ROTE SOCKEN IN ST. PETERSBURG
An edit by Erik Steinbrecher
rakete.co [2007]

The context is Russian. Topical. The country on everyone’s lips! 

Steinbrecher had gone to the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and littered the place with his ‘embassy’ of red socks.  

Red connotes protest, revolution, a shout out for change. But in this era of ‘crisis’—i.e., no protest, but just a steady gaze-malaise of disbelief—red is about as revolutionary as my big toe. And red socks? They’re about as anti-protest red as you can get. Red socks are worn by that man with Budapesters. Red-sock-wearers seem to be daring. They are the guys who waltz into the cafe with silk-scarf flair calling out, Cappuccino!  

Red socks, however, are worn by those (like myself) who have an extreme need to impress their personality into the world. Tacky, loud, ladder-climbing rats. Red-socks-wearers didn’t get enough attention as a child (or perhaps too much). 

I don’t know if Erik Steinbrecher wears red socks. If he does, then we can throw this whole take in the garbage. This is the man, after all, who left red socks in the Hermitage, the bastion of fine arts, culture, connaissance, connoisseurdombombasticity. At least they weren’t dirty.

April von Stauffenberg

32 pages
Offset / Pantone Warm Red
Printed in Lithuania

Merci

An edit by Erik Steinbrecher.

Unlimited special editions.

Rakete.co

2018

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His mustache looked like it would tickle. That’s probably the only reason why I didn’t want to kiss him.

He was a weirdo, but not weird enough, if you know what I mean. He certainly had a flair for details. It wasn’t that. I mean, it’s not like he was wearing a mullet, no. Nor like the kind of guy to gift me a Chinatown Gucci bag. He hated scented soaps and he’d drag me out of any decent party if he found scenty sticks near the toilet. That kind of thing drove him nuts. It’s not like he had anything against grapefruit.

Early on in our friendship, he gave me a box of Gioconda pencils from Koh-I-Noor. He knew how to get me hooked. But that damn mustache. It was so thick, so neatly trimmed. He paid too much attention to the kind of things I didn’t want to pay attention to. The cappuccino foam in it, however, was a kind of turn-on.

This is no doubt why you are holding this book in your hands. His mustache, right? Admit it. It’s the bowl of bonbons by the register. But then you go undercover, under the sheets to find a lot of nudity, thwarted porn. Ja, ja, ja: bodies. Corporeality. Corporation, cooperation. Protest. Violence. Religion. Collage. A torn sheet at the back. A misbound book? A defect or just vulnerable?

Selbsthilfe ist auch keine Lösung (even self-help is not a solution) and Protestvorbild Frankreich (protest “role model” in France?) is the only text you can make out other than mine. You’re meant to struggle to read it, or maybe Erik (who has no mustache) was being intentionally casual about the way he cut out these pictures. It’s an awareness of being sloppy that is so aware, it’s no longer sloppy. A man standing with his fist held high. He’s standing in the window frame of an apartment at least one story up from the ground. He is forty and mad and he enjoys his Bud. His form of protest is a form of solidarity from the sofa. A window protest: comfy. So fucking clever. Then there’s the picture abutting it of a woman holding out her bra. We are meant to take it. She’s offering it to us. Go ahead. She wants you to.

And then there’s the spooning bodies with their tube socks in a wad next to… a bed. A solar bed. You got it? This book is brown sugar. Stinky Swiss cheese. Bad, bad, good, good.

April von Stauffenberg

€10.00

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Agenda 2017 LET’S GO/
HUR SMART ÄR DU

The artist’s first handy publication this year consists an international business agenda, a magazine and an airport cosmetic bag.
This work has a light and decorative look. It includes pictures and illustrations from the press news showing portraits of celebrities, actors, artists and politicians.

Published by rakete.co

book, brochure and bag
48+20 pages
First Edition 100 copies
€18

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Dreams First

During years Erik Steinbrecher sorted out daily dirt, leftovers and all kinds
of wrappings. The design of this artist book is based on photographes
of made layouts of waste, moody notes, scribbelings and liquid stains.

For this new episode the artist has decorated Motto’s vitrines in an instant and enjoyable way.

From July 13th to August 25th at Motto Berlin

You and me and everybody. Erik Steinbrecher. rakete.co + Motto Books.

Everybody is busy this Tuesday.

Size: 19 x 12
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 978-2-940524-40-2

€11.00

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Kirsten Palz, 100 Works (2007-2014)

Read by Erik Steinbrecher

€25.00

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This book was published on the occasion of “Under the Tail of the Horse” —

Swiss contribution to the Prague Quadrennial 2015

€10.00

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