romka. magazine #7

Some photographs are more important than others.

In this issue, 58 professionals and amateurs from 21 countries share their favorite photos and stories behind them. We also show you excerpts from an extraordinary photo album from 1950s Germany and the five worst photos ever.

photos & stories by:
Aaron MacDonald, Ai-Lun Huang, Alec Soth, Amber Fairweather, Andreea Preda, Anke Schüttler, Anthony Tortorici, Árpád Szigeti, Ash Bowland, Brian Weiland, Christopher Sharpe, Christopher Snyder, Clara Bahlsen, Craig Johnson, David, Paul Maharam, David Roth, Elisa Longhi, Esteban Pochintesta, Eugenio Villagra, Gábor Arion Kudász, Go Itami, Hadas Tapouchi, Irina Yulieva, Iris Janke, Jan-Dirk van der Burg, Jeff Hamada, Jennife Schäfer, Jordan Sullivan, Kaupo Roivasepp, Ksenija Kucerova, Laurence Vecten, Laurent Ripoll, Leif Gunnar Boman, Mara Ploscaru, Maria Kazvan, Markus Schaden, Michal Brezinsky, Miriam Neitzel, Nadia Sablin, Neven Allgeier, Nico Krebs, Nicolas Turlais, Nils Orth, Philippe Gerlach, Roberto Rubalcava, Roger Ballen, Ryan Becker, Sachi Nasatir, Sera Marshall, Sonya Dyakova, Stefan Peters, Stéphanie Jesus, Taiyo Onorato, Trisha Thompson, Tyrone Williams, Veronica Nardulli, Wolfgang Filser, Zara Pfeifer

yellow
edition of 1,500

11.5 €

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Palpable Language? Kasper Andreasen, Achim Lengerer & Annette Stahmer @ Motto Berlin. 3.12.2012
Start 7pm

An evening with presentations and talks by Kasper Andreasen, Achim Lengerer and Annette Stahmer on Monday, December 3rd, 2012, 19 hours at Motto Berlin. The evening will be centered around 3 publications that investigate authorship and the materiality of language:

“Parole #2: Phonetic Skin / Phonetische Haut” (edited by Annette Stahmer) is the second issue of a series of publications investigating the materiality of language. It is concerned with skin and its relation to language. The term “skin” is used here as a metaphor. It represents the surface, the protective sheath of not only the human but also of other “bodies” like the walls of a house, a product’s packaging, the earth’s surface, and so on. Skin describes the boundary between within and without, and is simultaneously a sensitive instrument for communication, directing external information inwards, as well as outwardly expressing inner states. “Phonetic Skin” is a poetic term serving as a starting point for a discussion on the connection between communication/language and skin.
With contributions by: Maria José Arjona, Janet Beizer, De Geuzen, Paul Dickinson, Mladen Dolar, Leif Elggren, Steven Feld, Leonardo Guelman, Anish Kapoor, Brandon LaBelle, André Lepecki, David Locke, Petra Maria Meyer, Jürgen Partenheimer, Naomi Segal, Annette Stahmer, Imogen Stidworthy, Trikoton, Allen S. Weiss.

“Hope to Hear From You” (edited by Kasper Andreasen) is an artists’ publication where the contributors made text-based drawings inspired by a collection of misleading emails. Using the specific qualities of waterless offset, these texts were etched directly into the printing plates that were used to produce the book. The pages show how the gesture writing is closely related to authorship, and that this position is an act of mimicry.
With contributions by: Geela Eden, Johannes Markus Frerichs, Martha Gloyer, Ada Grull, Alice Kuczminski, Alexander Kurzhöfer, Marc André Offenhammer, Gönül Salgin, Hagen Verleger, Marina Veselova.

“Scripting” is a publication series that collaborates with artists, writers, graphic-designers, performers as well as publishers – all of which are working with the formats of “script” and “text” within their processes of production. The latest issue #27 Fragile Exhibition (edited by Achim Lengerer) explores the tentative and poetic relationship of objects and their translation into the printed form.
With contributions by: Geela Eden, Katrin Grimm, Eva Hartmann, Alexandra Haase, Nadja Haase, Jonas Hasselmann, Catharina Hoops, Marleen Krallmann, Max Kühl, Charlotte Ladiges, Elina Martian, Omar Nicolas, André Offenhammer, Jakob Runge, Björn Schmidt, Selina Schnetger, Evelyn Solinski, Jan-Peter Thiemann.

