Artists' Books

A sardonic spin on the ABC book, A is for Anarchist is a sharp knife in a drawer full of safety scissors. 

Wryly written by critically acclaimed rapper billy woods and sublimely illustrated by artist m. musgrove, A is for Anarchist upends the traditional ABC format with earnestness that belies its irreverence. Anarchist takes modest ideas, like E is for Energy and G is for Ghosts, and flips them into incisive commentary on modern life and the state of the world. Also, it has to be the only alphabet book with annotated footnotes and a Nas reference.

woods is a writer, rapper, and father who needed somethingcool to read to his children. The child of a Jamaican intellectual and a Zimbabwean revolutionary, woods's childhood spent between the U.S., Africa, and the West Indies leaves its imprint on all his work. musgrove is a Brooklyn-based painter, illustrator, and amateur animator. She is inspired by Wimmen's Comix, William Morris, and tumult.

For more than three decades, Tony Cokes (b. 1956, Richmond, USA; lives and works in Providence, USA) has been exploring in his work the ideology and affect politics of media and popular culture as well as their social impact. Starting from a fundamental critique of the representation and visual commodification of African-American communities in film, television, advertising, and music videos, Cokes has developed a unique form of video essay that radically rejects ­representational imagery. These fast-paced works consist of found text and sound material from diverse sources such as critical theory, online journalism, literature, and­ popular music.

The US artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany also marks the first ­comprehensive collaboration between Kunstverein München and Haus der Kunst. The thematic starting point for Cokes’s new productions is the ideological and propagandistic entanglements of both exhibition venues during the Nazi era as well as their cultural-political role in the context of the 20th Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.

The publication Fragments, or just Moments accompanies the eponymous exhibition and translates stills from the newly produced video essays into a book format while examining the significance of Cokes’s work in terms of a contemporary approach to institutional critique. The essays are written by Tina M. Campt and Tom Holert, with an introduction by Emma Enderby and Elena Setzer (Haus der Kunst) as well as Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, and Gina Merz (Kunstverein München).

Ernesto de Sousa (1921–1988) was a major and multifaceted figure from the Portuguese avant-garde—artist, poet, critic, essayist, curator, editor, filmmaker, and a promoter of experimental ideas and artistic expressions. 
Reflecting questions of hierarchy, authorship, and the complexity of framing or dividing within the multiple and complementary practices of Ernesto de Sousa—whose motto “Your Body is My Body, My Body is Your Body” serves as a poetic manifesto—this publication explores the various aspects of his oeuvre (visual, poetical, and theoretical) and his outstanding inventiveness of concepts.

The volume brings together a selection of works, unpublished archives and their translations, and theoretical texts by Ernesto de Sousa, including the first complete translation in English of «Orality, the future of art?» (1968). Richly illustrated, the book reunites an introductory text by Lilou Vidal, two new essays by Paula Parente Pinto and by José Miranda Justo along with a text by Hugo Canoilas.

"There was a time when bread was sacred; and in a general sense, all fabricated objects deserved the respect that resulted from (for the conscience of those who used them) concretely diving into their own motivations. Human gestures, like aesthetic objects, were inseparable from their relevant functions. Naturalism prompted us to look at natural and fabricated objects with a vision that was cosmic and indifferent at the same time. The objects, today, object. In the future, objects and gestures will perhaps clothe themselves once again in their lost dignity. The word love, a bit of bread, the letter A will stop being mortal accidents of daily life. Desacralized, they will once again be as decisive as the tiniest brushstroke the painter made on his canvas. And each of these brushstrokes will reveal the structure of the world. Life can then be compared to a vast work of art. Everything will be absolutely aesthetic.."
— Ernesto de Sousa

Contributors: Hugo Canoilas, Ernesto de Sousa, Tobi Maier, José Miranda Justo, Paula Parente Pinto, Lilou Vidal

Bio documents a 365-day project by US-based artist, poet and theorist Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, during which she updated the biography section of her Twitter account, the only untraceable and non-archived part of the program's superstructure, raising questions of power, self-deletion and visibility in the internet era.

