Produced on the occasion of the exhibition John Baldessari “Composition for Violin and Voices (Males),” Magasin, Centre National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble, France, 3 May– 28 June, 1987.

Produced on the occasion of Raumbilder Five German sculptors in Madrid at Centro De Arte Reina Sofia in 1987. This is a single volume on the work of Reinhard Mucha from a 5 volume set.

Mucha’s meticulously constructed sculptures—he often works with industrial materials such as aluminum, float glass, felt, gloss paint, steel, or blockboard—look variously like showcases and display cabinets or like baroque theatrical installations. He moreover integrates biographical material such as a copy of his diploma from the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts or a photograph that shows him as a student. Yet his purpose with such inclusions is not the personal anecdote; rather, they raise questions concerning the category of the collective—for example, to what extent social structures and the hierarchies woven into them inform our personalities.

Publication produced for Atsuko Tanaka’s exhibition Peintures at Galerie Stadler, Paris, 30 January– 7 March, 1987.

Atsuko Tanaka was a Japanese avant-garde artist best known for her Neo-Dada Electric Dress (1956), a garment made from hundreds of lightbulbs painted in primary colors. This iconic work, which she wore to exhibitions, functions as a conflation of Japanese traditional clothing with modern urbanization, bringing an unexpected and challenging interpretation to both. “I wanted to shatter stable beauty with my work,” Tanaka once said. A member of the Gutai movement, much of her work used domestic objects like lightbulbs, textiles, doorknobs, and doorbells. With these objects, the artist was able to create work about the body without a body present. She maintained a broad practice that included performance “happenings,” sculpture, and installation, while her later work focusing on two-dimensional painting, with colorful organic abstract shapes connecting circles and lines.

Iwata Nakayama (1895–1949) is regarded as a one of the most important contributors to the Shinko Shashin movement. After graduating from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1918, he received a scholarship from the Japanese government and went to California before settling in New York. At the same time Nakayama was attracted to avant-garde movements and moved in bohemian circles where he met Shimizu Toshi. Shimizu encouraged him to move to Paris in 1926 where he met Man Ray, Fujita Tsuguji, and Enrico Prompolini. These encounters left a deep impression on him and when he returned to Japan in 1927 he energetically set about forming his own vision of ‘pure art photography’. In 1929 he settled in Ashiya (nr. Kobe) and in the following year founded the Ashiya Camera Club with Hanaya Kambei, Korai Seiji, and others. This club became the main driving force of New Photography in Japan. Together with Kimura and Nojima he founded Koga magazine in 1932 that was the most important forum for artistic photography at the time.