Tom Engels

The Weight of the Concrete explores the legacy of the Turinese artist and publisher Ezio Gribaudo (1929–2022), examining his multifaceted oeuvre at the confluence of image and language. This publication, named after Il Peso del Concreto (1968)—a seminal work that featured Gribaudo’s early graphic creations alongside an anthology of concrete poetry edited by the poet Adriano Spatola (1941–88)—places Gribaudo’s work in conversation with approximately forty artists and poets from different generations, all of whom similarly engage with explorations of text, form, and visual expression.

Reflecting the editorial premise of Il Peso del Concreto, The Weight of the Concrete revisits the influential anthology, including archive material that documents its production, and reimagines it, pairing Gribaudo’s graphic work with a new selection of historical and contemporary concrete and experimental poetry.

At the heart of the volume is Gribaudo’s emblematic Logogrifi series, developed from the 1960s onward. The Logogrifi reveal his deep engagement with the art of bookmaking and fascination with industrial printing processes, relief matrices, typefaces, and language games.

In this new edition, the editors take the opportunity to revisit Gribaudo’s pioneering work, examining previously overlooked dimensions—gendered, geographical, and technological—and exploring contemporary associations beyond the original context. The book also includes essays that elucidate the poetic and political interplay between image, language, and materiality.

This publication is released following Ezio Gribaudo – The Weight of the Concrete, an exhibition held at the Grazer Kunstverein in Graz, Austria (2023–24), and at the Museion—Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen, Italy (2024).

Edited by Tom Engels and Lilou Vidal
Published by Axis Axis and Grazer Kunstverein

Contributions by Anni Albers, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Irma Blank, Al Cartio, Paula Claire, CAConrad, Natalie Czech, Betty Danon, Constance DeJong, Mirtha Dermisache, Johanna Drucker, Bryana Fritz, Ilse Garnier, Liliane Giraudon, Susan Howe, Alison Knowles, Katalin Ladik, Liliane Lijn, Hanne Lippard, Sara Magenheimer, Françoise Mairey, Nadia Marcus, Giulia Niccolai, Alice Notley, Ewa Partum, sadé powell, N. H. Pritchard, Cia Rinne, Neide Dias de Sá, Giovanna Sandri, Mary Ellen Solt, Alice Theobald, Colleen Thibaudeau, Patrizia Vicinelli, Pascal Vonlanthen, Hannah Weiner, and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt

Essays by Alex Balgiu, Tom Engels, Nadia Marcus, Luca Lo Pinto, Mónica de la Torre, and Lilou Vidal

This publication coincides with Curtis Cuffie's New York City, an exhibition presenting Curtis Cuffie's work as captured in photographs by Katy Abel, Tom Warren, and Cuffie himself. Unlike the exhibition, this book exclusively features Cuffie's photographs. It is the eighth entry in a series of compact volumes featuring visual contributions,  correspondence,  responses, and conversations accompanying the Grazer Kunstverein exhibition program.

Curtis Cuffie (1955-2002) was an artist based in New York City's East Village. Originally from Hartsville, South Carolina, he moved to Brooklyn at the age of fifteen and eventually settled in Manhattan, first near Bryant Park and later around the Bowery where he lived unhoused for long stretches of his life. Cuffie was integral to a dynamic circle of artists and intellectuals, marking his place within New York's Black avant-garde. 

This publication coincides with the exhibition Until Due Time, Everything Is Else by Pan Daijing. It is the sixth entry in a series of compact volumes featuring visual contributions, correspondence, responses, and conversations accompanying the Grazer Kunstverein exhibition program.

The images within this book are exerpts from a video created by Pan Daijing. This publication is intended to act as a sixth screen, aligning with a five-channel video installation on display in Until Due Time, Everything Is Else at Grazer Kunstverein.

Editor: Tom Engels
Image: Pan Daijing
Graphic Design: Julie Peeters

Suzon — both a reprint of Raimundas Malašauskas sold-out book Paper Exhibitions from 2012 and a new collection of writings by the author that have happened since — offers a window onto Malasauskas' worldview, based on collective improvisation, congregation and continuous drift. It includes essays, exhibition guides, personal letters, song lyrics, an opening speech and a cocktail recipe offering a glimpse of what perhaps in a few years we will look back upon as L'esprit du temps.

The publication Suzon is printed on the reverse of the revised edition of Paper Exhibition, which was originally published in 2012 by Sternberg Press, Kunstverein Publishing, Sandberg Institute, and the Baltic Notebooks of Anthony Blunt (Baltish Arts Magazine).

Editors: Tom Engels, Yana Foqué & Krist Gruijthuijsen
Design: Goda Budvytytė
Copy-editor: Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey
Printer: Graphius, Ghent
Publishers: KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Grazer Kunstverein (Graz), Kunstverein Publishing (Amsterdam), Baltish Arts Magazine (Vilnius) and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König (Köln).
ISBN: 978-3-7533-0767-1

"Considering their practice within the art world addresses the issue of how art is (re)presented or how art can be seen, I asked Yves Gevaert,Tom Engels, Raimundas Malašauskas, Kasper Bosmans, Felipe Dmab, Dirk Snauwaert, Olivier Vandervliet, Bas Hendrikx and HC (Friedemann Heckel & Lukas Müller) in this second series of the portraits. The profile of these men is very diverse. They work as publisher, curator, critic, gallerist, or artist, thus each of them is dealing in a different and sometimes personal way within the system of the art world. 

The portrayed are sitting in front of a black velour background, a light absorbing surface. High-quality equipment and professional lighting, bring life to the smallest detail in the razor-sharp photographs. The portrait series expresses the objectification of and the fascination for the other, two aspects that are historically linked with portrait photography."