Parties de voyant

Benoit Platéus, Parties de voyant
Softcover, 100 pp., offset 4/4, 210 x 280 mm
English and French
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-94-906-9337-4
Published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle

$28.00 ·

This first work on the Belgian artist Benoit Platéus is a monography as well as an artist’s book. It comprises a selection of works created between 1997 and 2011, as well as a text written by the artist and proposing a direct insight into his universe. Platéus work doesn’t neglect any medium — photography, video, drawing or sculpture — in order to search for ambiguities in the most mundane field of visibility. In this way his art often acts as a ‘psychic apparatus’ that plays on, and questions and reflects the viewer’s perception and consciousness.

Animation, Art, Benoit Platéus, Distribution, Drawing, Film, James W Haenlin, MER. Paper Kunsthalle, Michelle Van Brussel, Photography, Sculpture

Dislexicon

Hilde D’haeyere, Dislexicon
Hardcover, 64 pp., offset 1/1, 130 x 195 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-94-906-9331-2
Published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle

$20.00 ·

The ‘Dislexicon of Slapstick Humor, Funny Cinematography, and Very Special Effects’ is a richly illustrated glossary containing 138 witty words used in the Mack Sennett Comedy Studios between 1912 and 1933. It comprises clever concepts connected to slapstick comedy, gag strategies, funny pratfalls, dangerous stuntwork, and secrets of the filmmaking trade. In a mishmash of slapstick facts and fictions, the Dislexicon fully accepts tall tales, technical reports, jokes, and gossip as historical sources. Hopping from “gag” to “laugh” to “trick,” the dictionary presents a slapstick universe in which everything makes perfect sense — as only a fictional construction can.

Cinematography, Comedy, Distribution, Film, Hilde D’haeyere, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Mack Sennett, MER. Paper Kunsthalle, Petra Van der Jeught, Photography, Slapstick, Sophie Nys

The Mexican Suitcase

Enrique Santos, The Mexican Suitcase
Softcover with flaps, 360 pp., offset 4/1, 200 x 240 x 32 mm
English and Spanish
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-607-7636-29-8
Published by Landucci

$45.00 ·

The Mexican Suitcase is the result of more than three years of work by the Mexican-based Argentinian artist, Enrique Santos. This artist book could be, amongst other things, a ‘catalogue’ of an apocryphal exhibition that is not meant to be, one that from its very beginning proposes a reverse path to that already established — first the book, and then? Ever since this basic wink (not to mention that the title itself is an appropriation) Enrique Santo’s work addresses the idea of “robbery”. Using diverse languages and tools (photography, collage, video, sculpture, film, installations) the artist reflects upon the contemporary artistic works in a sociocultural and political environment of violence in which we find ourselves immersed. Robbery as a metaphor of appropriation and “postproduction” — in Bourriaud’s definition of the word — as an element specific of an artistic way of producing, that is loaded with intertextuality, reference, discourse and images that roam our daily lives.

Santos’ work is a way of thinking about how contemporary art is produced, and at the same time it talks about the gaze, the interpretation of he/she who observes, the understanding and production that comes with every look. It reflects upon a single active spectator, who builds a discourse, appropriates all meanings and elaborates on them according to his life story, and his social, cultural and emotional capital. That gaze has a filter through which history is interpreted. It talks about and with the viewer without underestimating his capacity for understanding. From the very beginning, the book presents a relationship of shared complicity, discourse, codes and understandings, but demands a lucid and imaginative perspective.

Retaking film, journalistic, documentary and advertising language, Santos quotes and reinterprets the great thieves of the screen and some real criminals, in order to talk about lies, confusions, myths and misunderstandings, as well as an ever more violent and heartbreaking reality that crawls into our lives through trivialized and shallow images.

