The catalog “Tannhäuser Tor II” (Tannhauser Gate II), edited by Daniel H. Wild, documents the development of the work cycle of the same name begun by the artists Alekos Hofstetter and Florian Göpfert in 2012. Conceptually, it follows the first catalog on this topic, which was published in 2013, also by FANTÔME.
The theme of the group of works titled “Tannhäuser Tor” is the relationship between space, time, and distance; and the focus is on examining the changing perspectives on post-war modernism and its architecture. The disappearance of modernism from our surroundings has consequences. Through this disappearance, modernism’s former utopian promise, or rather, the memory that is left of this promise, is dissolving. In the drawings and paintings, some of which were created together with Dresden artist Florian Göpfert, a new relationship between architecture and landscape is constructed. And in this very construction of a utopian context, or a “new home,” a distance becomes visible. The architecture that Alekos Hofstetter shows us in his works is freed from any functionality and seems to be able to exist only in a remote realm.
Irène Hug – Reading Pictures
The catalog “Reading Pictures” is the first comprehensive examination of the work of Berlin-based Swiss artist Irène Hug. In addition to her work of the last sixteen years, it includes essays by philosopher Gernot Grube, curator and art critic Raimar Stange, and art historian Viola Vahrson.
Far from sober artworks of American minimalists or conceptual artists involving written language, Irène Hug confronts us with her messages in glaring neon signs, objects, installations, and photographs. Hug utilises and manipulates the typographic components of signposts, logos, and advertising slogans that cover urban spaces worldwide. Using techniques of appropriation, montage, citation, and retouching she reacts to found materials, situations, or stereotypical images, commenting on and changing their meaning using pointed but complex artistic interventions.
With subtle wit, Irène Hug questions in “Reading Pictures” our belief in the truth of the supposedly objective world (or its representation) and our entanglement in omnipresent consumerism and challenges us to get, behind the surfaces, as it were, to the bottom of the true meaning of things and words.
Peter Woelck – Dancing in Connewitz
The book “Dancing in Connewitz” documents the attempt to bring the eclectic diversity of an archive into a sequence of images that does not strive for a photo-historical classification but rather allows a specific and subjective narration to emerge from today’s perspective.
After studying photography at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig, Peter Woelck worked as a professional photographer in the GDR for various companies and magazines. Moreover, he independently created a vast amount of artistic works, especially in the field of portrait and architectural photography. Photographs of the construction of the Berlin Television Tower, cityscapes of Leipzig, and intense portraits from the 60s through the 80s document how life used to be in a country that no longer exists. On the other hand, there are photographs from the post-reunification period, during which Woelck repeatedly tried to establish himself as a freelance advertising photographer. Thus, the pictures also tell of a break in the photographer’s biography, the kind of experience that affected many people of his generation.
In “Dancing in Connewitz”, texts are contributed by Wilhelm Klotzek, Woelck’s son, who not only co-manages the estate in collaboration with the Laura Mars Gallery but also artistically deals with the legacy, by writer and publicist Peter Richter, and by curator Bettina Klein.
Heike Gallmeier – Vertigo
The catalog “Vertigo” documents a journey from Berlin to Northampton and the exhibitions based on this trip. On her journey, Heike Gallmeier built temporary installations from found materials in a transporter that she converted into a mobile home and studio. On her way through Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, and Great Britain, she avoided highways and major roads. Instead of choosing the shortest routes she followed rural roads and wandered through residential areas. When she arrived at her destination, the NN Contemporary Art in Northampton, she moved the contents of the van into the exhibition space, and, along with large format photographs, combined the materials found along the way to create new installations–and called it “Vertigo”.
Heike Gallmeier works across media, from sculpture to installation to photography. Found objects and other materials are gathered and assembled into large installations that then are photographed.
Soap “Rosetta”
Rosetta’s natural formula is infused with petals of the Bulgarian Damascena Rose to flourish your skin and tantalise your senses. Personally kissed with unconditional love, Rosetta is embedded in a silver hot foil stamped box to adequately showcase your piece of jewellery.