In her radical exploration of cultural and personal identity, the writer and artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha sought "the roots of language before it is born on the tip of the tongue." Her first book, the highly original postmodern text Dictee, is now an internationally studied work of autobiography. This volume, spanning the period between 1976 and 1982, brings together Cha's previously uncollected writings and text-based pieces with images. Exilee and Temps Morts are two related poem sequences that explore themes of language, memory, displacement, and alienation—issues that continue to resonate with artists today. Back in print with a new cover, this stunning selection of Cha's works gives readers a fuller view of a major figure in late twentieth-century art.

"Mastery over language that was borrowed, that was not her mother tongue, enabled Theresa Hak Kyung Cha to empathize with her viewer (her distant audience) as powerfully as any artist I know. In Exilee and Temps Morts I listen with fascination as her tongue exercises furtively and nimbly, convincing me that Cha would have been the exemplary artist of identity had she lived another ten years."—Byron Kim, artist

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982) was a poet, filmmaker, and artist who earned her BA and MA in comparative literature and her BA and MFA in art from the University of California, Berkeley.

‘Oei’ is the title of a notebook that Guy Rombouts (b. 1949) filled from front to back with the word ‘oei’, during a week in the month of July in the year 1976. 
(‘oei’ [uj] is a Dutch-language interjection uttered to express a spontaneous reaction to an unexpected occurrence. [The closest English equivalent would be ‘ouch’.])
Weaving this word as one long stream of thought through the pages of the book under ever-changing guises creates a primal litany in which mistakes are sung over and over again in all their impossibility.
The facsimile of the notebook ‘oei’ is published in full and full size as Posture Pockets N° 3.

‘Oei’ is also the title of the one-room exhibition at Ghent’s S.M.A.K. (31.03-14.05.2023) in which the artist bridges the early beginnings of his practice and transforms this wondrous word into a total installation.

According to Rombouts, direct communication is not possible through our language and consequently some feelings cannot be expressed. Therefore, from the 1960s onwards, he started looking for systems in which form and content could coincide as much as possible. 
At the beginning of the 1980s, the acrophonic (the sound of the initial letter) Rombouts font was put on paper, where words could literally take shape again. In 1986, he and his life companion and artistic partner Monica Droste (1958-1998) renamed the intersectionless Rombouts script AZART, among other things an old French spelling of the word ‘hazard’ and also a reference to the Russian word ‘azart’ that stands for ‘in the fire of the game’.

By way of archiving, digital translation and reproduction, Philip Poppek extracts from Magritte’s word paintings twenty-six letters; segmental symbols of a textual system form an alphabet of a, with a familiar apple punctuating a provisional end to the sequence. A poetic correspondence with the letter a speculates on the prehistory of this alphabet, as though searching for some indication as to how we may have come to where we are now, in this ‘post-factual moment’.

Maybe at some point we fell into the foxes’ den, only to re-surface in a landscape of ruins. This book poses a number of necessary questions, perhaps beginning with: ‘Which feminine noun trails after the title script ‘est pas une?

Pomme? Pipe? Histoire? Communauté?

'Fiction' is an ongoing series of works that place themselves between performance props, functional accessories and sculptural objects - an attempt to fuse multiple ready-mades into a cluster that successfully intergrades all three at once.

Fiction: The Function, was the first physical display of these objects, of these handbags, these vessels: meant to carry stories and secrets, as well as depositories of junk from everyday life. They reference the feminist theory of Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag of Fiction which opposes the dominant theories claiming the first man-made invention to be the penetrating sword or spear and argues for the alternative that carrier bags are more likely to have been the earliest human tool.

As proper ”carriers of fiction” themselves the sculptures exhibited were accompanied by a publication including scans of found and collected objects combined with original poems.