— Florencia Magaril

Aaron Smuts, Antonieta Cruz, Art, Deleuze & Guattari, Distribution, Edward Said, Enrique Santos, Film, Florencia Magaril, Gilberto Salinas, Goya, Graham Huggan, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Jean-Luc Goddard, Jorge Luis Borges, Landucci, Marshal McLuhan, Mexico, Pepe Montelongo, Photography, Randy Kennedy, Roland Barthes, Roman Gubern, Sculpture, Tera Patrick, Werner Herzog

KALEIDOSCOPE Magazine 15

KALEIDOSCOPE Magazine 15, “A” is for Africa
Summer 2012 — Africa Special Edition
Softcover, 202 pp., offset 4/4, 220 x 287 mm
ISSN 2038-4807
Published by KALEIDOSCOPE Press

$12.00 · out of stock

Editor-in-Chief Alessio Ascari and art directors OK-RM are pleased to announce that KALEIDOSCOPE’s summer issue is a special edition entirely devoted to art produced in (or related to) the African continent today. In a time when the once-dominant western model is collapsing, the impressive growth of Africa’s economies looks likely to continue and its cultural offer is growing more and more vibrant, exposing the international audience to an incredible offering of art, music, architecture, film, design and fashion. This issue intends to be the most up-to-date and thorough exploration of the African scene of contemporary art and culture, from Egypt to South Africa via Ethiopia and Nigeria, conducted in collaboration with a dream team of both international contributors and influential thinkers and practitioners working in and around Africa today.

HIGHLIGHTS
Santu Mofokeng by Philippe Pirotte; Hassan Khan and Wael Shawky by Shahira Issa; Sci-Fi Narratives by Nav Haq and Al Cameron; Athi-Patra Ruga by Linda Stupart; Cinématèque de Tanger by Omar Berrada.

MAIN THEME — The Future of the Continent, Continent of the Future
Art by Nana Oforyatta-Ayim; Cinema by Olufemi Terry, Frances Bodomo, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Mahen Bonetti; Music by Benjamin Lebrave; and Urban Planning by Antoni Folkers.

MONO — Nicholas Hlobo
Interview by Sean O’Toole; Essay by Tracy Murinik; Focus by Liese van deer Watt.

REGULARS
Futura: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye by Hans Ulrich Obrist; Panorama: Invisible Borders by Emmanuel Iduma; Souvenir d’Italie: Massimo Grimaldi by Luca Cerizza; On Exhibitions: “African Negro Art” by Paola Nicolin; Producers: Elvira Dyangani Ose by Carson Chan.

SPECIAL PORTFOLIOS
Viviane Sassen, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Namsa Leuba.

Africa, Al Cameron, Antoni Folkers, Architecture, Art, Athi-Patra Ruga, Benjamin Lebrave, Carson Chan, Cinématèque de Tanger, Distribution, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Emmanuel Iduma, Film, Frances Bodomo, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hassan Khan, hen Bon, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, KALEIDOSCOPE Press, Liese van deer Watt, Linda Stupart, Luca Cerizza, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Mahen Bonetti, Massimo Grimaldi, Namsa Leuba, Nana Oforyatta-Ayim, Nav Haq, Nicholas Hlobo, OK-RM, Oliver Knight, Olufemi Terry, Omar Berrada, Paola Nicolin, Philippe Pirotte, Rory McGrath, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Santu Mofokeng, Sean O'Toole, Shahira Issa, Viviane Sassen, Wael Shawky

Born in Flames

Lizzie Borden, Born in Flames
Softcover, 32 pp., offset 4/4, 210 x 297 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9562605-9-8
Published by Occasional Papers

$18.00 · out of stock

Born in Flames, the publication, is an illustrated transcript of Lizzie Borden’s 1983 film ‘Born in Flames’, edited and designed by Kaisa Lassinaro. It includes an interview with Borden conducted in Los Angeles by Lassinaro, as well as the lyrics of Undercover Nation by The Bloods and Born in Flames by Red Crayola, kindly supplied by Adele Bertei and Mayo Thompson.

