I Am Only the Housekeeper, but I Don’t Know…
Luca Lo Pinto, Olaf Nicolai
Published by Humboldt Books, Milan, 2025, 48 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 24 × 34 cm, English
Price: €25

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jože Plečnik (1872–1957), a key figure of the Modernist movement in architecture and creator of numerous buildings and monuments around the city of Ljubljana, in 2022 Luca Lo Pinto and Olaf Nicolai curated an exhibition titled I Am Only the Housekeeper, but I Don’t Know… in the Slovenian architect’s former home. The publication retraces the contemporary interventions undertaken by the curatorial duo, who invited twenty-five internationally recognised Slovenian and foreign artists, allowing them to enter the house through their own works to commemorate Plečnik’s oeuvre and place its reading into a different and more contemporary context.

Works by John Armleder, H. C. Artmann, Nairy Baghramian, Avi Beracha, Pierre Bismuth, Monica Bonvicini, Pablo Bronstein, Michael Dean, Jason Dodge, Hansi Fuchs, Lena Grossmann, Ana Kučan, Janette Laverrière, Enzo Mari, Hana Miletić, Carsten Nicolai, Saša Pavček, Julie Peeters, Manfred Pernice, Florian Pumhösl, Fabio Quaranta, Ana Roš, Giovanna Silva, Mladen Stilinović, Diamond Stingily, Sophie Thun.

Photography by Giovanna Silva. Graphic design by Julie Peeters with Laura Martens.

#2025 #anakucan #diamondstingily #enzomari #florianpumhosl #giovannasilva #hanamiletic #janettelaverriere #jasondodge #johnarmleder #juliepeeters #lucalopinto #manfredpernice #michaeldean #mladenstilinovic #nairybaghramian #olafnicolai #pablobronstein #pierrebismuth #sophiethun
Francis Picabia
Published by Seibu, Tokyo, 1984, 149 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 22 × 27 cm, Japanese/​English/​French
Price: €40

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Francis Picabia, at The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa, 21 July–5 September, 1984 and the Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo 9 September–21 October 1984.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

#1984 #francispicabia #painting
1999/2000
Francis Picabia
Published by APT International, Tokyo, 1999, Two volumes in cardboard slipcase, 225 pp. & 120 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 18 × 25 cm, English/​French/​Japanese
Price: €95

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Francis Picabia, which travelled to Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 12 August–7 September, 1999; Iwaki City Art Museum, Fukushima, 17 October–14 November 1999; Kintetsu Art Museum, Osaka, 26 January–9 February, 2000.

Francis Picabia was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typographist. He was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France and was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

#1999 #francispicabia #painting
Bruno Munari: 100th Anniversary Exhibition
Published by Asahi Shimbun, Osaka, 2007, 200 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 21.2 × 26 cm, Japanese
Price: €58

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Bruno Munari: What Comes From What held at the Itabashi Art Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga and Kariya City Art Museum, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth Munari, who was an artist, designer, and children’s book author. It features colour illustrations of a wide variety of Munari’s works, including his masterpieces The Nonsense Machine and The Unreadable Book as well as paintings and three-dimensional paper sculptures. The catalogue comprehensively traces a body of work that is permeated with playful ideas and a spirit of inquiry. It reflects the breadth of Munari’s creativity, which spans art, design, and education.

#2007 #brunomunari #design
Licorice
Bridget Penney
Published by Book Works, London, 2020, 144 pp., 11 × 18 cm, English
Price: €15

Licorice is a novel, a mixed-up tale about a film, a windmill and city folk. The plot involves the making of a film by characters who are trying to gain permission to record the noises inside a reconstructed windmill to use as its soundtrack. When they don’t succeed, the eponymous character Licorice makes an Aeolian harp out of bits she finds in a small electricals recycling bin. Brighton based author Bridget Penney, previous publications include Honeymoon with Death and Other Stories (Polygon, 1991) and Index (Book Works, 2008).

#2020 #bookworks #bridgetpenney #fiction
Broken Villas
Helen Marten
Published by Bricks from the Kiln, London, St Leonards-on-Sea & New Haven, 2025, 20 pp. + envelope + insert (colour & b/w ill.), 22 × 29.5 cm, English
Price: €19

Written in response to three physical photographs, Broken Villas contains and considers how a vessel might clasp tightly to known volumetric identities, but also loom with a set of accentuated clues towards otherness: the excavated seams in the earth and what we fill those holes with, imaginary or otherwise; the glacial erraticism of the boulder; the queer crimping of a hotel pillowcase; the modes via which objects are housed as display, but also packaged away, with sorrow, with fear, with erotism etc. Published as a prelude to BFTK#7, Broken Villas is collected and written by Helen Marten, one of the co-editors of the forthcoming issue.

#2024 #andrewwalshlister #bricksfromthekiln #helenmarten #matthewstuart