• Hans Ulrich Obrist: Interviews, Books, and Projects


      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      

    JRP|Ringier

    A Brief History of Curating

    By Hans Ulrich Obrist

    Part of JRP|Ringer's innovative Documents series, published with Les Presses du Réel and dedicated to critical writings, this publication comprises a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist mapping the development of the curatorial field--from early independent curators in the 1960s and 70s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and the U.S. through the inception of Documenta and the various biennales and fairs--with pioneering curators Anne D'Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten and Harald Szeemann. Speaking of Szeemann on the occasion of this legendary curator's death in 2005, critic Aaron Schuster summed up, "the image we have of the curator today: the curator-as-artist, a roaming, . . . . Paperback, 6 x 8 in. / 200 pgs.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $24.95 | $18.71
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    Walther König, Köln

    Gerhard Richter: Obrist-O’Brist

    Gerhard Richter and Hans Ulrich Obrist first met in 1985. Their professional collaborations began seven years later, when the 24-year-old Obrist curated his first Richter exhibition; the following year he published a collection of his writings. Now Gerhard Richter has dedicated an artist's book to this longstanding relationship. The texts in Obrist-O'Brist have been produced by rearranging Obrist's interviews using a random generator, setting the results in blocks without discrete passages or paragraphs. The color plates are made up of photographs—both portraits and mementos—of Hans Ulrich Obrist, from the past 15 years, and photos of Richter's own paintings, which Richter has then painted over using brushes and scrapers. Chiming with many currents in contemporary writing and bookmaking, Obrist-O'Brist is an adventure . . . . Pbk, 6.75 x 9 in. / 184 pgs / 102 color.

    Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $65.00 | $48.75
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    Walther König, Köln/Koenig Books

    Indian Highway

    Following the rapid economic and cultural developments on the Indian subcontinent in recent years, Indian Highwayis a timely snapshot of a new generation of artists. Its title indicates the significance of the road in migration, as well as the information superhighway” that has driven India's economic boom. A common thread throughout is the political and social engagement of these artists, who include: Ayisha Abraham, Ravi Agarwal, Sarnath Banerjee, Hemali Bhuta, Nikhil Chopra, Desire Machine Collective, Sheela Gowda, Sakshi Gupta, Shilpa Gupta, Subodh Gupta, NS Harsha, Abhishek, Hazra Shanay, Jhaveri, Jitish Kallat, Amar Kanwar, Bharti Kher, Bose Krishnamachari, Nalini Malani, Jagannath Panda, Prajakta Potnis, Raqs Media Collective, Tejal Shah, Valay Shende, Sudarshan Shetty, Dayanita Singh, Sumakshi Singh, Ashok Sukumaran, Shaina Anand, Thukral . . . . Pbk, 8.75 x 10 in. / 320 pgs / 290 color.

    Edited by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gunnar B. Kvaran, Thierry Raspail.

    PRICE: $59.95 | $44.96
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    Gregory R. Miller & Co.

    In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas

    One of the most continuously influential figures of the past half century, Joan Jonas was among the first artists to embrace the forms of video, performance and installation. From her beginnings as a sculptor, and her emergence in the New York art and performance scenes of the 1960s and 70s (including the seminal "Vertical Roll" video piece of 1972, in which the titular television malfunction enacted a memorably fractured female identity), up through her six appearances at Documenta and her performance at the Performa 13 biennial, her work has always been surprising, groundbreaking and necessary. This extensively illustrated volume, containing hundreds of full-color photographs, drawings, scripts and diagrams, presents the definitive collection of Jonas' work. The first and authoritative career-spanning monograph . . . . Clth, 9.5 x 12.75 in. / 536 pgs / 840 color.

    Edited with text by Joan Simon. Text by Joan Jonas, Douglas Crimp, Johanna Burton, Barbara Clausen, Richard Serra, Susan Rothenberg.

    PRICE: $85.00 | $63.75
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    JRP|Ringier/BDV Bureau des videos

    The Secret Files of Gilbert & George

    For the last 40 years Gilbert & George have united and divided the international art scene with equal parts insolence and elegance. Their oeuvre, with its repeating figures and reprising themes of shit, piss, blood, tears, nudity, sperm, alcohol and drugs, overturned the conventions of the twentieth century and helped to set the agenda for the twenty-first. This 35-minute film produced, hosted and edited by the influential international curator Hans Ulrich Obrist is the first documentary to follow Gilbert & George inside their creative process, and into their archives and collection. Obrist discovers the couple's intimate life within the interior of their London house, a veritable museum of obsessions. Beyond good and bad, beyond appearances and objects (negatives, books, press cuttings… . . . . DVD video, PAL Multizone, 5.5 x 7.5 in.