Designed by Atelier Brenda

‘the she’ compares texts by Virginia Woolf with their French translation, reproducing parts of the novelles ‘The String Quartet' & ‘Blue and Green’ and the novel ‘The Years’. Of the novellas, she kept only the articles the in English and le, la, les in French, exactly as they appear in the editions. Of the novel, only the pronouns she in English and elle in French remain.

The publication includes identical two booklets, one bound and one unbound, both uncut, referring to old books which were often sold bound but uncut.

Offset printing. Printed by Cultura, Wetteren

Edition of 123 numbered copies

Wind & De Wilgen (English/Dutch) was designed by Lawrence Weiner and published on the occasion of the execution of his work Wind & The Willows in the Openluchtmuseum voor beeldhouwkunst Middelheim, Antwerp.

Lawrence Weiner was an American artist and one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in de 60s. His work was strongly language-based and often took form in typographic texts, also visible in this artist book. 

Edition of 1000 copies

Studio Visit collects two decades of work by Brooklyn-based artist Sara Greenberger Rafferty (born 1978), known for her material transformation of photographs and her use of comedy as an artistic strategy. Organized by material sensibilities around paper, plastic, glass, metal, fabric scraps, and "garbage," Studio Visit rethinks the monograph format, revealing Sara Greenberger Rafferty’s practice through intimate studio documentation, sketches, notes, and other ephemera, punctuated by full-color case studies of major works. 

With image descriptions by art historian Kate Nesin and new writing by Kristan Kennedy and Oscar Bedford, as well as reprinted texts by poet Lisa Robertson and media scholar Shannon Mattern, among others, Studio Visitsurveys Sara Greenberger Rafferty's cultural commentary through dynamic and conceptually rigorous art. 

Ce catalogue qui accompagne l’exposition Exposé·es ne se divise pas en chapitres, mais entrelace les genres et les modalités d’écriture et de documentation, avec des formats variés. Il comprend notamment une multitude de courts entretiens ou écrits autour des pratiques des artistes et de personnes concernées, des essais commandés à des auteur·rices et des séquences d’images, représentant les travaux des artistes de l’exposition, ou documentant des projets artistiques qui ont eu lieu historiquement dans le contexte de ces luttes.

Avec les artistes : Les Ami·es du Patchwork des noms, Bambanani Women’s Group, Bastille, yann beauvais, Black Audio Film Collective, Gregg Bordowitz, Jesse Darling, Moyra Davey, Guillaume Dustan, fierce pussy (Nancy Brooks Brody, Joy Episalla, Zoe Leonard, Carrie Yamaoka), Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hervé Guibert, Barbara Hammer, Derek Jarman, Michel Journiac, Zoe Leonard, audrey liebot, Pascal Lièvre, Santu Mofokeng, Jean-Luc Moulène, Henrik Olesen, Bruno Pélassy, Benoît Piéron, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Jimmy Robert, Régis Samba-Kounzi & Julien Devemy, Marion Scemama, Lionel Soukaz & Stéphane Gérard, Georges Tony Stoll, Philippe Thomas, David Wojnarowicz

Et les auteur·ices : Clémence Allezard, Cécile Chartrain, Vinciane Despret, Mylène Ferrand, Amandine Gay, Philippe Joanny, Elisabeth Lebovici, Nicolas Linnert, Sylvère Lotringer, Tim Madesclaire, Helen Molesworth, Veronica Noseda, Peggy Pierrot, François Piron, Donald Rodney, Jane Solomon, Jo-ey Tang, Gaëtan Thomas

Design graphique : Roxanne Maillet

For #2 in the ¶ (Pilcrow)-series Romy Day Winkel has approached collecting, or hoarding, as an aesthetic of patience. Through her selection of Wikipedia-articles she looks at what happens when objects, magical or otherwise, are all put together. If it is impossible, and perhaps even uninteresting, to know when a collection or archive is finished, how does one start to hoard impatiently

¶#2 consists solely of texts and images found on the online collaborative platform Wikipedia. ¶#2 is assembled by Romy Day Winkel, designed by Tjobo Kho and Wouter Stroet, edited by Jan-Pieter ‘t Hart and published by OUTLINE.

