Mathias Poledna’s artistic practice is informed by historical research, archives and collections. His film Western Recording shows a recording session in the legendary Studio 3 at United Western Recorders, a studio that has remained largely unchanged since the early 1960s because of its special sound. From the multiple referential fields alluded to by this setting, as well as the inherent tension between its current function and historical significance, Poledna creates a hybrid historical constellation that combines a reinterpretation of the 1969 song “City Life” along with the appearance, the habitus, and the performance of the musicians.

Designed by Mathias Poledna.

Stephen Willats has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the 1960s. His work has involved interdisciplinary processes and theory from sociology, systems analysis, cybernetics, semiotics and philosophy. This manifests in wall installations, project works, films & computer simulations, drawings & diagrams, bookworks and texts.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Wie die Welt ist und wie sie sein könnte. How the world is and how it could be at Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, 21 September, 2006–14 January, 2007.

The Apothecary stems from the author’s desire to remake the sentence–to let it be capacious, preposterous, convivial, and hang it from a pronoun worn like a phantom limb. Robertson wants that ghostly pronoun to reinvent itself afresh in each sentence. Looking towards the eighteenth century, sometimes through a lens occasionally borrowed from contemporary sources, the text of The Apothecary is precise, intoxicating materia medica dispensed by one of Canada’s most important contemporary posts at the beginning of her career with the use of florid instruments.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Marc Nagtzaam / Selected Works, November–December 2006, Homework, Maastricht.

Marc Nagtzaam has been producing a body of work that is based on one main subject: the idea of pattern, the repetition. He draws lines, grids, circles, words or sentences as in an endless search for collecting pieces of information.

Bik Van der Pol’s project revolves around one of the oldest objects in the collection of the Rijksmuseum: a moon rock. The crew of the first manned lunar landing mission, Apollo 11, brought this rock back to earth in 1969. That same year the three astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins visited the Netherlands. Willem Drees, a former Dutch prime minister, received the rock on that occasion as a present from the United States ambassador. And later, this piece of stone was donated to the Rijksmuseum.

Liesbeth Bik and Jos van Der Pol have worked collaboratively since 1995. They live and work in Rotterdam.

Invitation card produced on the occasion of Ken Price’s exhibition Sculpture and Drawings at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, 22 September–4 November, 2006

For over 50 years, Ken Price produced small-scale, brightly colored ceramic sculptures with exquisitely worked glazed and painted surfaces in which he achieved a balance between form and surface. In recent years, Price began making works in much larger sizes. His youthful experiences as a surfer in Los Angeles greatly influenced his art, which he explained as the manifestation of that which he found pleasurable.