    Edited by Nicolas Tremblay. By Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $32.00 | $24.00
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    JRP|Ringier

    Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge

    Film and Video Installations

    Though he trained as a painter at the China Academy of Fine Arts, Yang Fudong, one of the most interesting and influential young artists emerging from China today, has always preferred film. His videos and photographs combine and accumulate perspectives, investigating identity through ancient mythology, personal memory and lived experience. His subjects, often in their late 20s and early 30s, seem confused and appear to be hovering between the past and present, or perhaps China's past and present. That split gives them an expectant quality, as if something is going to happen that never quite does. Yang Fudong seeks, through vignettes, a poetics of place and people as an alternative to the politics of power. No Snow on the Broken Bridge . . . . Paperback, 7.5 x 10 in. / 180 pgs / 70 color / 20 b&w.

    Edited by Ziba de Weck. Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $35.00 | $26.25
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    JRP|Ringier

    Merz World: Processing the Complicated Order

    The evolving artwork and early, all-encompassing installation Merzbau was German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters’ obsession. He began building a fantastical structure inside his Hanover studio in 1923, which he conceived as a project without end. It gradually took over most of the house. He continued to work on it in different locations throughout his life, remarking that the Merzbau contained everything that was important to him. This groundbreaking volume results from the first of a series of Zurich-based symposia on the Merzbau and its legacy in contemporary architecture, art and society. The Symposium Merzbau sets a new standard for further research on Schwitter’s influential project. Edited by curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, this book includes contributions by art historians, critics and . . . . Paperback, 4.25 x 6.5 in. / 124 pgs / 20 color.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Adrian Notz. Text by Yona Friedman, Thomas Hirschhorn, Peter Bissegger, Karin Orchard, Gwendolen Webster.

    PRICE: $15.00 | $11.25
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    D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers

    On Curating: Interviews with Ten International Curators

    By Carolee Thea

    On Curating, Carolee Thea's second volume of interviews with ten of today's leading curators, explores the intellectual convictions and personal visions that lay the groundwork for the most prestigious and influential exhibitions in the world today. Among the aesthetic and theoretical issues raised are the relationship between artist and curator, globalism, post-colonialism, capitalism, the future of cultural tourism and the biennial as spectacle or utopian ideal. As Thea notes in her introduction, "the biennial or mega-exhibition--a laboratory for experimentation, investigation and aesthetic liberation--is where the curators' experience and knowledge are tested. As they negotiate venues for artistic expression, intellectual critiques and humanistic concerns in their own societies and others, they are challenged by the certainties and uncertainties of a constantly evolving . . . . Pbk, 6.5 x 9.5 in. / 144 pgs / 50 color.

    By Carolee Thea. Edited by Thomas Micchelli. Foreword by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $29.95 | $22.46
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    JRP|Ringier

    Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla

    Puerto Rico-based American and Cuban-born Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla are known for their playful, socially-involved, sound-based installations, videos and performances. This well-designed volume presents recent works that investigate how power, militarism and war are encoded into sound.

    . . . . Hbk, 8.25 x 10.5 in. / 156 pgs / 112 color.


    PRICE: $55.00 | $41.25
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    JRP|Ringier

    Hans Ulrich Obrist: Battery City: A Post-Olympic Beijing Mini-Marathon

    On January 31, 2008, Swiss curator, critic and historian Hans Ulrich Obrist conducted a "marathon" of conversations in Beijing, after the example of his famous Serpentine Gallery marathons. This marathon called on artists, cultural producers and media practitioners to discuss the post-Olympic state of the city. Participants included internationally renowned artists Ai Weiwei and Cao Fei, writer and publisher Hung Huang, fashion designer Zhang Da and many others. Topics discussed included everyday life in contemporary Chinese society, the impact of the Olympic Games and the role of the internet in daily life.

    . . . . Pbk, 4.75 x 8.25 in. / 138 pgs / 30 b&w.

    Edited and with text by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hu Fan.

    PRICE: $19.95 | $14.96
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    JRP|Ringier

    Subodh Gupta: Common Man

    Subodh Gupta (born 1964) agglomerates everyday Indian household objects such as cooking utensils into monumental entities such as mushroom clouds or skulls, often sabotaging the fiction of intrinsic value through witty inversion and conjunction. Among the fruits of his methods are sculptural works such as bronze mangos, Hindu-swastika ceiling fans and worn-out sandals placed alongside three-dimensional Mona Lisas. Gupta's mostly found materials, which range in texture from aluminum, bronze and stainless steel to fiberglass and neon, identify themselves as Indian in origin, but are recomposed into sculptural meanings accessible to all nationalities (one implication of the title's "common man"). This monograph is published on the occasion of Gupta's first solo exhibition in London; alongside full-color reproductions, it includes an interview between . . . . Hbk, 8.75 x 11.5 in. / 88 pgs / 52 color.

    Edited by Sara Harrison, Michaela Unterdörfer. Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Martin Herbert.