Annette Stahmer (ed.): “Parole #2: Phonetic Skin / Phonetische Haut”
Salon Verlag (in collaboration with Errant Bodies Press), 2012
22 x 32,5 cm
112 pages + CD + postcard
ISBN: 978-3-89770-375-9
distributed by: Vice Versa (Germany), Les presses du réel (France), DAP (USA)

Kasper Andreasen (ed.): “Hope to Hear From You”
Artist’s book
Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design Kiel, 2011
Offset, 20 x 28 cm (outside), 17 x 24.8 cm (inside)
Waterless drypoint etchings
40 pages

Achim Lengerer (ed.): “Scriptings #27 Fragile Exhibition”
Scriptings and Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design Kiel, 2012
distributed by: Scriptings and Raum für Publikation (Germany)

In a Manner of Reading Design (The Blind Spot) by Katja Gretzinger (Hg.)

What we perceive and think of as “true” is widely influenced by our knowledge—carrying with it implicit conceptions we are not aware of. Design, as a planned action, is necessarily both theory and practice. It brings together thinking and everyday objects and therefore ingrains itself in the contexts we are all living in. Yet, being largely unreflected on, design is likely to simply affirm societal norms instead of questioning them. If design aims at taking a critical stance, it needs to change its acquaintance with knowledge and develop its own discourse to understand the underlying conceptions that are at play.

The metaphor of the “blind spot” proposes the perspective of looking at what is implicit or unnoticed in our perception. By doing so, it seeks to open up common readings of what design is and can do. The montage of texts featured here includes diverse voices and readings, meant to create a space in which debate can unfold, a debate that considers the impossibility of an unbiased position and as such reminds us of our dependence on the other in any conception—and any project design might aspire to.

Contributions by Ruth Buchanan, Helmut Draxler, Faculty of Invisibility, Katja Gretzinger, Rama Hamadeh, Claudia Mareis, Doreen Mende.

D 18 €

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Dealing With – Some Texts, Images And Thoughts Related To American Fine Arts, Co. by Valérie Knoll, Hannes Loichinger, Magnus Schäfer (Eds.)

The New York gallery American Fine Arts, Co. – whose name today is largely synonymous with that of its gallerist, Colin de Land (1955–2003) – represents a gallery practice in which a decided deviation from conventional models overlaps with successful activities within the framework of the art market. Today, American Fine Arts, Co. and de Land figure as uncontested projection screens for the desire for independence from or bohemian resistance against the dictate of the market. Particularly in retrospect, a consistent image of the gallery is not discernible. Faced with the obvious risk of romanticization, it appears all the more important to pursue an understanding of how American Fine Arts, Co. functioned as a gallery.

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition “Dealing with—Some Books, Visuals, and Works Related to American Fine Arts, Co.” at Halle für Kunst Lüneburg and Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg (May 28–July 7, 2011), which was developed by Valérie Knoll, Hannes Loichinger, Julia Moritz, and Magnus Schäfer.

With contributions by Andrea Fraser, Manfred Hermes, Karl Holmqvist and Tobias Kaspar, Isla Leaver-Yap, Jackie McAllister, James Meyer and Christian Philipp Müller, Magnus Schäfer, Axel John Wieder, Phillip Zach; a conversation between Colin de Land, Josef Strau, and Stephan Dillemuth; and an introduction by Hannes Loichinger and Magnus Schäfer.

D 16 €

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Warsaw Modern by Czeslaw Olszewski, published by Fundacja Raster

This album of photographs by Czesław Olszewski is a unique cultural testament to the decade just prior to the outbreak of World War II. It is a fascinating voyage to the “Warsaw of the future” via the city’s modernist architecture.
The album is an attempt to revive the integrity of the Warsaw Architecture School of the interwar period. Yet it is also a narrative of the visionary modernist perspective, of how architecture creates a new spatial and aesthetic order, and how photography invokes an awareness of this order within us.
The album presents close to 300 archive photographs of selected architectural structures in Warsaw, including public buildings, residential estates and villas, as well as the modernised highways of the 1930s. These photographs were scanned from the original, glass negatives. When possible, the photographer’s original frames were restored on the basis of existing notes.
The album is preceded by an essay by Professor Marta Leśniakowska and Piotr Jamski, specialists at the Art Institute at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). The text casts a closer look at the life and works of photographer Czesław Olszewski, and also explores the significance and specific character of architectural photography as a historical document.

Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Pages: 348

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HOT BOOK. Ken Kagami

Published in conjunction with the exhibition “Hot” at MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo, in 2012.

D 11€

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Super Models. Published by GDNYC

Super Models (GDNYC—S/S 2012), a new book by designer-editors Kate DeWitt, Harry Gassel and Jen Lee, is a case study, a trend report, a coded map, or series of casual conversations that seeks to plumb the foundational structure of any art or design practice: its business model. This project started with a desire to understand the structure of a studio as a design problem in and of itself and to learn how the choices made in building that structure define the work a studio produces. The germ of the idea was an interest in critical design practice. How do designers make work outside of the normal scope of the commercial ? How do they support their studios ? Is the work they are known for their bread and butter, and if not, what is ? What, ultimately, is the flow of capital that drives these practices as businesses ? What is the relationship between criticism and, to paraphrase Aristotle, keeping the lights on ? *