‘Born in Flames poses the question of whether oppression against women will be eliminated under any kind of social system. […] It is a fantasy presenting a group of women who, confronted with the very “ordinary” oppression women have been experiencing for decades, refuse to take it any longer and become armed fighters against the government. Their position is that oppression against women is not eliminated automatically with “socialism” — not only do political values have to change, cultural values must change and become embedded in practice.’

— Lizzie Borden in Heresies #16, 1983

In the spirit of Borden’s film, the publication was collectively funded by the following individuals and institutions:

Stuart Bailey, Heather Bradley, Eleanor Brown, Geoffrey Brusatto, Culturgest, Wayne Daly, Chris Evans, Beatrice Gibson, Nick Gordon, The Hawthorne Archive, Erna Hecey, Onno Hesselink, Will Holder, Jeff Khonsary, Koenig Books, Uriel Orlow, Falke Pisano, Philomene Pirecki, PrintRoom: Karin de Jong, Ewoud van Rijn, Pro QM, David Reinfurt, Jane Rolo, Catherine de Smet, Benjamin Thorel, Giulia Vallicelli, and Julia Zay.

Adele Bertei, Anarchy, Beatrice Gibson, Benjamin Thorel, Catherine de Smet, Chris Evans, Culture, Culturgest, David Reinfurt, Distribution, Eleanor Brown, Erna Hecey, Ewoud van Rijn, Falke Pisano, Feminism, Film, Geoffrey Brusatto, Giulia Vallicelli, Heather Bradley, Heresies, Jane Rolo, Jeff Khonsary, Julia Zay, Kaisa Lassinaro, Karin de Jong, Koenig Books, Lizzie Borden, Mayo Thompson, Nick Gordon, Occasional Papers, Onno Hesselink, Philomene Pirecki, PrintRoom, Pro QM, Red Crayola, Sandy Yang, Socialism, Stuart Bailey, The Hawthorne Archive, The Red Krayola, Uriel Orlow, Wayne Daly, Will Holder

Nomenclature

Adolfo Doring, Nomenclature
Softcover, 64 pp., offset 4/4, 8 x 10 inches
Edition of 500
ISBN 978-1-4507-5604-4
Published by DM Art Books

$22.00 ·

Adolfo Doring’s Nomenclature is deceptively layered with meaning and contexts absorbent from his work in film. Sublime and poetic, Nomenclature is pictorial prose, a visual soliloquy, an imagistic dialogue of the human figure in a kind of call and response with a plethora of variegated environments including urban space as well as the natural world. Doring’s still photography is analogous to a single frame of a film; where he decides to point his camera, whether indoors or outdoors, is akin to a film’s locale; and the placement of images mapped within Nomenclature is as much a directorial decision as it is of editing.

— Raul Zamudio

Adolfo Doring, Distribution, DM Art Books, Eugène Atget, Fashion, Film, Harold Pinter, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michael Snow, Photography, Raul Zamudio, Robert Frank, William Henry Fox Talbot

Of Walking in Ice

Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice
Softcover, 112 pp., offset 2/2, 5 x 8 inches
Edition of 2500
ISBN 978-0-9796121-0-7
Published by Free Association

$25.00 · out of stock

Munich — Paris 23
November — 14 December 1974

In the winter of 1974, filmmaker Werner Herzog made a three week solo journey from Munich to Paris on foot. He believed it was the only way his close friend, film historian Lotte Eisner, would survive a horrible sickness that had overtaken her. During this monumental odyssey through a seemingly endless blizzard, Herzog documented everything he saw and felt with intense sincerity. This diary is dotted with a pastiche of rants about the extreme cold and utter loneliness, notes on Herzog’s films and travels, poetic descriptions of the snowy countryside, and personal philosophizing. What is most remarkable is that the reading of the book is in continuity with the experience of watching his films; it’s as if, through this walk, we witness the process in which images are born. Although he received a literary award for it, this introspective masterpiece has lingered out of print since 1979. Beautifully designed and emotionally impressive, Of Walking in Ice is the first in a color-coded series of remarkable yet long-forgotten titles being republished by Free Association.