    PRICE: $45.00 | $33.75
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    Walther König, Köln

    Gilbert & George: Art Titles

    1967-2010 in Alphabetical Order, Catalogue Raisonné

    Gilbert & George Art Titles offers a new spin on the catalogue raisonné: a complete catalogue of the titles of all of the duo's works, from 1970 to the present, in the form of a continuous poetical index. Designed by the artists, it commences with their first performance at Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1970, "3 Living Pieces"--flanking the title with the year on the left margin and the acronym "LS" ("living sculpture") on the right--and opens out into the more poetical titles for which they are known. The catalogue of works is also printed alphabetically, and each title is identified with an acronym indicating its format. Spanning more than 40 years of exhibitions, pictures, postcards, books and other formats, this volume . . . . Pbk, 6 x 8.5 in. / 180 pgs / illustrated throughout.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Inigo Philbrick.

    PRICE: $19.95 | $14.96
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    Walther König, Köln

    Elmgreen & Dragset: Trilogy

    In their latest monograph, the Danish-Norwegian duo Elmgreen & Dragset address the world of celebrity: rumor-mongering, life in the public eye, the mechanisms of the media, its formation of myths and how those myths endlessly bombard us with staged presentations of the self. Two allegorical installations on celebrity and its implications of "the one" (the celebrity) and "the many" (the rest of us) were devised for the duo's exhibition at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, and are here documented across 100 color plates. In one of the museum's atriums, Elmgreen & Dragset installed a full-scale high-rise apartment block; the other atrium was converted into a neoclassical ballroom. Also documented in this volume are The Welfare Show . . . . Clth, 8 x 10 in. / 384 pgs / 100 color.

    Edited by Andreas F. Beitin, Peter Weibel. Text by Tony Benn, Hubert Burda, Tom Mole, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Nicolaus Schafhausen, Wolfgang Ullrich, et al. Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist with Elmgreen & Dragset. Interview by Sacha Goldmann with Paul Virilio.

    PRICE: $59.95 | $44.96
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    Walther König/Koenig Books

    Jean Nouvel: Red Summer in Kensington Gardens

    Renowned French architect Jean Nouvel designed the Serpentine Gallery's pavilion for 2010, and created a commanding, eye-catching all-red structure designed to mimic the moment "when the summer sun catches you full in the eyes and, as you blink, the world dissolves into red." Also inspired by London's red buses and telephone boxes, this dramatic and seductive pavilion consists of a cantilevered glass wall supporting a central frame, with retractable red canvas awnings, a red rubber floor and, to accommodate its many visitors, a red café bar, red table tennis tables and red hammocks, tables and chairs. "It's architecture on holiday," Nouvel has joked, also describing the pavilion as a "big sunglass." This similarly striking publication, designed by Nouvel, records the project . . . . Pbk, 9 x 10.25 in. / 44 pgs / illustrated throughout.

    Edited by Kathryn Rattee. Text by Paul Virilio, Samantha Hardingham. Interview by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist.

    PRICE: $44.95 | $33.71
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    Walther König, Köln

    Matthew Barney: Drawing Restraint Vol.1

    This insightful book features a clear PVC cover designed by the artist, printed in silver ink. Barney's sometimes ominous and sometimes sexy black-and white work is highlighted by a 12-page high gloss full color insert--the centerfold, if you will.

    . . . . Paperback, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 96 pgs / 9 color / 46 b&w.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Essay by Francis Mckee.

    PRICE: $75.00 | $56.25
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  • New Books and Catalogues Releasing This Week


      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      

    MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    John Wilson: Witnessing Humanity

    American artist John Wilson was not only a master draftsman, printmaker, painter and sculptor active for over seven decades, but he was also a keen observer and social activist. In his representations of Black Americans in particular, he sought to pay homage to the beauty and truths of ordinary Black people in such a way that all viewers, across race and culture, might see themselves reflected. His multidisciplinary works include unflinching representations of racial violence and war, tender family portraits, monumental bronze heads and landmark commissions such as the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr., which stands in the United States Capitol.
    The first major retrospective of the artist’s work, Witnessing Humanity sheds light on Wilson’s life and artistic evolution. Reproductions of . . . . Hbk, 10 x 11.5 in. / 224 pgs / 150 color.

    Edited with text by Jennifer Farrell, Leslie King Hammond, Patrick Murphy, Edward Saywell. Text by Michele Cohen, Leslie and Lisa Farrington, Destinee Filmore, Edmund Barry Gaither, Elisabeth Hodermarksy, Ekua Holmes, Shelley R. Langdale, Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins, Theresa Leininger-Miller, James Manigault-Bryant, Martha Richardson, Lowery Stokes Sims, James Stroud.

    PRICE: $55.00 | $41.25
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    SKIRA

    Mitch Epstein: American Nature

    The culmination of a 20-year odyssey by one of America’s leading photographers, American Nature represents both a political portrait of the nation during this pivotal time and an existential warning about a potentially cataclysmic future. Even though the threat of climate change is very real and affects us daily, the causes and consequences are often hard to articulate, much less represent. Mitch Epstein’s monumental achievement in his overarching work of the past two decades has been to communicate the intangible networks of production and power that threaten our environment and to listen to and record the visions of people in protest, as well as the gentle thrum of the enduring forest.
    American Nature features key selections from Epstein's three most recent projects: . . . . Hbk, 9.5 x 11 in. / 176 pgs / 80 color.