Ingredients: Natural Oils, No additives, Vegan and eco-certified
Manufactured in the South of Germany
Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms
‘Feminisms’ (as a plural) is widely used today to draw attention to inequalities and to critique the status quo in limiting women’s roles/ positions/ lives/ potential. Art can offer a vision of future worlds, manifesting a desire for projecting change, playing with existing realities and conventions. “Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms”, two sides of the same coin, arise where art approaches, develops or transforms into activism and vice versa, where activisms become artivisms. In both, art emerges in differing forms of political intervention, at both an individual, shared or collective level, apparent in actions, events, identifications and practices.
This volume wants to reveal the diversity of these practices and realities. Representing a range of critical insights, perspectives and practices from artists, activists, curators, academics and writers, it explores and reflects on the enormous variety of feminist interventions in the field of contemporary art, social processes, the public sphere and politics. In doing so, “Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms” touches upon broader questions of cultural difference, history, class, economic position, ecology, politics, sexual orientation, and the ways in which these intersect.
Richly illustrated with c. 300 black and white illustrations and photos.
This is the first volume in the new PLURAL series. The series focuses on how the intersections between identity, power, representation and emancipation, play out in the arts and in cultural practices. The volumes in this series aim to do justice to the plurality of voices, experiences and perspectives in society and in the arts and to address the history and present and future meaning of these positions and their interrelations. PLURAL brings together new and critical insights from artists, arts professionals, activists, cultural and social researchers, journalists and theorists.
2020, Valiz, supported by Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and Middlesex University London
Hard Werken – One for All
“Hard Werken – One for All” is the first major publication on the experimental Rotterdam-based design studio Hard Werken [Working Hard, Travailler dur], also known for the underground magazine of the same name. Hard Werken’s anarchic design, smattering high with low culture and running contrary to typographic conventions and modernist currents of the time, characterized this group as a brash, elusive, and distinctly Rotterdam phenomenon. However, working in Rotterdam and Los Angeles, the core members Henk Elenga, Kees de Gruiter, Gerard Hadders, Tom van den Haspel, Willem Kars and Rick Vermeulen also had worldwide ambitions.
This feisty and uncompromising book examines Hard Werken’s practice and legacy in an international context and addresses their contemporary significance. It investigates the group’s pioneering role in the cultural life of Rotterdam and their impact abroad, especially the US, by examining the innovative aspects of Hard Werken’s practice, which combined graphic and fine art languages. All is elucidated by a myriad of images and clear, concise texts.
‘The 1970/80s Dutch magazine Hard Werken has all the qualities of a pop-legend. Born of the collective desire of a group of young graphic designers from industrial Rotterdam to express themselves, they quickly achieved an influential cult status, then [the magazine] died young.’
Peter Bilak in: Dot Dot Dot magazine, Issue 1, 2000
Hard Werken ‘quite deliberately has broken every rule in the handbook’ by producing ‘scattershot lay-outs, jarring mismatches of type, shrieking colours and a veneer of industrial grime which seem calculated to assault the sensibilities of more delicate colleagues.’
Rick Poynor in: Blueprint No 59, 1989
2018, Valiz with Stichting Kunstpublicaties Rotterdam | supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Stichting Jaap Harten Fonds
The Digital Shift
The Digital Shift is changing the world as we know it. Previously unimaginable technological possibilities are already in motion – or just around the corner. The rise of Artificial Intelligence will create new business models, products and services. But in order to establish a new global prosperity paradigm, the industry must finally start thinking radically from a human perspective. Artificial Intelligence must become civilized. Artificial Intelligence must complete a transition, to what we call Personal Intelligence. Whereas it is currently a tool used only by the elite, Artificial Intelligence must become a tool for everyone. As a consequence, the discipline of design will take on a prominent role in the personalisation of Artificial Intelligence. How do corporations adjust to this new personalised technology? To move corporations forward, Christian von Reventlow & Philipp Thesen, have developed series of radically new, human-centered methods and models, delivered in this fascinating book The Digital Shift.
As Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Designer at Deutsche Telekom, Von Reventlow & Thesen have analysed the societal repercussions of the increasing adoption of AI. During the past five years, the duo has shifted Deutsche Telekom from being infrastructure-led to being design-led, placing empathy and humanity at its core. By fostering one of Europe’s largest design teams, the two have gained deep understanding of how artificial intelligence works within the public domain, and how it leaves an impact on millions of users every day.
Detail in typography
An attractive, interesting layout can certainly attract and please the reader; but when the details are not good, reading requires more effort and any pleasure is short-lived. Detail in typography is a concise and close-up view of the subject – letters, words, the line, and the space around the elements – and it discusses what is essential for the legibility of the text. Yet this is more than a guide to correct typography. How is it, Hochuli asks, that text can be set perfectly and yet look insufferably dull? Answers may be found here, not least in the way the book itself has been set and produced. Jost Hochuli is a Swiss typographer, internationally renowned for his book design work. As a teacher, he has had long experience in Zurich and his home town of St. Gallen. As a writer and editor, his books include Book design in Switzerland (1993), Designing books (1996), and Jost Hochuli: Printed matter, mainly books (2002). He has edited and designed the annually published Typotron series of booklets (1983-1998) and the Editions Ostschweiz (from 2000).
Unjustified texts
Over twenty-five years of engagement, somewhere in the borderlands between journalism and the academy, Robin Kinross has written for magazines and journals, making a case for typography as a matter of fine detail and subtle judgement, whose products concern all of us, every day.
This selection of his shorter writings brings his major themes into focus: the unsung virtues of editorial and information design, the fate of Modernism in the twentieth century, the work of dissident and critical Modernist designers, the contributions of emigré designers from Europe in the English-speaking world, the virtues of a socially-oriented design approach.
He argues for a design that is of use in the world, and against the cult of design and the delusions of theory. Pieces move from patient exposition, to sharp critique, to warm appreciation. This book presents an unexpected body of writing, which stakes out fresh territory between the purely academic and the merely journalistic. The whole is an unusual and powerful contribution to the subject of typography.
“In short, a nice book to read and the perfect antidote to all those slick design books.”
Mathieu Lommen, Items
Modern Typography
Situating the birth of modern typography around 1700, when it started to be distinct from printing, Robin Kinross introduces in Modern Typography a new understanding of the subject: as something larger and more deeply rooted than a modernism of style, echoing Jürgen Habermas’s proposition that modernity is ‘a continuing project’. Starting with the early years of the Enlightenment in France and Britain, different cultures and countries successively become the focus for the discussion as they gain significance. Examining the social, technical and material contexts in which typographers operate, the argument also considers principles and explanations of practice. This essay is seminal in many ways, providing a lively and critical narrative of historical development, a springboard for further investigation, and reproductions of not-often seen items.
‘This is a book to read and reread. It is provocative, dense, opinionated, and thoroughly original. […] It deserves to become a classic.’ Alastair Johnston, Bookways
Systematic book design?
Does designing a book follow a logical and well-thought-out process? Swiss graphic designer and typographer Jost Hochuli studies the crucial role played by instinct throughout the various stages of planning a book, from selecting a typeface and its size to determining the layout of the blocks of text.
Drawing on his own experience and examples taken from various books he created, Jost Hochuli considers the questions which arose while they were being designed and the importance of intuition in rational thought.
“Systematic book design?” was written for a lecture Jost Hochuli gave for the first time in Munich in 2007, and then at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2011 on the initiative of F7. The text has been first published in Back Cover magazine in 2011. John Morgan’s foreword was especially written for the present edition.
Jost Hochuli’s text was translated from German by Charles Whitehouse.
Foreword by John Morgan
LUDIFIED
LUDIFIED offers a comprehensive insight into the artistic research project “GAPPP–Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice” which was based at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 2016-2020. In this project, a team of artists and researchers set themselves the task of exploring the artistic potential of elements from computer games in the context of audiovisual composition and performance. The examination of almost twenty artistic works that have arisen in connection with this project has led to numerous findings, which are not only reproduced here textually but also aesthetically.
