Please join us for the book launch of

Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men
Bernhard Cella
Published by Album Verlag, 2022

Art&Girls
_
Published by Salon für Kunstbuch, 2022

10 February 2023
from 7pm

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhaus)
10997 Berlin


Links:
Bernhard Cella
un.titled
art.n.girls
Album Verlag
Salon für Kunstbuch

Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men

Authors: Bernhard Cella
Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch
Year: 2022
Pages: 152
Dimensions: 12.8 x 20 cm
Language: English / German
ISBN: 978-3-85164-210-0

Order the book here

Bernhard Cella’s sweeping pictorial documentary of convalescent men present us with an iconography of a century of medical progress and, by the same token, with a typology of the mise en scenes of soon-to-be homecoming patients. These staged pictures open up a counter narrative to that of vigorous, unscathed, and invulnerable masculinity. They invariably invoke calamitous moments, sustained injuries, the scars of war as well as the causes and circumstances preceding a fateful event that no camera was there to capture. Their insistence on calm, deceleration, casual gestures, and lightheartedness in the photographer’s presence cannot hide this fact. Or, as Paul Virilio put it, “images are ammunition, cameras are weapons.”

Bernhard Cellas Panoptikum an rekonvaleszenten Männern – quer durch ein Jahrhundert – demonstriert nicht nur eine Ikonografie des medizinischen Fortschritts und die Typologie der mise en scène der bald wieder in den Alltag Zurückkehrenden. Es legt in seiner jeweiligen Inszenierung auch einen Bruch offen, der dem Bild der vitalen, unversehrten und unverletzbaren Männlichkeit zuwiderläuft. Jedes fotografische Abbild trägt in sich unweigerlich auch den Moment des Unfalls, der Verwundung, der Kriegsverletzung, bei dem kein Aufnahmeapparat zugegen war. Die Insistenz auf Ruhe, Entschleunigung, Unbefangenheit und Unbeschwertheit für das Objektiv kann nicht drüber hinwegtäuschen. Oder wie Paul Virilio formulierte: “Bilder sind Munition, Kameras sind Waffen”.

Art&Girls 

Authors: _
Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch
Year: 2023
Pages: 204
Dimensions: 14.8 x 10.5 cm
Language: English / German
ISBN: 978-3-902374-23-3

Text by Valie Djordjević
Translation by Andrea Scrima

Order the book here

We see women looking at art, everything an exhibition has to offer: paintings, sculptures, installations. If we’re women, then one could say they’re women looking at women looking at art. And if the Instagram account “art.n.girls,” which reposts images of women looking at art, is also art, then we have women looking at art in which women are looking at art. The images are gleaned from the Instagram accounts of museums, galleries, art magazines, art blogs, and auction houses. Women looking at art embody a particular image of commodified femininity that shows its bourgeois roots. Thus, they reflect the commodification of an art that’s become a mere investment. Their bearing in these PR photos is receptive, moved, submissive, and might be intended as a stand-in for the artwork’s aura, but ultimately it remains empty and devoid of meaning.

Wir sehen Frauen, die sich Kunst anschauen – alles, was die Ausstellungsorte so hergeben: Gemälde, Skulpturen, Installationen. Wenn wir Frauen sind, dann könnte man sagen, hier schauen Frauen sich Frauen an, die auf Kunst schauen. Und wenn der Instagram Account “art.n.girls,” der Bilder von Frauen repostet, die sich Kunst anschauen, auch Kunst ist, dann schauen Frauen auf Kunst, auf der Frauen Kunst anschauen. Die Bilder stammen aus Instagram Accounts von Museen, Galerien, Kunstzeitschriften, Kunstblogs oder Auktionshäusern. Die Kunst schauenden Frauen verkörpern ein ganz bestimmtes Bild von warenförmiger Weiblichkeit, die ihre bourgeoise Herkunft nicht versteckt. Sie spiegeln damit die Warenförmigkeit einer Kunst, die lediglich Investitionsobjekt ist. Ihre Haltung in diesen PR-Fotos – empfänglich, bewegt und unterwürfig – soll möglicherweise als Surrogat der Aura des Kunstwerks dienen, bleibt aber letztendlich leer und ohne Bedeutung.

6 Graphic Etudes, Richard Scott, arbitrary, 2022

Dear friends and colleagues, 

We hope you had a great start to 2023!

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

We hope you enjoy!

Dear friends,

We hope you are keeping well during these frosty days.

As 2022 draws to a close, we have all hands on deck at Motto HQ, hunting in our archive for special requests and packing the final Christmas orders.

From the whole team at Motto, we wish you a pleasant end to the year and hope to see you back here in 2023!