    Edited by Brian Wallis.

    PRICE: $50.00 | $37.50
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    SKIRA

    Obey: The Art of Shepard Fairey

    Shepard Fairey is the artist behind the moniker Obey, best known for designing the iconic HOPE poster from Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Obey’s work is distinguished by an essential and bold style with a minimalist palette guided by the hip-hop and punk cultures that taught the artist to question social conventions. The book is divided into sections, each centered around the most representative themes of Fairey’s art: propaganda; peace and justice; environment; music; and new works.
    The book begins with a section dedicated to propaganda, featuring some of the artist’s most significant images on this theme, beginning with HOPE. It then continues through works in the peace and justice section in which, through the power of images, Obey draws attention to . . . . Hbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 244 pgs / 295 color.

    Edited by Shepard Fairey, Giuseppe Pizzuto.

    PRICE: $50.00 | $37.50
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    Wakefield Press

    The Hashish Films of Customs Officer Henri Rousseau and Tatyana Joukof Shuffles the Cards

    (A Novel against Psicho-Analise)

    Emil Szittya’s earliest known work of significance, The Hashish Films of Customs Officer Henri Rousseau and Tatyana Joukof Shuffles the Cards, was published in German in Budapest in 1916, yet it portrays the hallucinatory Paris in which the author had chosen a temporary dwelling at that time. Prose poems for lack of a better word, Szittya’s "hashish films" were almost lost to time but can now be recognized as similar to the work of Blaise Cendrars and Guillaume Apollinaire. They nevertheless reflect the author’s lifelong refusal to ally himself to any literary or artistic movement. It is a strange literary work as international and untethered as the author himself had been, a symbolic map of Montparnasse that incorporated the visual world . . . . Pbk, 4.5 x 7 in. / 80 pgs.

    By Emil Szittya. Translated with introduction by W.C. Bamberger.

    PRICE: $13.95 | $10.46
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    Hauser & Wirth Publishers

    Francis Picabia: Eternal Beginning

    The French avant-garde painter Francis Picabia (1879–1953) was one of the great innovators of 20th-century modernism, with a career defined by his restless, visionary approach. In 1945 he settled permanently in Paris and in his final years returned to abstract painting. This book delves into Picabia’s practice between the years 1945 and 1953—an incredibly rich yet largely unknown period during which Picabia created paintings unlike anything he had produced before. Essays by art historian Arnauld Pierre and scholar Candace Clements shed new light on the hidden signs and symbols buried in his abstractions, the new painting techniques he employed, and the mysterious and fantastical reappearance of the "dot" in his work. Eternal Beginning is an essential resource, marking the first in-depth . . . . Hbk, 9.5 x 11.5 in. / 224 pgs / 128 color / 19 b&w.

    Preface by Beverley Calté. Text by Arnauld Pierre, Candace Clements.

    PRICE: $60.00 | $45.00
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    Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

    Betye Saar: Drifting toward Twilight

    This volume features the Huntington Library and Museum’s commissioned site-specific installation Drifting toward Twilight (2023) by Betye Saar (born 1926). A solitary canoe drifts on a bed of brambles, illuminated by a cool neon glow. Inside, three passengers are transported to a mystical destination by two otherworldly beings. Guided by the dawn, the dusk and the phases of the moon, they transition from one cosmic reality to another. Part dreamscape and part altar, Drifting toward Twilight conjures journeys and the constant cycles of the natural world. Like cards pulled from a tarot deck, each object inside takes on a symbolic power: a monumental canoe, birdcages, antlers and plant material harvested from the Huntington’s grounds. This richly illustrated companion book includes a . . . . Hbk, 9.25 x 11 in. / 96 pgs / 80 color.

    Edited with text by Yinshi Lerman-Tan, Sóla Saar Agustsson. Foreword by Christina Nielsen. Text by Hilton Als, Tiffany E. Barber, Ishmael Reed.

    PRICE: $29.95 | $22.46
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    POLÍGRAFA

    Joaquín Sorolla

    Containing over 300 reproductions of his most important works, Joaquín Sorolla is an essential survey on this ever-popular painter. It includes an in-depth essay by Blanca Pons-Sorolla, as well as an illustrated chronology.

    Starting out as a painter of works intended for the salon and national exhibitions, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863–1923) very soon developed a style of open-air painting of his own which, though not connected stylistically with the Barbizon School, nevertheless pursued the same approach, as a result of which he came to be known as a Spanish impressionist painter.

    He began to devote himself entirely to this style in 1900, painting landscapes, views of cities, studies of nature, seascapes and garden scenes in which he demonstrated his tremendous skill in . . . . Hbk, 10 x 12.5 in. / 352 pgs / 308 color.