In addition to various texts by the core team consisting of Marko Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg and Andreas Pirchner, LUDIFIED also presents texts, pictures and sketches by guests who accompanied the project. The integrated USB stick contains high-quality documentation of audiovisual works that were of particular importance for the project. Numerous illustrations and the integration of an augmented reality part complete the aesthetic impression on the one hand, and on the other, convey the process of creative and research work.
The book is divided into two main parts, one in which the project is introduced in general, and various methodological research approaches are set against works by different artists. Another part is exclusively dedicated to Marko Ciciliani, the head of the research project, who contributed numerous newly created audiovisual compositions to the project and thus set significant focal points in the research.
Also, it contains an USB-Stick and Augmented Reality–for those who wonder.
Ina Weber – Out to Lunch
In her book “Out to Lunch,” Ina Weber assembles an array of ceramic architecture models depicting diverse variations of Chinese restaurants familiar to our hemisphere.
Ina Weber concerns herself with the exotic and its romanticisation. Her ceramic works refer both to the subject matter and materiality of eighteenth-century chinoiserie and to contemporary trends in architecture. She deals with the mutual influence of east and west—between affirmation and misunderstanding.
Certain elements of traditional Chinese building techniques have found a sustained and unbridled distribution in our hemisphere. In fact, not one of the many Chinese restaurants in any mid-sized or larger city could do without them. When the first restaurants run by Chinese owners opened in Berlin Charlottenburg in the 1920s, Asian folklore was by no means part of the décor. These restaurants were initially a decidedly urban phenomenon and were considered throughout Europe to be specific expressions of cultural modernity. It wasn’t until the big boom of Chinese restaurants in the ‘60s and ‘70s that folklore found its way into the ambience. It was during this time that Ina Weber was growing up and perhaps it was one such early childhood visit in the circle of her family to a similar establishment that introduced the desire for far and unknown worlds. Even to this day, the artist draws much of her inspiration from traveling the globe.
Ina Weber was born in Dietz on the Lahn in 1964. From 1989 to 1994, she studied with Friedrich Salzmann, Harry Kramer, and Martin Kippenberger at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. After working a number of positions, Weber has lived in Berlin since 2003 and worked as professor of sculpture at the Universität Der Künste since 2016.
Woodcut Vibes
Roman Klonek, born in Kattowitz / Poland, has a spot for old fashioned cartoons and modern block printing styles. In the 90s he studied Graphic Arts in Dusseldorf and discovered a passion for woodcut. With this book the Dusseldorf-based artist gives a detailed insight into the working process and the background of his woodcut prints.
The woodcut technique is particularly interesting, as it is primarily known as a “very old” medium and therefore often creates a surprise effect, especially with contemporary motifs. Feel invited to follow the pages about a variety of whimsical characters, often half animal / half human in preferably curious surroundings and embarrassing situations.
A bizarre balancing act between propaganda, folklore and pop!
Moving Pictures – The complete film posters of Hans Hillmann
Between 1954 and 1974, Hans Hillmann designed over 150 film posters for masterpieces of cinema—including films by Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, and Akira Kurosawa. In the early 1950s, while still a student, Hillmann began designing posters for the newly founded film distributor Neue Filmkunst Walter Kirchner. With little or no intervention by the client he had the freedom to create unique graphic design solutions. He used drawing, photography and typography in a complementary interaction and quickly gained international recognition. In his twenty years of work for Neue Filmkunst, he revolutionized poster design for independent movies and became one of the trailblazers of modern graphic design in Germany after the Second World War.
This book shows, for the first time, all of Hans Hillmann’s film posters. Unpublished sketches and drafts from his estate along with commentary from conversations and interviews provide an insight into the creative process of the award-winning designer. His principle to “compete with himself” and to develop different approaches for each task is a universal and timeless leitmotif for all designers and can be explored in the best possible way here. With over 300 illustrations, reproduced and printed in the highest quality, the book presents one of the most remarkable oeuvres in graphic design history.
further 02
The Fotobus Society, founded by Christoph Bangert, provides a network connecting more than 700 photographers who are currently studying at German and European universities or photography schools. Members have access to a wide range of cultural and social activities offered by the association. At the heart of the community is a 30-year-old bus that serves as a mobile photography school and regularly carries members to photo festivals, symposia, and professional events.