Carl Hanser Verlag, Culture, Film, Free Association, Harsh Patel, RAM, Werner Herzog

You Killed the Underground Film or the Real Meaning of Kunst bleibt… bleibt…

Wilhelm Hein, You Killed the Underground Film or the Real Meaning of Kunst bleibt… bleibt…
Softcover, 120 pp., offset 1/1, 150 x 210 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-00-020345-9
Published by Passenger Books

$25.00 ·

The texts in this book relate to Wilhelm Hein’s eponymous film project, which he has been working on since 1989. The film now comprises about 15 hours of 16mm film, in black-and-white and color. “Wilhelm Hein demands that the viewer of his film be free of any preconceived idea of cinema,” writes critic Cecile Chich in the first of two excellent essays on this epic work-in-progress. The book also includes black and white photos, a lengthy interview with the German auteur and a filmography. Includes texts by Cécile Chich and Marc Siegel, an interview with Wilhelm Hein and photographs by Annette Frick.

Annette Frick, Art, Cecile Chich, Film, Marc Siegel, Passenger Books, RAM, Wilhelm Hein

I’m Here

Spike Jonze, I’m Here
Softcover, 48 pp., offset 4/4, 112 x 178 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-3-905714-77-7
Published by Nieves

$18.00 ·

Spike Jonze’s new half-hour short film titled I’m Here is a robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity. The movie is set in contemporary Los Angeles, where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who live among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life — devoid of creativity, joy and passion — until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

Distribution, Film, Nieves, Spike Jonze

Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte

Bernadette Corporation, Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte
Softcover, 150 pp., offset 4/1, 165 x 240 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN: 978-1-933128-17-7
Published by Sternberg Press

$25.00 · out of stock

Formed in 1994, the Bernadette Corporation is a creative collective based in New York and Europe and organized around revolving memberships and associations. Its artistic output has ranged from fashion to film and literature, training videos, photography, etc., consistently insisting on the idea that the re-imagined format should inform the subject and give shape to its output. Whereas the first book released by BC was reportedly written by 150 people, in an “exquisite corpse” format, the second “novel,” entitled Be Corpse, is described as “a screenplay that cannot be a film” or “a film that can only be on paper.” A drama in three acts, the text seeks to make the gap between our primordial and contemporary selves collapse on itself, revealing an instinctless body and the brain manifest as the over-stimulated observer. Above all, Be Corpse should be received as the continuation of BC’s indirect, fiercely independent critique of our late capitalist/globalized world.

Art, Bernadette Corporation, Book Works, Fashion, Film, RAM, Sternberg Press

Appendix Appendix

Stuart Bailey and Ryan Gander, Appendix Appendix
Softcover, 192 pp., offset 4/1, 215 x 280 mm
Edition of 5000
ISBN 978-3-905770-19-3
Published by JRP|Ringier, CK editions

$29.00 ·

Appendix Appendix is conceived as the sequel to Ryan Gander and Stuart Bailey’s 2003 book “Appendix.” Like its predecessor, it attempts “a translation of practice” based on Ryan Gander’s recent body of work. Neither straight
documentation, nor an “artist’s book,” it pushes for a third way, editing and presenting each individual piece of work in a manner appropriate to its specific nature. In the years since “Appendix,” Gander’s work has increasingly encompassed sound and the moving image in addition to the earlier objects and installations. This shift will directly affect the form of Appendix Appendix.

Born in 1976, Ryan Gander lives and works in London and Amsterdam. His photographs, films, installations and sculptures draw on multiple layers of facts and fiction. He has exhibited in the USA and throughout England and Europe.

The English-born Stuart Bailey (*1973) has forged a formidible creative base for himself in Amsterdam where he has benefited greatly from Dutch design tradition. Since his arrival in the Netherlands, he has become a steady contributor to the art and design culture as a writer, critic, editor, and graphic designer.

This publication is part of the series of artists projects edited by Christoph Keller. Personally selected by Keller, for Textfield, as one of his top five from the series.