    Edited by Blanca Pons-Sorolla.

    PRICE: $75.00 | $56.25
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    Eakins Press Foundation

    Stephen Shore: Elements

    Stephen Shore: Elements is inspired by the Eakins Press Foundation’s celebrated debut publication, Walker Evans’ Message from the Interior (1966), gathering images from across Evans’ career. As with that book, the photographs of Stephen Shore (born 1947) have been carefully selected to represent the poetry of his approach to the world through photographs. The 24 images (16 color and 8 black and white), from the last of his work with the 8x10" view camera, range in location from New York’s Hudson Valley to the Yucatan, Italy, Texas, Israel and Scotland. As the book’s title suggests, what connects these photographs are the elemental resonances of the earth, humanity and time.

    From his early days as a teenager at Andy Warhol’s Factory and his . . . . Clth, 12.75 x 13 in. / 60 pgs / 16 color / 8 duotone.


    PRICE: $65.00 | $48.75
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    The Song Cave

    Ultraviolet of the Genuine

    Hannah Brooks-Motl’s fourth collection of poems is an expansive record of time and thought, weaving together philosophy, science, theology, dreams, grief, literary theory, criticism, history and ideas of utopia—making for a book that continuously surprises and is nearly impossible to categorize. Engaging with centuries of poetic tradition, Ultraviolet of the Genuine leaves room for the development of everything, abstract and alive, even giving ants the spotlight in one long poem. These poems propose a new metaphysics, weighing everyday moments wherein the elusive and ultraviolet radiate. Again, Brooks-Motl challenges the ways we read poetry, not by opting for either the head or the heart, but by choosing both.
    Hannah Brooks-Motl is the author of the poetry collections The New Years (2014), M (2015) . . . . Pbk, 5.5 x 7.5 in. / 96 pgs.

    By Hannah Brooks-Motl.

    PRICE: $18.95 | $14.21
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    SKIRA

    Surrealism through Its Journals 1924–2024

    Les portes du rêve

    Art historian Rosalind Krauss once defined Surrealist journals as "the true Surrealist object." These periodicals are works of art in themselves, ones that challenge conventions and disciplinary boundaries by mixing languages and forms of expression. Unlike the curious creations of Meret Oppenheim or the assemblages of Joseph Cornell, however, these collective publications revealed the movement’s interdisciplinary complexity and theoretical strength, while exposing the internal conflicts among its practitioners.
    Published to follow the centenary of the publication of the first Manifeste du Surréalisme in October 1924, Surrealism through Its Journals reassembles the movement’s rise and fall through its formative publications. Each chapter studies a different journal: beginning with the Dadaist Proverbe and Littérature; moving to the landmark La Révolution Surréaliste and Minotaure; to . . . . Pbk, 6 x 8.25 in. / 224 pgs / 35 color.

    Edited with text by Franca Franchi. Text by Jacques Dürrenmatt, Franca Bruera, Elena Galtsova, Andrea Zucchinali, Gianluca Poldi, Arnaud Maillet, Anna Maria Testaverde, Elena Mazzoleni, Gabriele Gimmelli, Elio Grazioli, Alessandra Violi.

    PRICE: $40.00 | $30.00
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    Wakefield Press

    Diabelli

    In following the tales of these magicians of madness, Diabelli offers unique confessional accounts of linguistic self-destruction. Chief among them is prestidigitator Grazio Diabelli, who refuses an invitation to perform and instead discourses on the history of escapology as he contemplates his own final and permanent disappearing act. Also waiting in the wings is August Stramm, "pianistic abortion" applying for the post of orchestra minion despite being hard of hearing; and Anatol Zentgraf, private scholar and maniacal reader who is the alleged epicenter of an earthquake. Added to this first English edition is Burger’s tale "The Laughter Artist," an account of a nameless professional artist of cachinnation whose mother’s backstage visit induces a fatal culmination of his art.
    Hermann Burger (1942–89) was . . . . Pbk, 4.5 x 7 in. / 160 pgs / 4 b&w.

    By Hermann Burger. Translated with introduction by Adrian Nathan West.

    PRICE: $15.95 | $11.96
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    DelMonico Books

    Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection

    Featuring more than 30 artists, Line, Form, Qi highlights contemporary works that range from the traditional to the deeply experimental. The publication features predominantly Chinese artists, along with Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean artists working mainly with Chinese characters. The themes reflect significant trends and innovations in contemporary calligraphic art, including abstraction of the character, performance and phenomenological practice, and the exploration of alternative or nontraditional materials and calligraphy methods such as incense burn drawing and lithography. This publication also addresses different through lines from premodern calligraphy to contemporary practice, reflecting the evolution of the Chinese language from pictograph to ideograph and beyond.

    This book was published in conjunction with Los Angeles County Museum of Art



    . . . . Clth, 8.5 x 11.75 in. / 184 pgs / 157 color.

