08.11.2017 / Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989–2017. Kunsthalle Wien.
Posted in Events, Exhibitions, Motto Books on November 9th, 2017Tags: Gregorio Magnani, Kunsthalle Wien, Luca Lo Pinto, Motto Books
Opening November 7th, at Kunsthalle Wien. Starts at 7PM.
Exhibition 08.11.2017 – 28.01.2018
What is the role of art publishing today? How have artists adapted modes of publishing as a tool for their practice? How has the notion of artists’ publishing activity changed, given the ever-increasing amount of fairs and an ever-evolving number of book-related collections in contemporary art museums? Publishing has developed a favorite site and medium for aesthetic and artistic experimentation. It has also become an alternative space for promoting unrestricted individual or collective discourse. The multi-part exhibition project Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989–2017 explores the potentials of publishing – in the form of books, magazines, journals, artistic interventions, websites – as a particular medium and context both to circulate information, knowledge – and to produce art.
Instead of looking at the already historicized and analyzed period of the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition will highlight how a recent generation of artists use publishing as a productive tool for their practice. The focus lies on the period from 1989 until 2017, taking 1989 as symbolic date to underline the shift from analogue to digital. On a political level, 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall marks a significant date. On a social level, it is an important year as it indicates the invention of the World Wide Web.
THE BOOKSHOP AS MEDIUM
The bookshop curated by Gregorio Magnani and Motto Books presents a selection of artist’s books published between the late 1980’s and the present. Together these publications offer a privileged overview of the unexpected flourishing of the book as artistic and creative medium. At the same time the bookstore highlights the wide international network of artists and small independent publishers whose collaborations and shared interests are the motors for the artist’s book renaissance.
More information here
Browse the selection of 160 publications included in the show here