Kippenberger: The Artist And His Families.

Over the course of his 20-year career, Martin Kippenberger (1953–1997) cast himself alternately as hard-drinking carouser and confrontational art-world jester, thrusting these personae to the forefront of his prodigious creativity. He was also very much a player in the international art world of the 1970s right up until his death from liver cancer in 1997, commissioning work from artists such as Jeff Koons and Mike Kelley, and acting as unofficial ringleader to a generation of German artists, including Markus and Albert Oehlen, Georg Herold and Günter Förg.Written by the artist’s sister, Susanne Kippenberger, and translated from the German by Damion Searls, this first English-language biography draws both from personal memories of their shared childhood and exhaustive interviews with Kippenberger’s extended family of friends and colleagues in the art world. Kippenberger gives insight into the psychology and drive behind this playful and provocative artist.

Translated by Damion Searls

D 35€

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A, by Gregory Halpern.

In A, American photographer Gregory Halpern (born 1977) leads us on a ramble through the brilliant and ruined streets of the United States Rust Belt. The cast of characters, both human and animal, are portrayed with compassion and respect by this native son of Buffalo (now professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology). The cities he is drawn to— Baltimore, Cincinnati, Omaha, Detroit—share similar histories with his hometown, and in this post-apocalyptic springtime all forms of life emerge and run riot. On the heels of Halpern’s two previous books, Harvard Works Because We Do (a portrait of Harvard University through the eyes of the school’s service employees) and Omaha Sketchbook (a lyrical artist’s book portrait of the titular city), A continues the photographer’s investigations of locations and persons that fly under the radar.

Edited by Jason Fulford

D 38.25€

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Forests, Gardens & Joe’s

Mixing and matching an abandoned Story Book Forest, historical Victory Gardens and a bar called Joe’s, in this artist’s book Amy O’Neill unfurls middle-American stories to create a feral landscape in which childhood memories rule. The project is designed by O’Neill for the Centre culturel suisse in Paris.

Co-published with:
Centre Culturel Suisse. Paris.

Edition of 100.

D 24.80€

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JFL: WHAT DOES “WHY” MEAN? . Octavian Esanu . J&L

Hilarious and profound. This book has so many layers of meaning that you can read it every day for the rest of your life. In 2001, while residing at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, artist and curator Octavian Esanu read hundreds of interviews and essays by artists and art critics. He then formed a new text out of questions about art, that he culled from his readings. Each question is duly footnoted. Originally published in 2002 in Germany by Edition Solitude, JFL: What Does “Why” Mean? is now available in North America, re-typeset and printed by J&L.

Octavian Esanu is a Moldovan artist and a Ph.D Candidate at Duke University.

D 12 €

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