“further 02” is the second volume in a series presenting selected works by members. Whereas the main mission of the association is to promote exchange within the international photography scene, the coronavirus pandemic prevented the artists from travelling and meeting up as usual. For many of them, taking photos became an outlet and a medium to communicate with the “outside world”. As a result, the projects showcased in this publication also tell of the insecurity, hope, and distress of the last months, giving an inside view of the experiences and stories of people from around the world. In different ways, the images document their lives and the spaces in which they live, or the concepts and ideas, in which they believe.
Marcus Weber – Adalbertstraße 2008-2010
Marcus Weber’s series of paintings “Adalbertstraße 2008-2010” takes on the appearance of a colorful curio collection bringing into the picture urban conditions of the German capital in a fashion at the same time insouciantly sensual and cryptically analytical.
The individual works are suspensefully staged variations of one horizontal and one vertical visual structure. For the most part a clear-cut, geometrically variable basic design is discernible, with the laid-out-in-color sidewalk strips localized in the bottom third. Separated by contours, an architectural background rises above this, usually treated like a modular construction system of geometric basic shapes. Only because lettering is added by way of fluffy brushwork, the form constructs can be identified: as a billboard, a fish store, or a travel agency. Onto this, in most cases stereometrically structured, matrix, Marcus Weber applies most diverse figurative personnel. The people depicted enliven with their postures, penchants, and gestures the architectural framework in manifold ways.
The artist presents the confusingly multiform big-city stage complete with keenly observed and lovingly typecast human specimen acting on it. What comes across as ever so fresh and colorful, though, is not just the result of an affirmative, insouciant joy of painting, but rather a realistic, precisely researched and implemented social study wherein individuals of a most heterogeneous character have been observed with subtle irony in their “suchness”.
At first sight the paintings by Marcus Weber would join the ranks of a genesis of painterly comic book adaptations generated since the 1960s—you might feel remotely reminded of Philip Guston, Peter Saul, or George Condo. Yet it is no less intriguing to perceive the series “Adalbertstraße 2008–2010” in the tradition of Berlin milieu descriptions. You would think, of course, of George Grosz, also of Karl Hubbuch, or Rudolf Schlichter—albeit Marcus Weber endearingly avoids any sarcastic or cynical undertone when describing the human condition.
Matias Bechtold – Objekte (Objects)
The catalog “Objekte (Objects)” presents scupltures by Matias Bechtold. His models of buildings and cities are ironic comments on architecture that celebrate possibility – in a surprising artistic take on feasibility.
The different view through which Matias Bechtold perceives our world is essentially determined by shifts in scale. He miniaturizes modernist architecture. The urban topography put forward in his models allows two perspectives. You can perceive it as a sculpture, as if circling over street canyons at a dizzying height, only to imagine yourself a moment later as an inhabitant of the miniature buildings. Bechtold’s utopias not only provide an overview of the seemingly limitless complexity of a city but also open up unusual perspectives when you go into detail.
nomad #7 — where to go?
The new links between disciplines and technologies being built by visionary
designers, artists, scientists and architects are currently unveiling options for the future of our primary needs: how we live, what we eat, how we dress. Signs which—if indeed they come to pass despite their occasional outlandishness—may tomorrow be viewed as harbingers of a new age: The New Reality.
We meet with New York-based fashion designer Suzanne Lee, who has spent many years exploring the possibility of manufacturing materials based on microorganisms with radically low environmental impact, which could revolutionise our use of leather and cotton.
In our interview by Kimberly Bradley, architect David Chipperfield spoke with the luxury of far-sightedness, discussing architecture and its opportunities to cast influence. “Architects have no power, designers have no power—unless we leverage it. At one time architecture was far more connected to social advocacy… We’ve been working for investors and not society. That has to change”, believes Chipperfield.
Canadian-British designer Philippe Malouin has devised an aesthetic that captures a new language of form. His studio is small, his working methods unconventional—the office is closed every Friday without fail. And yet it works: Philippe is currently one of the most sought-after designers in the world. nomad visited him in his London studio. Designer Marije Vogelzang has chosen a remarkable path; as an ‘eating designer’, she experiments with food and incorporates personal and sociocultural experiences associated with food and eating into her work. We visited Marije’s refreshing universe of ideas in Dordrecht.