    Edited with text by Susanna Ferrell, Wan Kong. Foreword by Michael Govan. Text by Rika Hiro, Stephen Little, Virginia Moon, Li Wei Ng.

    PRICE: $75.00 | $56.25
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    SKIRA

    Clive van den Berg

    Zambia-born, South Africa–based artist Clive van den Berg (born 1956) produces a range of multimedia works unified by five themes: memory, light, landscape, desire and the body. Embodied in his lush paintings, mixed-media sculptures, delicate prints, films and public projects, these themes are bound up with the history of his native South Africa and its ongoing ramifications. For van den Berg, both the body and the landscape are sites that carry memories and scars, evoking desires which he aims to reveal in his work, often through the illuminating power of light. He has marked sites affected by Apartheid with human figures formed out of fire, and often depicts the body itself as a landscape, bearing the marks of AIDS. This catalog, . . . . Hbk, 8.25 x 10.25 in. / 256 pgs / 230 color.

    Foreword by Anthony Dawson. Text by Rosalind C. Morris, Graeme Reid.

    PRICE: $65.00 | $48.75
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    SKIRA

    Frida Orupabo: On Lies, Secrets and Silence

    Leading Norwegian artist and sociologist Frida Orupabo (born 1986) gained prominence in the art world for her evocative digital and physical collages. Orupabo manipulates images, cutting them out, adding and excluding elements, and then reassembling them, suggesting a poignant and phantasmagorical reworking of representational codes. Black bodies, which have been subjected to exploitation throughout history, are often present. On Lies, Secrets and Silence takes its starting point in our most private and intimate space—the home. Newly produced works in the form of collage, video and sculpture focus on the complex relationships contained within the domestic sphere, central to our everyday lives and in the creation of our identity. Familiar environments and relationships suddenly, through subtle changes, transform from safe to strange . . . . Pbk, 8.25 x 11 in. / 160 pgs / 205 color.

    Edited by Yuvinka Medina, Owen Martin. Text by Portia Malatjie, Mai Takawira, Nina Cramer, C. LeClaire.

    PRICE: $35.00 | $26.25
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    Holzwarth Publications

    Hilary Pecis: Orbiting

    Through her vibrant still lifes, interiors and landscapes, California–based artist Hilary Pecis (born 1979) weaves a rich tapestry of glowing colors and subtle ornaments compiled from her everyday surroundings. Her paintings—including such motifs as coffee tables full of books, storefronts, blooming fields and meals set out on patterned tablecloths—form the basis for scintillating, crowded compositions rife with color and texture. Pecis’ use of saturated colors and angular perspectives is evocative of Fauvism, but the ultracontemporary subject matter situates her oeuvre firmly within the modern and materialist world of her native Southern California.
    With an eye-catching cover, this catalog documents Pecis’ first institutional solo exhibition in China at the TAG Art Museum in Qingdao in 2023, featuring a rich selection of over 20 . . . . Hbk, 10.5 x 13.75 in. / 132 pgs / 50 color.

    Text by Sherry Lai, Meng Xianwei, Leo Li Chen.

    PRICE: $49.95 | $37.46
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  • JRP|Ringier

    A Brief History of Curating

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
    Part of JRP|Ringer's innovative Documents series, published with Les Presses du Réel and dedicated to critical writings, this publication comprises a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist mapping the development of the curatorial field--from early independent curators in the 1960s and 70s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and the U.S. through the inception of Documenta and the various biennales and fairs--with pioneering curators Anne D'Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten and Harald Szeemann. Speaking of Szeemann on the occasion of this legendary curator's ...
    Paperback, 6 x 8 in. / 200 pgs.

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  • Walther König, Köln

    Gerhard Richter: Obrist-O’Brist

    Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
    Gerhard Richter and Hans Ulrich Obrist first met in 1985. Their professional collaborations began seven years later, when the 24-year-old Obrist curated his first Richter exhibition; the following year he published a collection of his writings. Now Gerhard Richter has dedicated an artist's book to this longstanding relationship. The texts in Obrist-O'Brist have been produced by rearranging Obrist's interviews using a random generator, setting the results in blocks without discrete passages or paragraphs. The color plates are made up of photographs—both portraits and mementos—of Hans Ulrich Obrist, from the past 15 years, and photos of Richter's own paintings, which Richter has ...
    Pbk, 6.75 x 9 in. / 184 pgs / 102 color.

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  • Walther König, Köln/Koenig Books

    Indian Highway

    Edited by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gunnar B. Kvaran, Thierry Raspail.
    Following the rapid economic and cultural developments on the Indian subcontinent in recent years, Indian Highwayis a timely snapshot of a new generation of artists. Its title indicates the significance of the road in migration, as well as the information superhighway” that has driven India's economic boom. A common thread throughout is the political and social engagement of these artists, who include: Ayisha Abraham, Ravi Agarwal, Sarnath Banerjee, Hemali Bhuta, Nikhil Chopra, Desire Machine Collective, Sheela Gowda, Sakshi Gupta, Shilpa Gupta, Subodh Gupta, NS Harsha, Abhishek, Hazra Shanay, Jhaveri, Jitish Kallat, Amar Kanwar, Bharti Kher, Bose Krishnamachari, Nalini Malani, Jagannath Panda, ...
    Pbk, 8.75 x 10 in. / 320 pgs / 290 color.

