Doug Ashford is a teacher, artist and writer. Ashford’s principle visual practice from 1982 to 1996 was the artists’ collaborative Group Material that produced over 40 exhibitions and public projects internationally. Group Material developed the exhibition form into an artistic medium using display design and curatorial juxtaposition as a critical location where audiences were invited to imagine democratic forms. Since 1996, Ashford has continued to make paintings, write, and produce museum and public projects. His book Who Cares (Creative Time, 2006) is a publication built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, beauty, and ethics.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Tradition at Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture, 16 March, 2013– 19 May, 2013 and Grazer Kunstverein, 7 June, 2013 –11 August, 2013.

Fehler lesen. Korrektur als Textproduktion is an essay on textual errors and a personal quest to find them. Misprints demonstrate the vulnerability of a text. Here we catch a glimpse of the pre- and post-production phases, work that is to a large extent invisible. Thus, the juxtapositions of words that are printed and those that are intended (errata) reveal far more than a simple genealogy of wrong vs. right: they document vestiges of the work done in the shadows, the wrestling with language. Displacements, reconstructions, and lacunae become visible. In her essay Tabea Nixdorff tracks the social, linguistic, media, and poetic dimensions produced by correction and textual criticism. Who does the correcting and what traces does this mostly invisible work leave behind? What shifts in meaning do mistakes trigger? To what extent does the medium play a part in authoring the text.

Unbidden Tongues publishes previously produced yet relatively uncirculated work by cultural practitioners busy with questions surrounding civility and civic life—particularly so in relation to language. The first title of the series, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt: Introverse Arrangements, is centred on the work of German artist Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt who, despite only recently garnering attention for her work, is most known for a period of geometric and poetic typewriter drawings produced between the 1970s and 1990 while employed as an administrator for the German Democratic Republic.

Three new limited edition prints of Ruth’s work will also be available on the night, thanks to her gallery ChertLüdde, Berlin, as well as a small exhibition of ephemera surrounding her practice.

The launch will also coincide with an event next door: Shimmer’s next sundowner opening, with the introduction of a sculpture by Ian Kiaer and work-on-paper by Marcel Duchamp to their the current exhibition Higher! Higher! Lower, Lower. Louder! Louder! Softer, Softer.

Introverse Arrangements is centred on the work of German artist Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt who, despite only recently garnering attention for her work, is most known for a period of geometric and poetic typewriter drawings produced between the 1970s and 1990 while employed as an administrator for the German Democratic Republic.

Unbidden Tongues is a series edited by Isabelle Sully that focuses on previously produced yet relatively uncirculated work by cultural practitioners busy with questions of civility and civic life—particularly so in relation to language.

Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt is a German artist associated with visual poetry and mail art. She is most known for a period of geometric and poetic typewriter works produced between the 1970s and 1990 while employed as an administrator for the German Democratic Republic.

This book aims to collect and present a comprehensive overview of the work of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt. It is the result of a long and intense immersion into her archive, and intends to establish the importance of this unique artist – who did not have much recognition in the past—not only to the present day, but also to the precise political context and time to which she and her work belong.

The book presents her typewritings series, all produced between the early 1970s (some of the earliest works are dated 1972) and 1989. Mail Art was her way to be in contact with the world outside the GDR, otherwise impossible to reach. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification, the artist stopped producing any art: She felt her involvement was no longer “needed”.

With a text by Zanna Gilbert, edited by Jennifer Chert, designed by Till Gathmann.