In what ways have women artists come together to investigate their own image? This publication delves into histories of feminist and queer collective practice, expanding on the various ways women claim agency of their identity, via collaborations that connect intergenerational and far-away friendships. Each chapter features artistic and theoretical case studies that discuss images produced by women artists, about women artists; proposing that to gaze upon someone represented with care and autonomy provides more affirmative ways to relate to ourselves. It discovers that to pay homage to overlooked knowledge of women artists builds a case for the artist as researcher. Only by engaging in both roles can we unveil what is not taught in the mainstream and inspire a more inclusive, generous future.

Each aspect of the book’s design is a collaborative endeavour, expanding the notion of individual authorship. It is with this sentiment that creating the publication became research in itself, via collaboration with both direct peers and an extended genealogy.

“Women Looking at Women Looking at Women” is designed by Marijn van der Leeuw, Esther Vane, India Scrimgeour, Hannah Williams and Annemarie Wadlow.

Annemarie Wadlow (1993, UK) is a research-led artist working between moving image, writing and photography. Her work explores the middle ground between image and imagination, questioning notions of inheritance, personal identity and belonging. She is the co-founder of Nice Flaps, an artist initiative that hosts experimental life drawing sessions.

Catalog is a serial publication about cataloging, written by Lieven Lahaye and designed by Ott Metusala. This is Catalog issue 22, 'Beard. Man. Jug. Rubble. Woman. Vessel', it's part of a sub-series on near invisibility.

Catalog is a serial publication about cataloging, written by Lieven Lahaye and designed by Ott Metusala. This is Catalog #14, printed by Colorama on the occasion of ‘Books on Books’ — a week-long event on the topic of publishing and collecting, hosted by Anna Bergquist, Johanna Maierski and Kathrin Schömer. Berlin, August 2017.

Catalog is a serial publication about cataloging, written by Lieven Lahaye and designed by Ott Metusala. This is Catalog issue 20, ‘Hard Sun’, it’s part of a sub-series on near invisibility. Images in this Catalog were produced by exposure: to the sunlight of Athens, Brussels and Tallinn, and to the heat inside a Berlin apartment, between September 2021 and May 2022. Published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Penny in the Fountain’ at VBKÖ, Vienna in July 2022.

Catalog is a serial publication about cataloging written by Lieven Lahaye and designed by Ott Metusala. This is Catalog issue 21, ‘Impressed’, it’s part of a sub-series on near invisibility. Published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Dear Friend’ at EKA Gallery, Tallinn in September 2022. This issue of Catalog was produced during a residency period at Air Berlin Alexanderplatz, May-August 2022.

This artist's book is the achievement of the Ka Kualmaku project conducted in 2018 during a residency of Marc Buchy in Colombia, in Lugar A Dudas, during which the artist began to learn Namtrik, said to be a disappearing language. The book restores this learning as a Namtrik-French language guide.

The first-ever overview on the multimedia art of free-jazz pioneer and creative polymath Milford Graves

Milford Graves (born 1941) has been a revelatory force in music since the mid-1960s, liberating the drummer from the role of "timekeeper" to instrumental improviser and giving rise to the free-jazz movement, with groundbreaking performances alongside Lou Reed, Min Tanaka and John Zorn.

But music cannot contain the energies of his creativity and intellect. Graves' kaleidoscopic genius led him to develop an unprecedented body of interests—from medicine to botany, stem-cell regeneration to martial arts.  

A Mind-Body Deal gathers the multifaceted work of Milford Graves, exploring the practices and predilections of this extraordinary mind. Fully illustrated, this catalog includes documentation from the eponymous show at ICA Philadelphia, exhibiting a collection of Graves' hand-painted album covers and posters, idiosyncratic drum sets, recording ephemera, multimedia sculptures, photographs and costumes, with elements from his scientific studies.

