Including contributions from: Rosa Aiello, Terry Atkinson, Tenzing Barshee, Gerry Bibby, Mercedes Bunz, David Bussel, Jay Chung, Eric D. Clark, Caleb Considine, Hans-Christian Dany, Albert Dichy, Nikola Dietrich, Martin Ebner, Ruth Angel Edwards, Stephanie Fezer, Jean Genet, Simone Gilges, Julian Göthe, Michèle Graf, Selina Grüter, Ulrich Heinke, Toni Hildebrandt, Beatrice Hilke, Karl Holmqvist, Stephan Janitzky, G. Peter Jemison, Charlotte Johannesson, Julia Jost, Julia Jung, Nina Könnemann, Jakob Kolding, Lars Bang Larsen, Anita Leisz, Norman Lewis, Elisa R. Linn, Sebastian Lütgert, Vera Lutz, Chloée Maugile, Robert McKenzie, Ariane Müller, Christopher Müller, Robert M. Ochshorn, Henrik Olesen, Nina Rhode, Kari Rittenbach, Ulla Rossek, Cameron Rowland, Mark von Schlegell, Philipp Simon, Ryan Siegan Smith, Josef Strau, Valerie Stahl Stromberg, Vera Tollmann, Eleanor Ivory Weber, Camilla Wills, Amelie von Wulffen, Florian Zeyfang.

Designed by Dan Solbach & Starship.

Produced on the occasion of Josef Strau’s exhibition A Turtle Dreaming (… Echoes from an Encapsulated Space Exiled Sounds of Letters Requiring Symphonic Treatment) at Secession, Vienna, 24 April – 21 June, 2015.

Josef Strau’s experimental artistic practice developed out of the written word. In his installations he relates texts and objects to each other in manifold ways. On the surface, the texts are characterized by the typographic interplay of printed word and blank space. At another level their distinctive feature is Strau’s idiosyncratic style of writing, which nimbly and playfully tracks his stream of consciousness. Oscillating between the meaningful and the meaningless, he interweaves everyday stories and urban scenes with personal revelations and literary motifs. Both in his exhibition at the Secession and in the accompanying publication, Josef Strau references an old-established motif of literature and film—the artist as dreamer, resembling a turtle, an encapsulated observer and recorder of his urban surroundings.

The New York gallery American Fine Arts, Co.—whose name today is largely synonymous with that of its gallerist, Colin de Land (1955–2003)—represents a gallery practice in which a decided deviation from conventional models overlaps with successful activities within the framework of the art market. Today, American Fine Arts, Co. and de Land figure as uncontested projection screens for the desire for independence from or bohemian resistance against the dictate of the market.

Texts by Andrea Fraser, Manfred Hermes, Karl Holmqvist & Tobias Kaspar, Isla Leaver-Yap, Jackie McAllister, James Meyer & Christian Philipp Müller, Magnus Schäfer, Axel John Wieder, Phillip Zach; conversation between Colin de Land, Josef Strau, and Stephan Dillemuth; introduction by Hannes Loichinger and Magnus Schäfer.

Including Jay Chung, Claire Fontaine, Josef Strau, Alain Guiraudie, Bernadette Van-Huy, Helmut Draxler, Henrik Olesen by Thomas Duncan, Heji Shin by Benoît Lamy de la Chapelle, Marcel Proust by Yves-Noël Genod, Merlin Carpenter by Annie Ochmanek, Josephine Graf, Helmut Draxler, Megan Francis Sullivan and Nick Mauss, Dylan Byron and Isabelle Graw, Benjamin Lignel and Anne Dressen, Clément Rodzielski.

This publication assembles a selection of texts produced between the years 2005 and 2020, starting with The Non- Productive Attitude (2005), his prominent reflections on the anti-productive attitude in the Cologne art scene of the time. The experience of having to write the essay overnight within a few hours, and without any time for revision, triggered his interest in exploring forms of unintentional writing, and consequently the replacement of the intentional author by an unconscious writer / producer. This mode of automatic writing has manifested itself until today, and has become the core of Strau’s artistic practice.

Xeroxed artist book by Josef Strau published on the occasion of the exhibition Teil I: Müllberg at Galerie Buchholz, Köln. The brochure contains the second part of a narrative written by the artist under the title Dear Little Tiger. The first part White Nights was published in 2003 by Pork Salad Press / Jacob Fabricius, Copenhagen.