Text by Paul Thek. Photographs by Peter Hujar. Afterword by Andrew Durbin.
Follow the friendship and romance of storied artists Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, from the US to Italy and back again, through previously unpublished letters, postcards, candid portraits and contact sheets
Pbk, 9 x 12 in. / 192 pgs / 9 color / 35 bw. | 11/18/2025 | Awaiting stock $30.00
Published by Primary Information. Text by Paul Thek. Photographs by Peter Hujar. Afterword by Andrew Durbin.
This volume shines a spotlight on the deep relationship between Paul Thek (1933–88) and Peter Hujar (1934–87) through the artists' letters and photographs. The book opens with Hujar's early portraits capturing the beginnings of their relationship, including Thek's first letters to Hujar, written while aboard a containership en route to Europe, where the two would eventually meet in Rome. From there, the publication traces their evolution into the icons we know them as today, with the remaining letters tracing Thek's travels and adventures, romantic dalliances, work and financial ups and downs through 1975. Stay away from nothing reproduces more than 50 letters and postcards, along with drawings and other ephemera; their poetic, quotidian and melancholic tone provide a rare glimpse into Thek and Hujar's relationship as it waivers between seduction, glamour, tumult and mischievousness. Throughout this period, Hujar photographed Thek in his now iconic style, capturing him in Italy, in various studios and on the beaches of Fire Island. Included are the artist's now-classic images of Thek in the catacombs in Palermo, as well as his studio portraits of the artist creating The Tomb. Among these well-known works are dozens of other photographs and contact sheets, many unpublished until now, including candid portraits of Thek as well as images of the two artists goofing around or posing for passport photos. Collectively, these images demonstrate not only the complex emotional interiority of Thek but the tender, dark and hopeful connection between the two artists, lovers and friends.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Text by Marietta Franke, Bernd Kirtz, Franz Deckwitz, Michael Krajewski, Raimund Stecker, Reinhard Voigt. Interview by Franz Deckwitz.
This publication documents a little-known temporary artwork. In the winter of 1973/74, Paul Thek (1933–1988) was a guest of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, where he installed the room-filling environment "Ark, Pyramid – Christmas" ("The Manger")--a development of the legendary "Pyramid" installation realized at Documenta 5 in 1972. This exhibition, organized by the director of the museum at the time, Siegfried Salzmann, was the fourth in Thek’s large-scale projects in Europe, all of which engaged with individualized religious symbols (or what Harald Szeemann termed "Individual Mythologies"). The Christmas season provided Thek with the occasion to present, for the first time, a self-written theater piece in the form of a nativity play featuring children from Duisburg. This book reproduces the museum’s archival materials, offering a reconstruction of the exhibition. It includes an interview with Edwin Klein, who assisted with Thek’s installation.
Published by Revolver. Edited with text by Susanne Neubauer.
Paul Thek in Process gathers all of the research material that was made public in various formats during the 2012–2013 traveling European exhibition series Paul Thek in Process. The exhibition was born out of the desire to memorialize the installation work that Thek created in Europe and to approach it within a larger historical context. As exhibition, documentation and a restaging, the project not only traced the tracks of a lost artistic practice of the 1970s, but also examined the importance of ephemeral material in exhibition contexts, the boundaries of the artwork, the exhibition and institution history, the reception and today’s practice of restaging. The publication includes a list of works, a biography and a history of objects, an image documentation of the exhibitions and a self-critical curatorial review of the project.
PUBLISHER Revolver
BOOK FORMAT Paperback, 6 x 8.25 in. / 214 pgs / 47 bw.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 7/31/2014 Out of print
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 135
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9783957630988TRADE List Price: $29.95 CAD $35.00
Published by JRP|Ringier. Edited and text by Susanne Neubauer.
In 1971, Harald Szeemann invited the American sculptor and installation pioneer Paul Thek to contribute to Documenta 5. Szeemann had named one section of the Documenta “Individual Mythologies,” describing a new kind of art structured around a mythology invented by individual artists, rather than by a culture. Thek’s contribution--the now legendary “Pyramid” installation--came to be seen as the supreme example of Individual Mythology, and is one of Thek’s best known works (Documenta 5 is likewise among the most famous of all Documentas to date). Paul Thek in Process stems from an unrealized publication that Thek had hoped to produce for Documenta 5, which would enlarge upon the occasion and the mythology of his “Pyramid.” It comprises a trove of previously unpublished photographs recording the installation at Moderna Museet in 1971–72, all of the surviving correspondence between Thek and the museum, work-related ephemera and press coverage of the work.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Text by Margrit Brehm, Roberto Ohrt, Axel Heil.
There are some artists who are never forgotten simply because other artists will constantly cite them as examples. Paul Thek (1933-1988) is one such artist. Revered for his disarming humor and irreverent handling of artworld proprieties, and much lamented for his premature death from AIDS at the age of 55, the likes of Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Mike Kelley, John Miller, Paul McCarthy, Kim Gordon and Matthew Barney have all sung his praises. Tales the Tortoise Told Us is a three-part Thek compendium, composed of writing by Margit Brehm, Axel Heil and Roberto Ort (who discuss the artist's ambivalent relationship with his homeland, and Thek's odd place in the Beat and Hippie generation), a large spread of reproductions of Thek works and a chronologically-arranged survey of works from 1963 up to the artist's death in 1988.
Paul Thek: From Cross to Crib
Paul Thek in Process: Commentaries on/of an Exhibition
Paul Thek in Process
Paul Thek: Tales the Tortoise Taught Us