This volume surveys Paul Chan's publications and works made between 2010 and 2022 following his return to artmaking. The exhibition takes as its organizing principle the notion of the "breather," a word that can signify a moment of rest or pause but can also reference a purposeful redirection toward other activities.

Chan's turn to publishing through the founding of his independent press Badlands Unlimited represented a type of "breather." Badlands for Chan embodied a radical break that seeded new ideas and ways of working. The term is also what Chan titles a recent major body of work. Breathers is an ongoing series of pneumatic sculptures and installations that he considers a new genre of moving-image works. Tacitly and overtly, the metaphor of the "breather" underscores each of the works in the Walker Art Center exhibition, which, with the artist's input, is conceived in four sections. The exhibition catalog includes scholarly contributions by Chan; Pavel Pys, Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center; and Vic Brooks, Senior Curator of Time-based Visual Art at Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (EMPAC).

Paul Chan (born 1973) is an artist, writer and publisher who lives in New York. Chan is the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize in 2014, a biennial award honoring artists who have made visionary contributions to contemporary art. Chan founded the independent press Badlands Unlimited in 2010. Badlands has published over 50 books, including the works of Yvonne Rainer, Calvin Tomkins, Lynne Tillman, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Carroll Dunham, Claudia La Rocco, Dread Scott, Martine Syms, Craig Owens, Petra Cortright, Cauleen Smith, Ian Cheng, Rachel Rose, Aruna D'Souza and many others.

An artist's book by New York-based author and artist Sam Pulitzer (born 1984), The Premise of a Better Life combines photographs with ethical and existential questions addressed to the viewer, in an allegory of the contemporary condition. These photographs of everyday things, ambiguous details, nondescript landscapes and cityscapes were mostly taken in New York, although the city appears as the pale reflection of a model city.

Each picture is accompanied by a question: "Can you afford yourself?" "Are you waiting for a moment that just won't come?" "If you knew then what you know now, would it make a difference?" "Do you trust happiness?" The montages offer a complex, personal, at times satirical image of the present age.

An original essay by Pulitzer unfolds the project's philosophical and political issues, notably discussing a key reference for the project, Ernst Bloch's The Principle of Hope.

American author Kathy Acker was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Working through an experimental and avant-garde tradition, she wrote numerous novels, essays, poems, and novellas from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. As a postmodernist, plagiarist, and post-punk feminist, she continues to inspire generations of writers, philosophers, and artists. Get Rid of Meaning is the first comprehensive publication on Acker’s work from an artistic and literary perspective. It includes previously unpublished material from Acker’s personal archive and other collections. The publication is the compilation of a multipart research project including an exhibition and a symposium at Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe.

With contributions from: Kathy Acker, Eleanor Antin, Dodie Bellamy, Hanjo Berressem, Ruth Buchanan, William S. Burroughs, Anja Casser, Georgina Colby, Leslie Dick, Claire Finch, Johnny Golding, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Anja Kirschner, Chris Kraus, Sylvère Lotringer, Douglas A. Martin, Jason McBride, Karolin Meunier & Kerstin Stakemeier, Avital Ronell, Carolee Schneemann, Daniel Schulz, Matias Viegener & McKenzie Wark.

Kamil Bouzoubaa-Grivel réalise au printemps 2020 la série de dessins Hack’n’slash.

Ces collages sont faits à partir d’aplats de couleur autocollants Letrafilm Color/Tint Overlay, que l’on pourrait traduire par Couleur/Teinte Superposition, permettant ainsi de nommer l’importance des jeux de profondeur qui s’y trouvent. 

L’artiste se calque là-dessus et joue alors avec la confrontation entre le hack: détournement et réemploi d’outils techniques (trames numériques, encres d’imprimante, dessin manuel) – et le slash: le fait de trancher/juxtaposer les formes venant de différentes dimensions pour composer ses dessins.

Chaque édition a une couverture unique sérigraphiée sur du papier Pantone Letraset par l’Atelier PPP et un texte critique-fiction de Mia Brion.