Art, Christoph Keller, CK editions, DAP, Dexter Sinister, Film, Graphics, JRP|Ringier, Ryan Gander, Stuart Bailey, Theory

American Minor

Charlie White, American Minor
Hardcover, 144 pp., offset 4/4, 245 x 345 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-03764-003-6
Published by JRP|Ringier/Codax Publishers

$65.00 ·

The photographs of Los Angeles-based artist Charlie White (*1972) explore the complex social and psychological realities of American culture. American Minor delves into an important subtext of White’s work: the American teen. By cataloguing studio archives, film stills, animation stills, scripts, and photographs, the book highlights the artist’s investigations into the representation of the American teen girl. Through images culled from the artist’s two-year study of an ex-urban teenager, archives of magazine covers featuring iconic blonde models, stills from his first 35mm film, and his photographic comparative study of teens and transgenders, American Minor presents White’s ongoing and never-before-seen studies of the American teen subject as image and idea. This book sheds new light on the artist’s oeuvre within the context of his new work in film, animation, and cultural archiving.

Art, Charlie White, Christoph Doswald, Codax Publishers, Culture, DAP, Dorothea Strauss, Film, JRP|Ringier, Jürg Trösch, Markus Bosshard, Photography

OMG BFF LOL

Charlie White, OMG BFF LOL
DVD, 9 min., 6 sec., NTSC, digital 4/4, 5.25 x 7.5 inches
Plays in a loop of the three scenes: A, B, A, C
Includes We Love to Shop *, the theme song from OMG BFF LOL
Published by Charlie White

$12.00 ·

By now, every bona fide Blackberry or iPhone owner probably knows that the abbreviations OMG, BFF, and LOL stand for “oh my God,” “best friends forever,” and “laughing out loud” in the world of Short Message Service (SMS), which has come to be known as texting.

Based on a two-year study of the behavior of an actual American teenage girl, the animation is part of a larger project called The Girl Studies that dissects the desires and social anxieties of our era. The animation is meant to perform as a viable cartoon for young girls, while simultaneously providing a platform from which viewers can critique them. White’s works in photography, film, and more recently animation, often offer fictitious narratives to help us understand and evaluate the underlying realities of contemporary life.

This particular project features Tara and Blakey, two American-girl cartoon characters with pink-glitter accessories, trendy clothing, and commercial desires. These archetypes of the American teen are used to examine their representation from different angles. Set in three looping scenes, OMG BFF LOL contains the cartoon’s capitalist manifesto, “having is so much better than wanting,” discussed by the girls in a crystal shopping mall scene. The second and third scenes, set in a bedroom and bathroom, open the door to the interior loneliness and isolation of the two main characters, as viewers observe them surfing TV channels and radio stations, snacking, posing in front of a full length mirror, and crying, as a digital clock marks the passage of time.

White wrote and directed OMG BFF LOL, working in collaboration with Chuck Gammage studios, a Canadian animation house, to create the intentionally dated quality of the scenes. He explains, “The three segments loop on a now obsolete 4:3 Sony Trinitron monitor, which conjures the television as both box and broadcast mechanism.”

—Mónica Ramírez-Montagut

* A free download (MP3) of the teen-dance remix of We Love to Shop is available here.

Excerpt from Charlie White’s cartoon OMG BFF LOL (Mall) from his project The Girl Studies, 2008. (Run Time: 3 min., 16 sec.)

Aldrich Museum, Animation, Art, Catasonic Studio, Charlie White, Chris Land, Chuck Gammage Animation, Culture, Distribution, Fashion, Film, France Daigle, Greg Weeks, Hammer Museum, Jessica Weeks, Laura Post, Laura Riboli, Mark Wheaton, Michael Heldman, Michelle Ann Dunphy, Mike Helmer, Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Music, Pasquale Lamontagna, Paul Rivoche, Seamus O'Keefe, Suzy Bradshaw, Wyatt Troll