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  • Gregory R. Miller & Co.

    In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas

    Edited with text by Joan Simon. Text by Joan Jonas, Douglas Crimp, Johanna Burton, Barbara Clausen, Richard Serra, Susan Rothenberg.
    One of the most continuously influential figures of the past half century, Joan Jonas was among the first artists to embrace the forms of video, performance and installation. From her beginnings as a sculptor, and her emergence in the New York art and performance scenes of the 1960s and 70s (including the seminal "Vertical Roll" video piece of 1972, in which the titular television malfunction enacted a memorably fractured female identity), up through her six appearances at Documenta and her performance at the Performa 13 biennial, her work has always been surprising, groundbreaking and necessary. This extensively illustrated volume, containing hundreds ...
    Clth, 9.5 x 12.75 in. / 536 pgs / 840 color.

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  • JRP|Ringier/BDV Bureau des videos

    The Secret Files of Gilbert & George

    Edited by Nicolas Tremblay. By Hans Ulrich Obrist.
    For the last 40 years Gilbert & George have united and divided the international art scene with equal parts insolence and elegance. Their oeuvre, with its repeating figures and reprising themes of shit, piss, blood, tears, nudity, sperm, alcohol and drugs, overturned the conventions of the twentieth century and helped to set the agenda for the twenty-first. This 35-minute film produced, hosted and edited by the influential international curator Hans Ulrich Obrist is the first documentary to follow Gilbert & George inside their creative process, and into their archives and collection. Obrist discovers the couple's intimate life within the interior of ...
    DVD video, PAL Multizone, 5.5 x 7.5 in.

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  • JRP|Ringier

    Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge

    Edited by Ziba de Weck. Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
    Though he trained as a painter at the China Academy of Fine Arts, Yang Fudong, one of the most interesting and influential young artists emerging from China today, has always preferred film. His videos and photographs combine and accumulate perspectives, investigating identity through ancient mythology, personal memory and lived experience. His subjects, often in their late 20s and early 30s, seem confused and appear to be hovering between the past and present, or perhaps China's past and present. That split gives them an expectant quality, as if something is going to happen that never quite does. Yang Fudong seeks, through vignettes, ...
    Paperback, 7.5 x 10 in. / 180 pgs / 70 color / 20 b&w.

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  • The Conversation Series


      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      

    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Konrad Klapheck: The Conversation Series

    Volume 3

    In this German-language-only installment of Hans Ulrich Obrist's Conversation Series, the acclaimed curator-conversationalist speaks with the German Pop Surrealist painter Konrad Klapheck, and includes the German conceptual photographer Hans-Peter Feldmann--who was there to document the afternoon's activities with a series of photographic portraits--in the talk. Writing of Klapheck's psycho-erotic "machine" imagery in a 1994 Art in America review, critic Ken Johnson wrote, "What makes Klapheck's pictures compelling is the way the objects he paints are psycho-erotically animated. His machines…are like primitive totems…monumental, amusingly absurd and sexually suggestive." This volume contains generous photo documentation, with many new paintings depicting offbeat human sexual encounters reproduced in color.

    . . . . Paperback, 5.5 x 8.25 in. / 68 pgs / 16 color / 21 b&w.


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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Rem Koolhaas: The Conversation Series

    Volume 4

    In this traditional paperback, renowned critic and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist teams up with Dutch avant-garde architect and paradigm-shifting intellectual, Rem Koolhaas, for a discussion of Koolhaas's work in China, his designs for Prada, architecture as metaphor, and the development of urbanism in the slipstream of globalization.

    . . . . Paperback, 5.5 x 8 in. / 68 pgs.


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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Yona Friedman: The Conversation Series

    Volume 7

    People make too much of architecture. I have a running quarrel with architects who overestimate architecture. Reality is at eye-level with people walking down the street. Born in 1923 in Budapest, Hungary, Yona Friedman is widely considered one of the greatest utopian visionary architects of the twentieth century. Currently based in Paris, he is just as much a sociologist as a designer of buildings, more concerned with the way people interact with their environments than monumental statements by an ego-centric creator. In this illuminating talk with The Conversation Series editor Hans Ulrich Obrist, he touches on the needs of the individual in heterogeneous urban societies, past and future projects, utopia, influences and metaphysics, revealing a wise and deeply-animated humanistic intellect. Known . . . . Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 126 pgs / 29 b&w.


