Truly Blessed tells a powerful visual story about a community’s response to discrimination, both racial and religious. Chris Suspect came upon this unusual community by chance. He met Bilal Ali after a taxi hit Ali on the streets of Georgetown in Washington, DC. Suspect photographed the accident and sent him the photos for his lawyer to use. A few months later, Bilal invited Suspect to photograph a private party at a non-descript restaurant in Dupont Circle. At the time, Suspect had no idea he would be introduced that night to an empowered community of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender African Americans.

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where l am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4

“Sometimes it is only through photographs that we can see the sacred in the secular, or the secular in the sacred. This collection, Truly Blessed, uses photography to forge a conversation between the sacred black church and secular sexual/erotic spaces, capturing sites where the body, mind, and spirit converge. Suspect’s attention to the subtlety of the performances of everyday people-engaging in rituals of their own choosing-illustrates the diverse and dynamic realities of being black and queer in America.
I was fortunate to be a founding minister at The Community Church of Washington, DC (UCC), the church that is so well-defined in this text.
I had left the DC metropolitan area by the time of this chronicling of sacred-secular aspects of black queer life. However, while in the ministry at the “Community Church,” I always felt conflicted to literally dance in the sanctuary, after a night of dancing and sweating in the streets. My queer peers and I were taught early the separation of the church and the street, the necessary division of the secular and the sacred. In many ways, being in a church where all were welcomed-where queer met straight, trans met bi, and men met women, we were already in a cultural world far different than what we had historically been given within larger and more mainstream black churches. Dare I say, while we may have sometimes felt a degree of shame or conflict—in mixing our sacred and seculars—we all felt the harmony between the spiritual and sexual, as both energies were charged by bodily need, passion, and improvisation. Every now and then the riffs at the DJ booth inside the Bachelor’s Mill would parallel the scratch of the drums behind the pulpit. Indeed, as Suspect shares images of folks engaged in a spiritual worship experience sometimes in the midst of giving devotion to a higher power, sitting in a pew, caring for children, hugging tightly, or speaking from the pulpit-we are offered a look into a word that may be familiar to some and foreign to others.
Likewise, as we move into the clubs and homes, we are presented with bodies who speak sexuality and desire in many ways some standing and watching, some moving, some in drag, some in masturbatory bliss, some posed in a moment of intimate dance, and some ready for the camera while others are unaware of its presence. The way that these scenes of sacred-spiritual and secular-sexual expression still exude the plurality and porousness of community, allows this work to color Black queerness in all its shades.” – Jeffrey Q. McCune, Forward

Author: Chris Suspect

Publisher: King Koala Press

Order here

“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

Order here

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.

Order here.

Between 1977 and 1986, Andy Warhol created six series of paintings of various sizes, which even today are little known. Rather than featuring mass-produced photographic reproductions of well-known personalities, products, and events, these six series reveal a bent for painting in abstract patterns. Thirty-six examples of Warhol’s abstract paintings, together with a selection of stills from his early films, are presented for the first time.

Order here

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.

Order here

Catalogue published on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition devoted to the artist Mike Kelley, Ghost and Spirit, presented at the Bourse de Commerce (Paris) from 13 October 2023 to 19 February 2024, in collaboration with the Tate Modern (London).

One of the most influential artists of the late 20th century, Mike Kelley is an unclassifiable visionary who has explored notions that are still at the heart of contemporary debates: collective and individual memory, gender and social class relations, conflicting tastes, etc. The Detroit-born artist is interested in the way in which individual subjectivity is shaped by family and institutional power structures in post-modern capitalist American society.

In his performances, drawings, sculptures, paintings, installations and videos, he has consistently portrayed the role of the artist and the way in which the artist appears and disappears, like a ghost or spirit whose influence persists through the ages.

With texts by John C. Welchman, Laura López Paniagua, Cauleen Smith, Suzanne Lacy, Catherine Wood, Jean-Marie Gallais, Glenn Phillips, Fiontán Moran, Jack Halberstam, Marie de Brugerolle and Hendrik Folkerts.

