskis, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Kęstutis Šapoka, Karolina Rybačiauskaitė

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The Incomplete Rationalism of OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen. Roberto Gargiani. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

Posted in Monograph, writing on December 16th, 2023
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ARCHITECTURAL WORKS BY OFFICE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: THE INCOMPLETE RATIONALISM OF OFFICE KERSTEN GEERS DAVID VAN SEVEREN.

Die Publikation stellt die Projekte von OFFICE durch eine kritische Analyse auf der Grundlage von Archivdokumenten vor und rekonstruiert den Einfluß der kreativen Prinzipien von OFFICE auf die neuen Architektengeneration. Die OFFICE-Projekte wurde in den frühen 2000er Jahren erstmals wahrgenommenund erlangten als neue Formen der digitalen Collage mit kulturellem Engagement große Bekanntheit. Der Autor zeichnet die Entwicklung ihrer frühen Ideen, die als Papierarchitektur entwickelt wurden, bis hin zu den heutigen Gebäuden von erheblicher Größe und Präsenz nach. Das dem Buch zugrunde liegende Argument zeigt die Fähigkeit von OFFICE, in jedem Projekt den Funken einer theoretischen Konstruktion zu bewahren, die in den meisten Fällen nach einer rigorosen Ökonomie der Mittel ausgeführt wird. Selbst die neuen Denkmäler für öffentliche Einrichtungen werden weiterhin von einer kreativen Spannung radikaler Überlegenheit erhellt. ***** This book presents OFFICE projects through a critical analysis based on archive documents. It also reconstructs the influence of OFFICE’s creative principles among the new generations of architects. The OFFICE projects appeared in the early 2000s and gained prominence as new forms of digital collage with a cultural engagement. The author traces the evolution of their early ideas developed as paper architecture to the current buildings of a significant scale and presence. The underlying argument of the book demonstrates OFFICE’s ability to preserve in every project the spark of a theoretical construction, which in most cases is carried out according to a rigorous economy of means. Even the new monuments for public institutions continue to be illuminated by a creative tension of radical superiority.

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Local Stickerbook #4. Yan Tashtoush, Alexandra Sakara, Katia Samogon, Stasiya Lutova (Eds.).

Posted in graphic design, photography on December 6th, 2023
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“Local Stickerbook” is an independent magazine exhibiting works of contemporary Ukrainian artists. For each edition, around twenty artists are selected to represent their creations through the sticker format. The project was launched in February, 2021 as an initiative of Kyiv-based artists and curators. Since that time, the team successfully hosted several multi-format events uniting various local musicians, artists and enthusiasts to explore metamodernistic ideas and approaches. 

The Local Stickerbook team also provides artists and their families with financial aid. The team intends to create a special financial support foundation giving a part of the profits and donations to the Ukrainian artists in need. Together we make a difference!

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Houston. Thomas Block Humery. Alberto Books

Posted in photography, travel on December 2nd, 2023
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« Houston » n’est pas un livre comme les autres. Par le biais particulier de l’autobiographie, il nous invite à parcourir, ou à imaginer, la moins connue des grandes mégalopoles américaines. À côté de Los Angeles, New York, Miami ou Chicago, cette ville du Texas n’a rien de la ville de carte postale. Elle en est peut-être même l’antithèse avec ses quartiers très étendus, ses autoroutes qui la divisent, pour ne pas dire la tranchent et son « downtown » accablé par la chaleur en été. Pourtant c’est là que Thomas Block Humery nous invite à concevoir la ville au-delà des considérations urbanistiques, socio-économiques ou culturelles, en mettant l’accent sur la dimension intime comme dynamique de connaissance. Il voit la ville avant tout comme un lieu de projection de soi validé par l’amour, l’ambition, la réalisation de soi, le confort esthétique et d’autres grandes espérances difficilement quantifiables.

