Ana Torfs

Album/Tracks A+B is a comprehensive catalogue on the Belgian artist Ana Torfs, published on the occasion of her solo exhibitions in K21, Düsseldorf and Generali Foundation, Vienna. Its title refers to the idea of a photo album that starts out empty and slowly comes to tell a story as it is filled with pictures. Ana Torfs' oeuvre pays homage to characters and events in history, literature and film, pursuing the traces they have left behind-their "tracks"-in order to breathe new life into them. Her subjects include Ludwig van Beethoven's conversation books (for Zyklus von Kleinigkeiten [Cycle of Trifles], 1998), a play by Maurice Maeterlinck (for The Intruder, 2004) and the court records surrounding the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (for Anatomy, 2006). Torfs' media range from film, video, slide installation and photographic series to xerography and silkscreen. This monograph, designed by Jurgen Persijn, comprehensively documents Torfs' œuvre between 1993 and 2010, with brief remarks on each individual work from critics Mieke Bal, Michael Glasmeier, Sabine Folie, Anselm Franke, Doris Krystof, Steven Jacobs, Gabriele Mackert, Friedrich Meschede and Catherine Robberechts. An introductory essay by Kassandra Nakas and an extensive correspondence between Gabriele Mackert and the artist complete this wide spectrum of perspectives on Torfs' work.

When we think of Joan of Arc we might think of an androgynous, proto-feminist heroine, Dreyer's and Bresson's marvelous films, the terror of interrogation, a tormented body fraught with symbolism...But what happens when an artist with all of this in the back of her mind takes a fresh look at the historical sources? What images do they conjure up? For the exhibition Du Mentir-Faux--of which this book is a part--explores Belgian artist Ana Torfs' profound engagement with this historical, mythical, and literary figure. The book contains text and photography by Torfs, including her reading of the trail transcripts of 1431 and 1456, along with an essay by film and photography critic Dirk Lauwaert. Du Mentir-Faux is another landmark work by this up-and-coming artist, whose previous works include the video Condition(1995), the filmZyklus von Kleinigkeiten(1998), and the bookBeethoven's Nephew(1999).