Art ≠ Propaganda
KP Brehmer
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2018, 232 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 21 × 28 cm, English
Price: €29

This comprehensive book on the work of the “capitalistic realist” KP Brehmer, who engaged with sociopolitical issues and tackled the visual media of the BRD and the conditions of capitalist image production and reception in a complex manner, is published on the occasion of what would have been his 80th birthday. He left behind a diverse, experimental, analytic and humorous oeuvre, which poses questions that are again becoming increasingly topical. In it he made use of image material from advertising and political propaganda in the form of posters, images from public television and from magazines and newspapers, which he presented in an altered context in the form of graphic art, paintings, printed editions, books or films. In collaboration with the artist’s estate and his former gallerist and collector René Block, the catalogue offers a multifaceted insight into work of KP Brehmer and facilitates a revaluation of the work.

#2018 #kpbrehmer #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Vacant Possession
John Knight
Published by Cabinet Gallery, London, 2018, 32 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 20 × 22.7 cm, English
Price: €22

Robert Snowden, the author of Vacant Possession, takes as his starting point the occasion of the closing show of the same name by the artist John Knight at Cabinet Gallery, Old Street in 2016. The text becomes an enquiry into the unrealised projects in the archive of the artist, and a reflection on the nature of the unmade, of memory and material evidence.

#2018 #cabinetgallery #johnknight #robertsnowden
Pool 2
Nora Turato
Published by Nora Turato, Amsterdam, 2018, unpaginated (colour & b/w ill.), 14.8 × 20 cm, English
Price: €50 (Out of stock)

In Nora Turato’s performances, spoken word, graphic design, and bookmaking are intertwined to explore the possibilities of language in a culture oversaturated with information. Turato collects words and phrases from a range of sources: the Internet, media headlines, advertisements, conversations, books, commercial products, and her own thoughts. Pool 2 assembles and arranges these pools of text from 2017 and 2018. Designed by Sabo Day (assisted by Claes Storm).

#2018 #noraturato #saboday
Thomas Struth
Published by andriesse eyck galerie, Amsterdam, 2018, unpaginated (colour & b/w ill.), 29.7 × 21 cm, English
Price: €12

Produced on the occasion of Thomas Struth’s exhibition at andriesse eyck galerie, Amsterdam, 8 September–13 October, 2018.

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

#2018 #photography #thomasstruth
Andreas Slominskyyy
Andreas Slominski
Published by Metro Pictures, New York, 2018, unpaginated (colour & b/w ill.), 14 × 20.3 cm, English
Price: €19

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Andreas Slominskyyy at Metro Pictures, New York, April 26 – May 25, 2018, an installation comprising new wall reliefs, constructed from the colourful side paneling of a specific model of German portable plastic toilet. Taking over the factory’s production line, the artist vacuum-formed maternal-themed found sculptures and symbolic natural and utilitarian objects, like rope and wood, into the high-density polyethylene panels. In one work the profile of a veiled young woman emerges from a single red panel surrounded by wood and pinecones in an asymmetrical composition. This group of symbols, with their religious and naturalist overtones, alludes to themes of purity, conception, and fertility. The works not only obscure the line between mass-produced and art objects, but also conflate canonical art historical imagery with fetish motifs.

#2018 #andreasslominski
You: Works and Writings 1964-1976
Ketty La Rocca
Published by Revolver Publishing, Berlin, 2018, 224 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 23 × 30 cm, English
Price: €35

Initially, inspired by the experimental visual poetry of the mid-sixties, Ketty La Rocca critically investigated questions of communication in the age of mass media. She soon began addressing herself in her work as both an artist and a woman in a desire to find “another” language to express difference and the non-identical. She worked with collage, photography, video, text, drawing, and performance to develop a language of gestures and appropriated imagery of disempowerment. But her work was only granted the short time span of a decade’s production, during which she underwent a rapid artistic development with enormous energy and intelligence.

This book is the first international monograph on Ketty La Rocca’s works and writings. With texts by Emi Fontana, Pier Luigi Tazzi, Angelika Stepken and Ketty La Rocca

#2018 #concretepoetry #kettylarocca #revolverpublishing