La ville est ici liée au sentiment et à l’émotion. Selon cette proposition, l’auteur dépasse les descriptions de géographie humaine, faites de courbes démographiques, de statistiques économiques ou de taux d’activité, pour ne conserver que la perspective individuelle faite de ressenti, d’adaptation, de partage, de liens possibles, de visions changeantes, traversée par la contingence, la délicatesse voire la fragilité de l’expérience. L’espace urbain se déploie selon les modalités de la rencontre qui joue un rôle catalyseur et accélérateur. Houston devient le théâtre d’une interaction où la connaissance de l’espace va de pair avec l’intensification de la relation.

L’auteur revient dix ans après cet épisode vécu et fait le point sur cette connaissance spécifique où des habitudes s’étaient enracinées et où des liens s’étaient noués. Houston est alors un décor de théâtre où des scènes réelles se sont jouées, un décor qui a lui-même changé, transformé par les forces inhérentes et spécifiques des villes américaines pour lesquelles une décennie est déjà une fraction importante du temps. La ville et son visiteur se retrouvent comme deux amants qui n’arrivent plus vraiment à communiquer. On dit que les criminels reviennent toujours sur les lieux de leur crime. Qu’en est-il de la personne qui revient sur les lieux d’une histoire passée ?

Le projet pose ici la question : peut-on montrer ça en images ? La réponse est ambiguë, avec des oui et des non, car les images, malgré leurs limites, peuvent traduire la présence et l’absence, le rêve et la réalité, le passé et parfois la précarité du présent. Thomas Block Humery s’amuse à rendre la ville de Houston labyrinthique, parcellaire, géométriquement abstraite et peut-être même chimérique, comme lorsque l’on veut recoller un bout de vie à un autre.

Le livre est plein de poésie et de profondeur où il est question d’un photographe qui ne voit plus que des métaphores plutôt que le réel. Le projet devient une autofiction et la réponse qu’il propose prend la forme d’une œuvre d’art. Il est question de relations à distance, de publicités détournées d’un âge d’or, de façades de buildings qui font écran, de temps qui passe, du souvenir de “Paris, Texas”, de la flore locale, d’appareils photo et de négatifs vierges. La ville devient une utopie, avec des souvenirs qui reviennent et des futurs qui se dessinent.

Le projet prend une place particulière aujourd’hui à l’heure où beaucoup d’entre nous sont tentés d’aller vivre « ailleurs », où une nouvelle forme de nomadisme s’implante dans des modes de vie changeants. L’expérience montre ici un phénomène de fragmentation, où la vie n’est plus une simple ligne droite mais une succession de moments où l’enracinement semble se faire à différents coins du globe, dans une sorte d’atomisation des destins pris dans une multitude de potentialités. Thomas Block Humery ne tranche pas sur la morale de l’histoire. Il accepte les espoirs comme les échecs et les prend comme les ferments d’une vie qu’il préfère romanesque que totalement maîtrisée.

La description de « Houston » ne saurait être complète sans la mention texte de l’auteur qui fait partie du projet, un texte en forme de confession qui contextualise le corpus d’images et qui fait entrer, pas à pas, le lecteur dans une sphère secrète où chacun peut un peu se retrouver.

———–

“Houston” is not like any other book. Through the unique approach of autobiography, it invites us to explore, or imagine, the lesser-known of the major American metropolises. Compared to Los Angeles, New York, Miami, or Chicago, this Texan city has nothing of the postcard-perfect image. It may even be the opposite with its sprawling neighborhoods, highways that divide, or dare I say, cleave it, and its downtown area sweltering in the summer heat. Nevertheless, it is here that Thomas Block Humery invites us to conceive the city beyond urban, socio-economic, or cultural considerations, emphasizing the intimate dimension as a dynamic of knowledge. He perceives the city primarily as a place of self-projection validated by love, ambition, self-fulfillment, aesthetic comfort, and other hard-to-quantify aspirations.

