Henrik Olesen’s artworks question the sexually political effects of everyday conventions. Contemporary and historical materials serve as the starting points for this inquiry. These materials include visual and textual representations drawn from the fields of architecture, the history of industrialization, the imposition of legally sanctioned punishment, verdicts handed down by courts of law, the geographic and demographic distribution of capital, the natural sciences, and the history of art. Olesen uses the techniques of appropriation, manipulation or contextual shifting to explore the theme of the stigmatization, criminalization, and repression of homosexuality.

Cards produced on the occasion of B. Ingrid Olson’s exhibition Elastic X At Secession, Vienna, 29 June–4 September, 2022.

On the levels of both form and content, Breath Holding Spell unmistakably harks back to Bruce Nauman’s 1970 artist’s book LA AIR, whose eight monochrome pages present photographs of the atmosphere, illustrating the widely varying hues of the air over L.A.

It inspired this artist’s book by Nairy Baghramian, which features variations on a single photographic motif: no more than a cropped detail of a tightly packed standing crowd of people is visible in Tight Sluice. Monochrome pages that reprise the colors of their attire appear in rhythmical alternation with the pictures.

The artist has autographed the books on the back cover, again quoting Nauman, though his signature was a printed facsimile.

A text by Leslie Dick runs adjacent to 10 postcards featuring a Sequence of Events, a series of mostly permanent installations in homes. The project draws lines between public institutions, apartment galleries, private residences, owned homes, social housing, and rented apartments. A Sequence of Events questions the duration, visibility, and boundaries of a site, including that of an artist’s book.

Yuji Agematsu, Four Seasons is a unique artist book presenting the artist’s renowned zips, miniature sculptures comprised of reanimated urban detritus collected by Agematsu on daily walks in New York City and encased within the cellophane wrappers of cigarette packs.

The publication accompanies an exhibition at the Secession, Vienna of 366—one per day—of these arrangements from 2020, that infamous calendar year. The book features images of a selected month from each of the four seasons.

Designed by Studio Claus Due, Copenhagen.

Produced on the occasion of Rossella Biscotti’s 2013 exhibition The Side Room, at Secession, Vienna, 5 July–1 September, 2013. With texts from Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, András Pálffy, Bettina Spörr, Laboratorio Onirico.

Designed by Louis Lüthi.