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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Gilbert & George: The Conversation Series

    Vol. 9

    Series editor Hans Ulrich Obrist here collects seven years worth of interviews with the hugely influential British artistic collaborators Gilbert & George, providing an intimate vision of what they consider the most important landmarks in their four-decade-long career together. Many of the conversations are delightfully performative.

    . . . . Paperback, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 192 pgs / 22 b&w.


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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Gustav Metzger: The Conversation Series

    Vol. 16

    In volume 16 of The Conversation Series, Hans Ulrich Obrist presents an in-depth exchange with the venerable German-born artist and activist Gustav Metzger, which illuminates the artist's fascinating life and 60-year career. In 1959, Metzger penned a manifesto of Auto-destructive art, which states in part, "Auto-destructive paintings, sculptures and constructions have a lifetime varying from a few moments to 20 years. When the disintegrative process is complete, the work is to be removed from the site and scrapped." In this volume, Metzger talks to Obrist about his past and present association with Auto-destructive art, how he has come to fuse his art practice with his political commitment to human rights and ecology, how he escaped the Holocaust at the age of . . . . Pbk, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 168 pgs / 41 b&w.

    Text by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gustav Metzger.

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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & John Baldessari: The Conversation Series Volume 18

    Hans Ulrich Obrist has been a staunch supporter of the Los Angeles maestro of Conceptualism John Baldessari from early on in his career. For these conversations, the artist and curator were joined by, among others, the Uruguayan artist and author Alejandro Cesarco, a friend and previous public interlocutor of Baldessari's. Baldessari himself offers readers insight into the motives and semiotics of his multimedia work and his life as an artist, always expressing himself with precision and with wit. A recurrent topic throughout these discussions is the interaction of text and image (on which so much of Baldessari's work leans), and issues such as the museum as institution, idea archives and unrealized projects, and on his career, exhibitions and retrospectives of the . . . . Pbk, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 242 pgs / 20 b&w.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Christian Boltanski: The Conversation Series

    Vol. 19

    Hans Ulrich Obrist and Christian Boltanski are not only associated through their longstanding friendship: Boltanski was also the first artist that Obrist ever exhibited. Over the course of this friendship the two have often met for discussions, the earliest of which, from 1994, are published here. Whether on a taxi-boat in Venice, in his atelier or at an exhibition in Ljubljana, Botanski readily divulges information on his projects. His collaborations with other artists such as Ilya Kabakov, which have also led him into the field of performance arts such as opera and dance, are a particular theme of the conversations; on occasion, other interlocutors step in, such as the designer Jean Kalman or the sociologist Luc Boltanski (Christian Boltanski's brother). The . . . . Pbk, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 234 pgs.


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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Jeff Koons: The Conversation Series

    Vol. 22

    Reflecting on 20 years of making art, Jeff Koons talks to Hans Ulrich Obrist about his vocation and its frequently controversial highlights. Koons makes acknowledgement here of determinative influences such as Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol, and elucidates his sense of the legacy of Pop art and his own transformations of that legacy. Koons emerges from this volume as a charmingly open and very focused artist, with strong views on the purposes of art today, and advice for practitioners: See everything as an opportunity. Stay focused, then amazing things can happen.” Koons' goals are also inspiringly utopian and appropriate to all forms of art: The journey of art begins with self-acceptance,” he declares at one point, espousing his ideal . . . . Pbk, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 123 pgs / 28 b&w.

    Edited by Karen Marta.

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    Walther König, Köln

    Hans Ulrich Obrist & Dan Graham: Conversation Series

    Volume 25

    Since the mid-1960s when he started out as a fledgling critic, Dan Graham has carved out a unique role for himself, expanding the scope of the Conceptual artist to incorporate art criticism, music criticism, photography and architecture. For this volume, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist met with Graham on several occasions to discuss the artist's work, life and the numerous interests he passionately follows. The conversation thus wanders seamlessly from architecture to rock and roll, philosophy to astrology, Graham's early performance pieces, photography and articles, to the films and glass pavilions for which he is best known today. A fountain of art folklore, Graham offers recollections of friends and colleagues, art work and influences, providing an invaluable insight not only into the . . . . Pbk, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 134 pgs.

    Edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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  • HANS ULRICH OBRIST


    "Curators should be book machines."

  • HANS ULRICH OBRIST ON THE INTERVIEW PROJECT

    "Over the last years I have felt an increasing urgency to do more and more interviews, to make an effort to preserve traces of intelligence from past decades, particularly the 20th century pioneers who are in their 80s or 90s or even older, testimonies of the century past from those who are not online and thus who might fall into oblivion. The Interviews Project acts as "a hedge against the systematic forgetting," that, according to Rem Koolhaas, "hides at the core of the Information Age and which may in fact be its secret agenda." The Project enacts what Eric Hobsbawm has called a "protest against forgetting."

    The Institute of the 21st Century is dedicated to preserving and sharing Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Interview Project Archive, advocating the voices of the world’s most important artists and thinkers.

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