Our interview in Copenhagen with Liza Chong, CEO of INDEX, immersed us in a non-profit with a wonderfully straightforward description of its mission and image: “It’s all about design to improve life”.
Andreas Seltzer – Der Sendermann / The Transmitter Man
In the winter months of 1972, the first messages from the so-called Sendermann (Transmitter Man) appeared in the Berlin districts of Tempelhof and Schöneberg. By 1978, when the messages ceased to appear, “Der Sendermann” had covered the city centre of West Berlin with a whole series of inscriptions. Back then, the Berlin artist Andreas Seltzer wandered through the city in search of these inscriptions and captured his findings in a series of photographs.
In times in which the uncovering of various secret service surveillance activities has become a recurring topic in the daily news, the warnings of the Sendermann seem like early prophecies.
… The Sendermann’s inscriptions develop an anarchic vitality …
(K. H. Bohrer, FAZ)
… Seltzer shows the work of a man who warned at an early stage about the invisible control and manipulation of consciousness by transmitters …
(Dirck Möllmann, MANSON, catalog, Kunsthalle Hamburg)
… Like the drifter in John Carpenter’s “They Live,” the Sendermann saw more than most people could see. It had somehow become clear to him that one is not only being listened to but also manipulated. …
(Claudia Basrawi, TAZ)
… an act of revolt! …
(Andrea Hill, Artscribe)
Tonight at Merlin
Over the course of a year, graphic designers Mark Bohle and Raffael Kormann designed posters for all concerts at the music and arts venue Kulturzentrum Merlin in Stuttgart. The publication “Tonight at Merlin” captures this noticeable collection. For each of the 80 posters, some of which have been awarded internationally, the publication offers an honest glimpse into the visual making-of and the corresponding thoughts behind. Moreover the publication is linked to the bands and their posters, enabling the reader to listen to the corresponding sound while deep diving into the artworks.
Three essays by Arne Hübner (booking Merlin, designer and DJ), Niklaus Troxler (poster designer and founder of the Jazz festival Willisau), and Das bisschen Totschlag (Brunchpop-Band) contextualise this stimulating symbiosis of visual communication, music, and popular culture.
“The present publication ‘Tonight at Merlin’ shows an impressive annual production by a design team that draws on unlimited with high design standards.” —Niklaus Troxler
character#02
character#02 is the second specimag by Character Type—a blend of type magazine and a typeface specimen. Their rich archive of collected typeface specimens and type magazines has inspired them to marry the two into one creative space and share some recent type-related thoughts and insights, while introducing Character Type’s newest typeface super family NewsSerif.
character#02 features a photographic essay by Bettina Theuerkauf about the self-destructive tendencies of modern society. We also look at the history of type families and also work our way through the concept of variable fonts.
nomad #8 — where to go?
Issue #8 of nomad magazine takes a look at the north. We visit Snøhetta, the globally esteemed Oslo-based architects’ office and interview one of its founders, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen. In a former pumping station in Berlin, we meet with Danish-Norwegian artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset.
We talk to Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian smell artist und olfactory researcher and Julia Lohmann, a design professor at Alvar Aalto University in Helsinki, who applies a critical design perspective to an examination of the potential of marine algae. Photographer Marzena Skubatz contributes a portrait of Brekka, a remote village in the East Fjords of Iceland and takes us to Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, a Norwegian Sámi musician who combines modernity and the traditions of the Sámi. Oliver Godow, artist, photographer and participant at the oslobiennalen 2019, photographed for nomad the series ‘New Light City’ an homage to the city of Oslo and its transformation. At the heart of traditional Aschau in Upper Bavaria, Nils Holger Moormann lives and breathes a completely different design culture with his furniture production and we learn to know his new chair “Bruto”. And Melanie Kurz, professor of design theory and design history in Aachen, portrays Swedish designer Carl Larsson and his book ‘Ett hem’ (A Home), that has been written over 100 years ago.