Forrest Bess
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln & Fridericianum, Kassel, 2025, 376 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 19.8 × 28 cm, German/English
Price: €38

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Forrest Bess at Fridericianum, Kassel, 15 February–6 September, 2020.

Forrest Bess was one of the most interesting figures in US-American post-war art. Starting in the 1940s, he lived in isolation in Texas and created small, biomorphic abstractions that reflected his visionary experiences between wakefulness and sleep. Bess combined art with an intense exploration of mythology, psychology, and sexology, believing that the path to completeness and immortality could only be achieved through what he called hermaphroditism. His unconventional works received posthumous recognition in international exhibitions and influenced many contemporary artists such as Amy Sillman, Richard Hawkins and James Benning.

With texts from Tomma Abts, Dieter Schwarz, Amy Sillman & Moritz Wesseler.

#2025 #amysillman #dieterschwarz #forrestbess #moritzwesseler #painting #tommaabts #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Roulette
Manfred Pernice
Published by SKOR, Gemeente Utrecht, 2010, 132 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 16 × 24.2 cm, English/Dutch
Price: €25 (Out of stock)

Produced on the occasion of Roulette, a multi-year sculpture project in Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht by Manfred Pernice, where a collection of sculptures from the Municipality of Utrecht’s collection was temporarily displayed on the Koehoornplein roundabout.

#2010 #manfredpernice
Die Dritte Dimension
Manfred Pernice
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2002, 286 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 19 × 23 cm, German/English
Price: €65

Produced on the occasion of Manfred Pernice’s exhibition 1A – Dosenfeld’00, at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, 11 March–30 April, 2000.

Since the early 1990s, Berlin-based artist Manfred Pernice has created sculptural vessels with scales, materials, and aesthetics derived from the worlds of architecture, shipping cargo, and mass packaging—these works serve as complex, open-ended meditations on the increased segmentation, containment, and, to use Pernice’s term, “canning” of objects and space. His seemingly slapdash sculptures are often juxtaposed with sketches, maquettes, photographs, text and, more recently, video to create systems of meaning.

With texts by Kasper König, Angelika Nollert, Harald Fricke, Peter Herbstreuth, Angelika Nollert, Isabel Podeschwa.

#2002 #manfredpernice #portikus #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Inner Fountain
Kazuna Taguchi
Published by Brunette Coleman, 2026, card (colour & b/w ill.), 16.3 × 12.7 cm, English
Price: €6

Produced on the occasion of Kazuna Taguchi’s exhibition In Anticipation at Brunette Coleman, London, 7 March–18 April, 2026.

Taguchi’s meticulously composed monochrome photographs convey body fragments, gestures, and gazes that resonate with the surrealist tradition concerning the questioning of the photographic representation of the female body. This can be moments of the phantomic or Yūgen*-like, images that capture a figure in a state between appearance and disappearance.

*According to the Japanese poet Kamo no Chōmei (1155–1216), yūgen is a feeling that is not openly expressed in words, but symbolically indicated by images.

#2026 #brunettecoleman #ephemera #invitecard #kazunataguchi
Stellproblemen
Heimo Zobernig
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2009, 144 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 21 × 29.7 cm, English/German/Italian
Price: €29

Stellproblemen (which means “set-problems”, and is purposely misspelled in German), is an artist book by Heimo Zobernig. Along with notions like alter ego, copy, dummy, imitation, mimicry, proxy, remake, substitution, and, of course, coincidence, the book addresses for the first time a central aspect of his work: the notion of repetition, which is inscribed into the very design of the book.

#2009 #heimozobernig #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Ludzie z podziemia
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
Published by Open Art Projects, Otwock, 2013, unpaginated (colour & b/w ill.), 17 × 24 cm, Polish
Price: €19

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Ludzie z podziemia (The Men from the Underground) curated by Kasia Redzisz and presented by Open Art Projects, Otwock.

“The men from the underground are allergic to social positivism and utilitarianism. They abhor humans who aspire to physical health, labour and reasonable material wealth. They see themselves as the enemy of this. Without realising it, they rule over a subterranean kingdom.” Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys.

#2013 #josdegruyterandharaldthys