Present Time Exercise
Silke Otto-Knapp
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2010, 120 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 22 × 27 cm, English
Price: €20

Edited by Suzanne Cotter. Text by Catherine Wood, Jan Verwoert.

Rendered in pallid, ghostly tones, Silke Otto-Knapp’s watercolors and gouaches recall turn-of-the-century painters such as Bakst, or children’s illustrators like Arthur Rackham. Her delicately delineated vignettes of encounters, dances and isolate doings seem to take place beyond a veil, in a submarine realm of amphitheaters and botanical gardens. Present Time Exercise surveys her work from the past five years.

#2010 #janverwoert #silkeottoknapp #suzannecotter #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
A Visual Bibliography
Emilio Prini
Published by Nero Editions, Rome, 2018, 144 pages (b/w ill.), 12 × 17 cm, English
Price: €25

A collection of visual incursions by Italian artist Emilio Prini in dozens of exhibition catalogues and print publications over the course of five decades. Meticulously researched, and yet necessarily incomplete, this book is a glimpse into the subtlety with which Prini turned each engagement with the world of ideas into a joust for mastery over space, time, and form.

In his work, Arte Povera artist Emilio Prini (1943–2016) used photography, sound and written texts to challenge the viewer’s perception and experience. Highlighting particular elements, he often revealed the relationship between reality and its reproduction.

#2018 #artepovera #emilioprini #neroeditions
Simulations
Jean Baudrillard
Published by Semiotext(e), Los Angeles, 1983, 176 pages, 11.4 × 17.8 cm, English
Price: €13 (Out of stock)

Baudrillard’s bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure’s general theory of general linguistics, is in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don’t refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix.

Translated by Phil Beitchman, Paul Foss and Paul Patton.

#1983 #jeanbaudrillard #semiotexte
Dedication(s)
Robin Waart
Published by Robin Waart, Amstelveen, 2018, 30 pages (b/w ill.), 20.5 × 26 cm, English
Price: €35

To C.L.S.’, ‘For A.L.M.’, ‘In Memory of J.V.C.’—Starting from his collection of three-letter dedications, Dedication(s) looks at public yet hidden modes of address. While these dedications appear in printed books, they remain private, intimate allusions between author and intended recipient. The project infers the strange position of the reader who encounters these cryptic dedications, which perhaps get in the way of—or better clarify?—the relationship between author and audience. Waart’s project questions the relationship between a work and the reality in which it comes about, and why, and for whom, we make what we make.

#2018 #robinwaart
evol/love
Nibor Traaw (Robin Waart)
Published by Stichting Mei, Amstelveen, 2020, 400 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 19.6 × 19.6 cm, English
Price: €35

Evol/Love is a project in three parts: a billboard series, installation and new publication connecting 160 subtitled movie stills that all contain the word Love. A collage of voices and definitions arranged in alphabetical order, from ‘Love is where you find it’ (A: A Date with Judy, US 1948, 00:22:37) to ‘But even if it’s a little late, love has a way of coming back to you’ (Y: Yeonae/Love is a Crazy Thing, KR 2005, 01:38:02), but read backwards to sound like its antonym: evil.

#2020 #robinwaart
Questions looming
Rowan McNaught
Published by Mode and Mode, Melbourne, 2020, digital print (edition of 50), 20.5 × 25.5 cm, English
Price: €25

Produced on the occasion of Mode and Mode issue 8 Rogue which is assembled around the modernist satirical magazine Rogue (1915–1916) with newly commissioned texts by Astrid Lorange, Femke de Vries, Matthew Linde, Ulrich Lehmann, Isabelle Sully, Yair Oelbaum, Katherine Bernard and Rowan McNaught.

The issue produces a conceptual mirror in the form of a split screen: on the left, a facsimile of the first issue of Rogue, published in March 1915, and on the right, Mode and Mode. This collective enquiry into Rogue not only recirculates and reconsiders this distinctive project in the context a radically different scene of art, fashion and poetry of the present day.

You can read the issue online here.

#2020 #fashion #modeandmode #rowanmcnaught