Order Here

Display ist kein objekt, keine skulptur. Architektur oder performance display ist objekt, skulptur. Architektur und performance. Display bewegt sich zwischen kunst. handwerk und design. Display ist modularer rahmen und container. Display ist immer eine zusammenarbeit. Display ist plattform und gegenüber für interaktionen. Display macht unsichtbare strukturen und prozesse greifbar und dokumentiert gleichzeitig diesen vorgang. display ermöglicht wechselseitiges betrachten. ohne zu beschreiben. display nutzt kurzfristige verhältnisse. Display ist ein archiv der gegenwart. display ist werkzeug und macht raum zur werkstatt. Display baut alternativen raum. Display ist mein verständnis von kunst. display bedeutet für mich freundschaft und netzwerk. supportstruktur und suche nach handlungspotenzial. Display ist reaktion auf ökonomische zwänge des kunstbetriebs und der kunstproduktion. display ist ein anti-monument.

DISPLAY 2022 – 2016 gibt Einblicke in Paula Gehrmanns bewusst offene und auf Kooperation angelegte künstlerische Praxis. Die darin vorgestellten Arbeiten und Texte thematisieren das Verhältnis zwischen Kunst und Design, Inklusion und Assistenz und dem Handlungsspielraum künstlerischer und kuratorischer Rahmung.

Order here

Dozie Kanu’s „Cordyceps Gaud Adversary” is the first comprehensive publication that contextualizes and traces his artistic practice of the last four years in relation to the notion of Black material culture, the theatricality of exhibition-making and his understanding of contemporary sculpture.

The publication is published on the occasion of Dozie Kanu’s exhibition at Neuer Essener Kunstverein and and includes, in addition to a generous image section, commissioned texts by Moritz Scheper and manuel arturo abreu, as well as a conversation on the artistic practice of Kanu between Martine Syms, Klein, and the artist.

Authors: manuel arturo abreu, Klein, Martine Syms, Moritz Scheper 
Publisher: Motto Books, Neuer Essener Kunstverein
Design: jmmp.eu (Julian Mader, Max Prediger)

Order here

“Things can be freer and reach higher when they conceal themselves.”–Rita Ackermann

Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest in 1968 and today lives and works in New York. Arriving in America from Hungary in the early 1990s, she is immediately faced with a major challenge: to be able to survive in a foreign country as a young artist, she must be able to integrate the aesthetics of her cultural background together with what the new country offers her in her artistic practice. Her first drawings and paintings made between 1993 and 1996 show adolescent female figures multiplied within the composition and engaged in various self-destructive activities, expressed to the public through understandable and direct language. About twenty years later Ackermann abandons the figure and develops the series of works he entitles Mama, a set of compositions in which lines and gestures, figures and motifs rise to the surface of the canvas to then dissolve and reappear elsewhere. On the occasion of the exhibition at MASI Lugano, in 2022 Ackermann begins a new series of paintings entitled War Drawings, where oil, grease pencil and acrylic are heavily worked on rough linen canvas. In these works, the figures get lost and the lines are scraped away to reveal fragmented compositions.

Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at the MASI in Lugano, entitled Hidden, this book contains reproductions of all the works in the exhibition and others selected personally by the artist.

Text by Pamela Kort, a conversation between Rita Ackermann and Donatien Grau.

Order here

“Healing The Museum” is a mid-career monograph looking at Grace Ndiritu’s diverse practice over the last twenty years, which encompasses performance, film, shamanism, social actions, painting, publications, textile work, and collection research. The large selection of artworks included in the publication are in a dialogue with each other, further enriched by in-depth conversations with Brook Andrew, Gareth Bell-Jones, and Philippe Van Cauteren, and written contributions from Ifeanyi Awachie, Ann Hoste, and Hammad Nasar. The monograph’s publication coincides with the eponymous exhibition at S.M.A.K.–Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent.

Order here