In Super Models, a variety of approaches to these questions are explored through interviews with a diverse group of practitioners operating on the cusp of art and design. While 2×4 and Rumors represent more normative design practices, visual artist Seth Price makes work that takes commercial art as its subject and method. Creative Time, who facilitates the production of public artworks, mirrors a designer’s relationship with an art client. Bidoun, a magazine with initiatives in education, curation, and performance, presents a model for the designed object as platform for other outlets of creation. At a more literal level, the structure of a nonprofit is explored as an option for design firms in conversations at both Creative Time and Bidoun. The “Lookbook” presents a collection of projects submitted by Jiminie Ha, Zut Alors!, and Greenblatt-Wexler, emerging designers who created work for this publication in response to informal conversations on the topic of how they define and represent their businesses.

Super Models is the culmination of the 2011 GDNYC fellowship. The fellowship asks design students working in New York for the summer to develop a collaborative research project with local designers at the center of their exploration. And so the book is also a look at the nascent GDNYC and its potential use as a Petri dish, a home for potential patient zeros, a way for designers to yearly question themselves and their established ways of working. In this spirit, the project is meant to be self-sustaining, with the recouped cost from the edition going directly back into next year’s crop of students. The book will be priced differently according to the vendor specific mark-up on the exact cost of production, which will hopefully both provide a sustainable production model as well as a kind of transparency into the point-of-sale business machinery that sustains these critical volumes.

This book surveys the relationships between a purposefully broad range of business models, revealing glimpses of a variety of practices: small and large, new and established, hierarchical and self-governing. It is an assemblage of primary research rather than an assessment of operational models. Instead of claiming to measure relative accomplishment or to prescribe methods for achieving success, Super Models is an effort to reveal the basic structural personality of a given studio. Each contributor in this book has, through their focus, built the particular machine that is their practice. That architecture therefore perpetuates its own interest. In sifting through and comparing the considered choices of these businesses, this book will hopefully contribute to a more comprehensive way of thinking about design. And through the juxtaposition of diverging methods, perhaps this research will provide the seeds for a new hybrid strain of practice, a Super Model.

* Aristotle’s discussion of being and not being in his response to Parmenides in Physics

Language: English
Pages: 57
Size: 17 x 23 cm
Weight: 170 g
Binding: Softcover

24.50€

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Censorship Daily: Netherlands – Iran. Jan Dirk van der Burg.

“My friend Thomas Erdbrink lives in Iran and subscribes to the ‘Islamic’ edition of NRC Handelsblad. When the sealed newspaper lands on his doormat in Tehran, its contents have already been secretly checked by the Iranian authorities. They do so seeking images that are unsuitable for the eyes of inhabitants of the Islamic Republic. Forbidden items used to be carefully suppressed using scissors, a ruler and blue stickers.

Photos would be left intact insofar as possible, only covering the parts that were absolutely necessary. Each civil servant would go to work with scissors and stickers in their own way. The quantity of bare leg that could be shown seemed to vary for no apparent reason, and sometimes the odd picture of genitals would slip through unnoticed.

A year ago, the blue stickers stopped appearing. For reasons unknown, the newspaper is no longer censored in this way. And so, as a mark of respect, I now present the best examples of old-fashioned censorship, handcrafted by Iranian civil servants.” – Jan Dirk van der Burg

Selected by Jan Dirk van der Burg
Graphic Design: Cobbenhagen Hendriksen
41 x 30,5 cm
2 colour offset
16 pages

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Red Handed 2012

Artists:
Abra, Akbar, Blues, Burg, Cous, Creep, Dapse, Dear, Decay, Dish, Dropo, Este, Fobia, Geo, Girls, Grasp, Iser, Isak, Jayer, Joke, K-100, Kaye, Keefe, Kroko, Kuader, Lali, Lasse, Lezz, Lucia, Luck, Marr, Mentos, Miriam, Pizza, Price, Puse, Radar, Rakie, Rayon, Rek, Seny, Setes, Shari Don

Language: English
Pages: 172
Size: 13 x 17 cm
Weight: 276 g
Binding: Softcover
In an edition of 100

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Gastronomica – The journal of food and culture.
Winter 2012

Contributers:
Olivier bauer, Andrew Beahrs, Toby Binder, Robert Bradley, Andre Broomfield, Jennifer Bruns Levin, John F. Carafoli, Leo Collum, Darrin Duford’s, Barry Estabrook, Michael Friedman, Jennifer Griffiths, Elizabeth Hale, Henry Hargreaves, Michael Joyce, Rohan Kamicheril, Alison Kinney, Mark Lazenby, Jane Levi, Margaret Lincoln, Marco Marella, Mark Morton, Shax Riegler, Alisa Roth, Katherine Streeter, Amy L. Tigner, Vijaysree Venkatraman

Pages: 140
Size: 22 x 29 cm
Weight: 450 g

16€

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