Color Inventory, Farbinventur

Posted in Art, history, Monograph, research on November 12th, 2024
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“Books not only describe their own contents but also the eras in which they were created.
Conceived as a color inventory, this publication gathers a selection of titles that I have dealt with, exhibited, and produced since the early 2000s. Many of these books came to me; I did not seek them out, but provided them a home. For me, books are an archive of ideas and their materialization, a mapping of my engagement with the material world.
I appreciate objects that can be held, traded, and hidden. They allow me to contemplate, negotiate, and share art without the need to seek out the fetish of the original.
The collection does not showcase the most beautiful or best books of their time. It consists art books on themes, colors, and production techniques, all of which have piqued my interest in one way or another.
The objects in this book were collected, exhibited, and re-contextualized in various forms within my long-term project Salon für Kunstbuch.
I have read some of them, while others served as models for new works. I have traced them, catalogued them, woven tapestries from their covers, and marked their ownership status.
Books are objects that lead their own unique lives.”

Author: Bernhard Cella

Publisher: Salon Für Kunstbuch

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body to book, INDEX

Posted in Art, Editions, Exhibition catalogue, Exhibitions, Gender, history, performance, photography on November 10th, 2024
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“Body to book” is an upcycling project that explores the relationship between the human body and books. It comprises six sculptures assembled from coat fragments and books, each covering a naked body. This arrangement invites explorations of sensuality and intimacy and encourages direct interaction with the subject. Through calling us to examine the subtle interactions between the body and the books, it offers new perspectives for artistic, philosophical and personal reflection on matter, media and the human condition.

Author: Bernhard Cella

Publisher: Salon Für Kunstbuch

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ED4M

Posted in Art, Artist Books / Monographs, Editions, history, Monograph, music, newsprint, Zines on November 6th, 2024
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ED4 (Electric train Demikhovsky, type 4) is a series of Russian DC electric trains produced from 1996 to 2016 at the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant for the railways of Russia and the states of the republics of the former USSR.
In the period from 1999 to 2000, the first batch of electric trains with an increased level of comfort were manufactured. This batch was by order of the Moscow Railway, and was necessary for the implementation of local flights. In 2000, the first set of AC electrical equipment for ED9M electric trains was supplied by Electrosila OJSC. It was from these deliveries that the active introduction of the equipment of this company into production began. During this period, trains of the ED4 and ED4M models were the most significant and widespread electric trains used for local purposes.

The book features photographs by Ivan Anisimov taken between 2019 and 2022 before he left Russia. Further shooting was continued by his son Danila in accordance with the list provided by his father. In total Danila took four rolls of 35mm film in winter 2023.

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A New Program for Graphic Design

Posted in graphic design, history on April 9th, 2024
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A New Program for Graphic Design is the first communication-design textbook expressly of and for the 21st century. Three courses—Typography, Gestalt and Interface—provide the foundation of this book.

Through a series of in-depth historical case studies (from Benjamin Franklin to the Macintosh computer) and assignments that progressively build in complexity, A New Program for Graphic Design serves as a practical guide both for designers and for undergraduate students coming from a range of other disciplines. Synthesizing the pragmatic with the experimental, and drawing on the work of Max Bill, Beatrice Warde, Muriel Cooper and Stewart Brand (among many others), it builds upon mid- to late-20th-century pedagogical models to convey contemporary design principles in an understandable form for students of all levels—treating graphic design as a liberal art that informs the dissemination of knowledge across all disciplines. For those seeking to understand and shape our increasingly networked world of information, this guide to visual literacy is an indispensable tool.

David Reinfurt (born 1971), a graphic designer, writer and educator, reestablished the Typography Studio at Princeton University and introduced the study of graphic design. Previously, he held positions at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University School of Art. As a cofounder of O-R-G inc. (2000), Dexter Sinister (2006) and the Serving Library (2012), Reinfurt has been involved in several studios that have reimagined graphic design, publishing and archiving in the 21st century. He was the lead designer for the New York City MTA Metrocard vending machine interface, still in use today. His work is included in the collections of the Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. He is the co-author of Muriel Cooper (MIT Press, 2017), a book about the pioneering designer.

Author: David reinfurt (Ed.)