In this perspective, the city is closely tied to feelings and emotions. With this proposition, the author transcends human geography’s descriptions consisting of demographic curves, economic statistics, or labor participation rates, retaining only the individual perspective shaped by emotions, adaptation, sharing, potential connections, and ever-changing visions influenced by contingency, delicacy, and the fragility of experience. The urban space unfolds through the dynamics of encounters, acting as a catalyst and an accelerator. Houston becomes the stage for an interaction where understanding of space goes hand in hand with the deepening of relationships.

The author revisits this specific knowledge a decade after the experience, reflecting on entrenched habits and forged bonds. Houston serves as a backdrop where real scenes played out, a backdrop that has changed, transformed by the inherent and specific forces of American cities for which a decade is a significant fraction of time. The city and its visitor reunite like two lovers who struggle to communicate. They say that criminals often return to the scene of their crime. What about someone who revisits the scenes of a past story?

The project raises the question: can this be conveyed through images? The answer is ambiguous, with both yes and no, because images, despite their limitations, can convey presence and absence, dreams and reality, the past, and sometimes the precariousness of the present. Thomas Block Humery playfully turns the city of Houston into a labyrinth, fragmented, geometrically abstract, and perhaps even chimerical, as if trying to piece together one fragment of life with another.

The book is replete with poetry and depth, featuring a photographer who sees metaphors more than reality. The project evolves into autofiction, and the response it offers takes the form of an artwork, touching on long-distance relationships, advertisements diverted from a golden age, building facades that act as screens, the passage of time, memories of “Paris, Texas,” local flora, cameras, and blank negatives. The city becomes a utopia with returning memories and emerging futures.

The project holds a particular place today, as many of us are tempted to live “elsewhere,” where a new form of nomadism is emerging in changing lifestyles. The experience here reveals a phenomenon of fragmentation, where life is no longer a simple straight line but a succession of moments, where rooting oneself seems to occur in various corners of the globe, in a kind of atomization of destinies caught in a multitude of potentialities. Thomas Block Humery does not pass judgment on the moral of the story. He embraces hopes and failures, regarding them as the ferment of a life that he prefers to be more romantic than entirely controlled.

The description of “Houston” would not be complete without mentioning the author’s text, which is part of the project, a confessional text that contextualizes the image corpus and gradually immerses the reader into a secret sphere where everyone can find a piece of themselves.

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Finlandia. Gerardo Montiel Klint. librosmorg

Posted in photography on December 1st, 2023
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“The explorer of himself navigates in a sea that does not exist. He steers the small rowboat towards the rocky coastline, guided by the roar of the breaking waves.” 

Photographs by Gerardo Montiel Klint
Texts by Mauricio Ortiz and Rebeca González

100 copies

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 I did not plan to stop there but. Iga Mroziak.

Posted in photography on November 29th, 2023
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I did not plan to stop there but is a collection of photographs that offers a closer look at scenes from everyday life.
Both unknown people and random objects become the target of careful observation. Put in the spotlight (although still in their original context), they become a detail under a magnifying glass − and turn into (Insta)stories about themselves. They don’t pretend to be anything other than what they
really are. An interesting slice of reality. A modern melancholy.
By using an iPhone camera to get closer to my surroundings, I am able to capture details that are easily overlooked without interfering with them. I work organically: sometimes I instinctively take photos with my phone, even if I have already taken them with the camera. And then I immediately make them public, as proof of the existence of ordinary beauty, as something that gives me a feeling of comfort and
elation. It is a process that has accompanied me since my beginnings with photography.
These photos represent life’s great journey as well as small daily trips, with all the unscheduled stops I make along the way. They reflect the experience of finding the extraordinary while exploring the real.

Edited and designed by Iga Mroziak
Photographs, poem, drawings by Iga Mroziak
Softcover
Self-publishing
First edition (2023)
Language: English, Polish
Pages: 176
Proofreading: Piotr Mroziak

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