Holidays opening times:

24 Dec.: open 12-3pm
25 Dec.: closed
26-30 Dec.: open 12-8pm
31 Dec.: open 12-3pm
1 Jan.: closed
2 Jan.: open 12-8pm

Image courtesy of Broshuda

For December 2022 Music Mix we hosted Broshuda on a two-day residence at Motto’s store. The artist created a mix featuring music from our latest arrivals.

Listen to the mix here

Dear friends,

Please join us for the opening of

9 WINDOWS
« STATE OF THE ART »
by Mike Hentz

Presentation of WORKS 8 publication, OSTINANKA silkscreen edition, a lecture performance, and concert by Mike Hentz and Misha Ognianer.

Sunday 4 December
from 5 pm

MOTTO BERLIN
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof)
10997 Berlin

Exhibition
5.12.22 – 28.1.23

^{Photo courtesy of Wolfsko}

Please join us for the book presentation of NUMB with artists Wolfsko.

24 November 2022
from 6 pm

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof)
10997 Berlin

NUMB

Hand-made and hand-colored by Wolfsko

In Nazi Germany, at least 10.000 physically and mentally disabled children and adolescents, including orphans, misfits, and other ethnic groups were murdered as part of an ideology based on social Darwinism. For the first time in history physicians, nurses, and midwives killed by lethal injection, gas poisoning or starvation. It predated the genocide of European Jewry by approximately two years. A rehearsal for the planners of the final solution. NUMB is a study of the forgotten children of World War II.

French artist duo, Wolfsko, use mediums of expression such as photography, text, drawing, painting and collage. Their work is a long study in the world of unhappy childhood, exploring themes such as love, fear, and survival. Wolfsko currently live and work in Berlin.

Published by Wolfsko Publications

Browse Wolfsko’s works here

We are happy to announce of the arrival of the second printing of Radical Friends, edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, published by Torque Editions, 2022.

Contributors: Ramon Amaro, Calum Bowden, Jaya Klara Brekke, Mitchell F. Chan, Cade Diehm, eeefff, Carina Erdmann, Primavera De Filippi, Charlotte Frost, Max Hampshire, Lucile Olympe Haute, Sara Heitlinger, Lara Houston, Cadence Kinsey, Nick Koppenhagen, Kei Kreutler, Laura Lotti, Jonas Lund, Massimiliano Mollona, MetaObjects, Rhea Myers, Omsk Social Club, Bhavisha Panchia, Legacy Russell, Tina Rivers Ryan, Nathan Schneider, Sam Skinner, Sam Spike, Hito Steyerl, Alex S. Taylor, Cassie Thornton, Suzanne Treister, Stacco Troncoso, Ann Marie Utratel, Samson Young.

First publication to document the use and potential of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations in the arts that use blockchain technology and build on NFT innovations.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) offer unique tools for translocal peers to encode rules, relations and values into their joint ventures using blockchain technology. This new book, edited by Ruth Catlow and Penny Rafferty, who have been at the forefront of investigations into the relationship between DAOs and the arts, constitutes over 5 years of research with essays, interviews, exercises and prototypes from leading thinkers, artists and technologists across this emerging field.

Radical Friends is an urgent book for the 21st Century and beyond. It shows us, in the spirit of the legendary poet and artist Etel Adnan, that the technology of the future needs to be about “togetherness, not separation. Love, not suspicion. A common future, not isolation.”
– Hans Ulrich Obrist

How things are run is often more important than what is done. It may not be easy to establish alternative formats and infrastructures, but it’s certainly necessary… This collection shows that it is possible too.
– Sadie Plant

This book is about friendship, despair and hope — a beautiful, must-read for all people who are asking unanswerable questions about life, love and the end of the world.
– Franco “Bifo” Beradi

Order here

Dear friends,

Motto is pleased to invite you tothe book presentation of Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh: One Hundred Days of Resistance with author Prarthna Singh.

Saturday 1 October 2022
6.30–8.30pm

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof)
10997 Berlin

Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh: One Hundred Days of Resistance

Author: Prarthna Singh
Design: Bombay Duck Design (Sameer and Zeenat Kulavoor)

Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh* is an ode to the infinite courage and resilience of the women of Shaheen Bagh, Delhi, who sat in protest for a 100 days and nights. A book of photographs, drawings, songs, letters and other material gathered as a record of the iconic protest, marks an extraordinary moment in the political and contemporary history of India.
In December 2019, a small group of Muslim women from the working-class neighborhood of Shaheen Bagh came out of their homes and sat down in protest, occupying a stretch of one of Delhi’s busiest highways. They were protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was designed to strip the Constitution of India of its right to religious equality. This peaceful sit-in continued until the pandemic sent India into lockdown; the state used this as an opportunity to destroy and dismantle all traces of the protest. This book serves as urgent and crucial evidence of a time that is systematically being erased from our collective memory.