Publisher: Inventory Press

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HaFI 018 – Skip Norman: On Africa. Skip Norman. Harun Farocki Institut; Motto Books

Posted in Film, history, Motto Books, writing on November 17th, 2023
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HaFI 018 reprints a document containing the script of Skip Norman’s film On Africa (1970). Norman, born in Baltimore in 1933, had left the U.S. in the early 1960s to study German, theater, and medicine in Göttingen. In 1966 he moved to Berlin to join the newly founded German Film and Television Academy (DFFB). By 1969, he had made the films Riffi (1966), Blues People (1968), Cultural Nationalism (1969) and the graduation film Strange Fruit (1969). He shot On Africa together with Joey Gibbs after graduating from the school. The filmmaker about his film: “The starting point is the relationship between Europe’s prosperity and Africa’s poverty; Europe’s destruction of societies and cultures, and the simultaneous use of Christianity and racial theories as justification for a massive exploitation of the colonized.” On Africa was first shown at the Festival in Mannheim in 1970 and then broadcast on television by WDR in 1972.
The script is accompanied by images from the film, and followed by five short commentaries by Sónia Vaz Borges, Madeleine Bernstorff, Marie-Hélène Gutberlet, Tom Holert, and Volker Pantenburg.

Das Heft enthält das Skript für Skip Normans Film On Africa (1970). Norman, 1933 in Baltimore geboren, hatte die USA zu Beginn der 1960er Jahre verlassen, um in Göttingen Deutsch, Theaterwissenschaft und Medizin zu studieren. 1966 zog er nach Berlin, um an die neugegründete Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) zu wechseln. Bis 1969 entstanden die Filme Riffi (1966), Blues People (1968), Cultural Nationalism (1969) und der Abschlussfilm Strange Fruit (1969).
On Africa entstand gemeinsam mit Joey Gibbs nach Normans DFFB-Abschluss. In Normans Worten: „Der Ausgangspunkt dieses Films ist das Verhältnis zwischen Europas Wohlstand und Afrikas Armut; Europas Zerstörung von Gesellschaften und Kulturen, und gleichzeitiger Einsatz von Christentum und Rassentheorien als Rechtfertigung einer gewaltigen Ausbeutung der Kolonialisierten.“ On Africa wurde am 7. Oktober 1970 bei der XIX. Internationalen Filmwoche Mannheim in der „Informationsschau“ aufgeführt; 1972 lief der Film im WDR.
Das Skript wird begleitet von zahlreichen Bildern aus dem Film und kontextualisiert durch fünf Kurzessays von Sónia Vaz Borges, Madeleine Bernstorff, Marie-Hélène Gutberlet, Tom Holert und Volker Pantenburg.

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Die Aufstellung. Rebekka Bauer. Verlag Marian Arnd

Posted in Exhibition catalogue, history, photography, writing on March 28th, 2023
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Die Aufstellung thematisiert die Weitergabe von Traumata des 2. Weltkriegs im Wohnhaus meiner Familie. Ausgangspunkt ist ein Archiv von 500 Metallobjekten, die mein Großvater, ein ehemaliger Wehrmachtssoldat, über mehrere Jahrzehnte im Keller unseres gemeinsamen Wohnhauses fertigte. Die Objekte werden in der handwerklichen Routine zu Trägern des Traumas. Um den Einfluss der unausgesprochenen Kriegserlebnisse auf den Familienalltag zu zeigen, setze ich die Metallgegenstände sowohl mit Kriegsfotografien als auch Familienfotos ins Verhältnis, die Ausschnitte aus dem Alltag meiner Familie bis in die frühen 2000er Jahre zeigen.

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Omen: Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration (1935-1944). León Muñoz Santini, Jorge Panchoaga. Gato Negro Ediciones

Posted in history, photography, politics on March 21st, 2023
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Chasing the ghost, the traces of oblivion, and the echoes of what was and no longer is, the book “Omen” is a revision and reframing of the fraction of the photographic archive of the Farm Security Administration (1935-1944) hosted at the New York Public Library. That program—perhaps there is no need to add—was one of the milestones of modern documentary photography, instrumental on the constructing an hegemonic narrative; one mainly about triumph against adversity, division, and catastrophe in the recent history of the United States.

But by stressing the gaze over that monumental set of images, and scrutinizing at the corners of the pictures, at the backgrounds and details—in the secondary characters, in what should not be there, that which appears by chance, accident or error— it is possible to discover a different narrative, one that is thicker, murkier, more troubled, complex, contemporary and contradictory. Both a shatter and an apex: a premonition of the genealogical continuity of the many (tumultuous, visible and invisible, thunderous and silent) systemic violence that make up the face of American society.

A book that serves as a mirror of the distressing reality of the United States in our days, and, a the same time, as a device for reflection on the way historical and documentary photography is read and understood, taking the editorial eye to its ultimate consequences.

