Ein Western für den SDS
Günter Peter Straschek
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2021, 248 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 20 × 27 cm, German w. English translation insert
Price: €29

The Austrian Günter Peter Straschek belonged to the very first cohort of students at the Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie in West Berlin – alongside Hartmut Bitomsky, Harun Farocki and Helke Sander. He and many of his fellow students participated in the New Left movement, recording demonstrations and supporting campaigns. Straschek’s Western für den SDS (1967/68, cinematography: Holger Meins) depicts the development of the left as a learning process for women, whose consciousness grows through the movement, but who continue to have no say in it. It was seized by the governing body of the film school in 1968, never screened and consequentially became legendary. Western für den SDS was finally given its premiere in 2018 at Museum Ludwig, as part of an exhibition dedicated to Straschek. This book publishes previously unreleased work material related to the film, which is a key work of the student movement and of Günter Peter Straschek’s oeuvre. Includes a photo gallery from the Christopher Williams class, Köln, 2019.

#2021 #christopherwilliams #gunterpeterstraschek #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Video's 1972–1981
Lili Dujourie
Published by Argos Editions, Brussels, 2002, 122 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 15 × 24 cm, English / Dutch
Price: €22 (Temporarily out of stock)

Produced on the occasion of the restoration of Lili Dujourie’s video works by Argos Editions, Brussels in 2002.

“Lili Dujourie made her videos in complete solitude, without a cameraman or a technical entourage. She saw on a monitor what the camera recorded of her from a fixed viewpoint. Her videos were never edited ‘extenuatingly’ afterwards; the video had to deliver the desired image or the work was destroyed. The vulnerability of the making of videos is comparable to the technique of the aquarelle—the touch should show great precision, otherwise the work fails. Mirrors, a mantelpiece, a window, slightly reflecting because of the entering light, a bed with white sheeting: familiar, yet as regards to content strongly layered encompassing ‘signs’ within which Lili Dujourie moved about in a suite of punctual movements, heightened with erotic suggestions and connotations. Time is being lived (in) in these videos—they reflect a conscious undergoing in the spectator of slow actions without finality”—Luk Lambrecht

#2002 #argoseditions #lilidujourie
Muzikale Hel
Luigi Ontani
Published by Beethoven Festival, Vincent Vlasbom & De Appel Amsterdam, 1977, invite card (colour ill.), 10.3 × 15 cm, Dutch
Price: €12 (Out of stock)

Entry ticket produced on the occasion of the Luigi Ontani’s performance Muzikale Hel at Ronde Lutherse Kerk, 2 July, 1977.

#1977 #deappel #ephemera #luigiontani
Oral Informants
Janet McCalman
Published by Unbidden Tongues / Publication Studio, Rotterdam, 2021, 32 pages (b/w ill.), 14 × 22.5 cm, English
Price: €8

Unbidden Tongues #4: Oral Informants draws on the work of Australia social historian Janet McCalman who, in 1998, published a comprehensive history of the Melbourne Women’s Hospital. Written through the medical records of the women who were at one time or another the hospital’s temporary residents, McCalman’s account draws on a vast archive of 14,000 gynaecology records and over 70,000 midwifery records to build the hospital’s history through the administrative documents that litter its archive. Composed of an article written by McCalman in 1999 as well as a case file of original nursing notes, Oral Informants presents the process of penning a (medical) history lesson uniquely based in the oral testimony of women.

#2021 #isabellesully #publicationstudio #unbiddentongues
Rope/Fire/Water
Howardena Pindell
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2021, 120 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 16.5 × 23.5 cm, English
Price: €24

Produced on the occasion of Howardena Pindell’s exhibition Rope/Fire/Water at the Shed, New York, 16 October, 2020–28 March, 2021.

Howardena Pindell is an American artist, curator, and educator. She is known as a painter and mixed media artist, her work is often political, addressing the intersecting issues of racism, feminism, violence, slavery, and exploitation.

#2021 #howardenapindell #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Standards, Surnames
Jacob Kassay
Published by Mousse Publishing, Milan, 2015, 180 pages (b/w ill.), 21.5 × 28 cm, English
Price: €35 (Temporarily out of stock)

Produced on occasion of Jacob Kassay’s exhibition at R.M. Schindler’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House in Los Angeles, 26–27 September, 2015.

This artist’s book has been developed as an index—with relative digitally drawn blueprints, structural diagrams and basic dimensional specifications—for the entire series of wooden stretchers that are part of “Remnants,” previously exhibited at The Kitchen and 303 Gallery in New York (2013).

“Recuperating leftover pieces of canvas that remain from those he cuts and stretches, Jacob Kassay found himself […] with a collection of scraps that still had value. More specifically, these scraps were of value to Kassay because they indexed his system of production. Once again, he seized upon a system that fetishizes his hand but discounts any aesthetic decision. These canvas forms, which Kassay calls ‘remnants,ʼ were made negatively through the creation of silver paintings and other works.”—Peter Eeley

#2015 #jacobkassay #moussepublishing