From the women of Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter, the Dandi March and Chipko Movement, to those at the front lines of India’s non-violent protests, this book is an act of remembrance that preserves the powerful legacy of women at the forefront of historic revolutions.

*Every Evening Belongs to Shaheen Bagh

Prarthna Singh is a photographer whose work explores questions of identity and gender, especially as they intersect with the fraught politics of nationalism in contemporary India. Her images reflect on the economic and political trajectory of the country, drawing connections between feminine precariousness and vulnerability on the one hand, and radical acts of strength and solidarity on the other. Her practice negotiates how the two sides are inextricably linked. After completing her BFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, Prarthna lived and worked in New York City. Currently she is based in Bombay.

Sameer Kulavoor is a visual artist living and working in Mumbai, India. His work lies at the intersection of art, graphic design and contemporary illustration, and has taken the form of paintings, murals, books, zines, prints and objects. He is interested in why things look and work the way they do; constantly noting and understanding the impact that time, culture, politics and socio-economic conditions have on our visible and invisible surroundings. In this age of visual overload, his work involves filtering, dissecting, documenting and defamiliarising commonly seen subjects through the act of drawing, painting and design – often oscillating between instinctive and conceptual methods of making.

Zeenat Kulavoor is a typographer and graphic designer based in Bombay, India. She works with multiple Indian scripts and specialises in Urdu type, lettering and calligraphy. She believes that the Urdu script has endless creative possibilities and intends to change the perception towards the use of Urdu in India, which currently is widely perceived to be limited to religious usage. Using tongue-in-cheek humour and wit, combined with the use of scale, different mediums and varied print making methods, Zeenat is working towards reinventing possibilities of how the script can be a part of regular day to day life. Apart from her typography work, she is the creative director at Bombay Duck Designs, and runs a design store called Bombay Duck Shop that sells selected books, zines, prints and objects that blur the boundaries between illustration, art and design.

Order the book here

Being Together: A Manual For Living

Artist and author Grace Ndiritu in conversation with art critic Pablo Larios

Tuesday 13 September 2022
6.30–8.30pm

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof)
10997 Berlin

6.30pm Gather
7.00pm Silent meditation
7.10pm Conversation and readings
7.40pm Silent meditation
7.50pm Conversation and readings 
8.15pm Q&A
8.30pm End  

*We ask every participant to commit to the entire duration of the event in order to not disrupt the meditation

Grace Ndiritu is a British-Kenyan artist whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world. Her writing has been published in her critical theory book Dissent Without Modification (Bergen Kunsthall, 2021); Documents of Contemporary Art: The Rural (Whitechapel, 2019) and Animal Shelter 4, Semiotext(e).

Pablo Larios is a writer based in Berlin. His work has appeared internationally in various publications, including Mousse, Frieze, 032c, Text zur Kunst, and Kaleidoscope. He is currently an editor-at-large at documenta fifteen.


Being Together: A Manual For Living

Edited by Grace Ndiritu, Pieter Vermeulen
Copy editor: Sue Spaid
Design: Vrints-Kolsteren

Contributors: Philippe Van Cauteren, Pieter Vermeulen, Grace Ndiritu, Rafaela Lopez, Roberto dell’Orco, Jana Haeckel, Katleen Vermeir & Ronny Heiremans, Nathalie Boobis, Shayla Perreault, Edward Ball, Guadalupe Martinez, Stacy Suy, Ezra Fieremans

Published by KRIEG

Being Together: A Manual For Living falls in the lineage of publications such as the Journal of the Society for Education Through Art, which throughout the 1960s provided British art schools a window into experimental education. By contrast, Grace Ndiritu’s experience in creating radical pedagogies arose from a connected, yet unorthodox system of ‘self education’. In 2012, she decided to spend time living in cities only when necessary. She thus lived in rural, alternative and often spiritual communities, while expanding her research into nomadic lifestyles and training in esoteric studies, which she began after graduating art school. This research led her to visit Thai and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, permaculture communities in New Zealand, forest tree dwellers in Argentina, neo-tribal festivals such as Burning Man in Nevada, a Scottish Hare Krishna ashram, and the Findhorn Spiritual Community in Scotland. Such lifestyles forever transformed her ideas of education and have proven critical for her art, whether conducting teaching experiments with students, peers and the general public; some of whose voices appear in this publication. Ndiritu posits, “What does (art) education mean today?” and specifically, “What does an embodied (art) education mean in a time of pandemics and social unrest?” Being Together: A Manual For Living attempts to answer these complex questions.

Order the book here