Photographs by Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano

Excavations at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs of the New York Public Library

Concept and selection by León Muñoz Santini, Jorge Panchoaga
Edition by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

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Amaneceres Domésticos / Domestic Dawns. Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas, José María de Lapuerta (Eds.). Ediciones Asimétricas

Posted in history, illustration, interior, lifestyle, photography on March 14th, 2023
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“Amaneceres Domésticos. Temas de vivienda colectiva en la Europa del siglo XXI” presenta, a partir de obras construidas, los temas principales que van modelando la vivienda colectiva europea en el siglo XXI. A través de una serie de conceptos, ejemplificados con proyectos construidos, sus editores, Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas y José María de Lapuerta, proponen un lugar de reflexión y debate sobre el presente y el futuro de los espacios que habitamos. A través de 28 ejemplos paradigmáticos de vivienda construida organizados en torno a siete categorías: Conciencia climática, Recargas activas, Cuidados domésticos, Nueva gestión, Contextos urbanos, Vivir y compartir e Identidades icónicas, más un epílogo COVID se muestran los conceptos fundamentales de la nueva habitabilidad que se están desarrollando en la vivienda colectiva de la Europa de principios del siglo XXI, propiciando de este modo un debate que permita continuar avanzando en este sentido.

Textos de Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas, José María de Lapuerta, Eduardo Prieto, Almudena Ribot, Hilde Heynen, Marina Otero Verzier, Elli Mosayebi, Amparo Lasén, Uriel Fogué y Javier Echeverría
Diseño: gráfica futura
Traducción: Noemí Gª Millán y Mike Lumber
Edición: Fundación ICO, Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana (MITMA) y Ediciones Asimétricas

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Taxonomy of The Barricade. Image Acts of Political Authority in May 1968. Wolfgang Scheppe. NERO

Posted in history on April 14th, 2022
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An iconographic taxonomy—researched, conceived, and ideated by Wolfgang Scheppe, also author of the book’s final essay—that traces the state and police visual control through almost 500 images from the May 1968 police archives in Paris.

The pictorial order of a regime of surveillance applied during the last wide-ranging insurgence in Europe’s history surfaces from the analysis of this unique visual archive. Following the events happening at the Sorbonne in May 1968, alongside general strikes and nationwide factory occupations, France’s state of emergency becomes apparent through a specific iconography of visual control.

This critical moment in the development of governmental visualization strategies towards a totalitarian god’s perspective on the urban fabric has been researched and documented for the first time, by employing the vast photo archives of the Archives de la Préfecture de police de Paris. Among other characteristic typologies of authoritative monitoring aspects, the events in May ’68 marked the historic beginning of the deployment of helicopter based aerial photography as a means of governmental crowd control in a situation of escalating insurrection. The political will to gain an unobstructed view on any individual motion pattern represented in the project leads to epistemically-new technologies that combine observation with political governance, and the use of force as recently manifested in the agency of drones and face recognition.

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Kushtetuta? #3. Petrit Halilaj & Alvaro Urbano (Eds.)

Posted in history, politics, Zines on August 27th, 2021
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kushtetuta_3 kushtetuta-3-petrit-halilaj-alvaro-urbano_motto_1 kushtetuta-3-petrit-halilaj-alvaro-urbano_motto_2 kushtetuta-3-petrit-halilaj-alvaro-urbano_motto_3 kushtetuta-3-petrit-halilaj-alvaro-urbano_motto_4

Kushtetuta? #3, 2021

Printed zine, edited by Petrit Halilaj and Alvaro Urbano.

Kushtetuta, an independent fanzine started in 2012 whose title means “constitution” in English. In Albanian, if you divide the word into KUSH TE TUT A?, it means “who scares you?”.

This is a special issue coinciding with Kosovos Parliament‘s drafting of the Civil Code.

This time we would like to celebrate queer lives under the theme of codes. Such as language code, gestural code, gender codes, secret codes..

Edition 1/500

Contributions:

Daniela Aparicio Ugalde & Jo Landt @gorditx_petrolerx
Atdhe Behluli @atdhe_5000
Cooking Sections @cookingsections
Forrest Bess
dyqlberizm
Sokol Ferizi @havok_celeste
Hal Fischer
Nezim Frakulla
Plator gashi & Hashim Shala
GENERAL IDEA @aa_bronson
Robert Gober
Felix Gonzalez-Torres @felixgonzaleztorres.foundation
Enver Hadzijaj @neverenver
Petrit Halilaj
David Horvitz @davidhorvitz
Jetmir Idrizi @jetmiridrizi_jetko
jehonË Jahaj @nanajoteneberlin
Egzon Krasniqi
Maria Loboda @marialoboda000
şugarİye madİsİ @ovulundesi
AD MINOLITI
Ndre Mjeda
Henrik Olesen
Jill Peters
Leart Rama @leart_rama
Morgan le Ferec & Marouchka Payen
Arbër Selmani
Diamond Stingily
Christine Sun Kim @chrisunkim
Gábor Tóth @rehfeldt_mailartarchive
Alvaro Urbano @alvaro_urbano
Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt @rehfeldt_mailartarchive

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