Stephan Balkenhol

Balanceakt

In an interview with the editor Matthias Winzen, Stephan Balkenhol – who has subjected one of his trademark patiently forbearing figures on this occasion to a “Balancing Act” for the anniversary of German reunification – also maintains that a meaningful monument to commemorate German unity is a tricky enterprise. In the capital, Berlin, not far from Checkpoint Charlie and in front of the high-rise Springer Building, a man wearing a white shirt and black trousers is balancing on a piece of stylized wall that is itself situated at a flashpoint of German post-war history. The book gives an account of this important work’s development in the studio, and serves as a short, yet engrossing, reader on the history of the City of Berlin.

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STEPHAN BALKENHOL

In Sankt Elisabeth

Apostolic General Vicariate Fulda (Ed.)

Kassel’s prestigious documenta in the Church of St. Elisabeth presents Stephan Balkenhol’s wooden sculptures in an installation of somber and engaging human figures. This comprehensive exhibition catalog describes and depicts the large-format wooden reliefs on the nave, a female figure in the chapel tower and a male figure on a golden sphere high up in the bell tower. The connections between Balkenhol’s wooden craftsmanship and historic German religious art will be highlighted by the beautiful and historic venue. Though controversial in its placement, Balkenhol’s installation will undoubtedly enrich the every-fifth-year summer event, which transforms the city into a Mecca for the art world. Accompanying essays by Helmut Krausser, Rainer Marten, Josef Meyer zu Schlochtern and Matthias Winzen.

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STEPHAN BALKENHOL

STEPHAN BALKENHOL

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BALLERINA IN A WHIRLPOOL

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THE BALTIC ATLAS

Karlis Berzinš, Jurga Daubaraite, Petras Išora, Ona Lozuraityte, Niklavs Paegle, Dagnija Smilga, Johan Tali, Laila Zarina & Jonas Žukauskas (Eds.)

The Baltic Atlas, a handsome in-depth reader published in conjunction with the Baltic States Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016, asks two questions. The first: “What is it possible to imagine?” focuses on interpretations, fictional stories, analyses and reflections on ongoing processes, and proposals for the future. The second: “What is possible?” is an inquiry into the methods, resources, and parameters that define space. Over 30 texts explore what lies ahead as countries that have long suffered uncertainty regarding borders break from modernist ideologies. The chapters are configured like an atlas, with writings overlaid and positioned next to each other to illustrate the Baltic states region as an intensification of networks, agendas and ideas. Relevant on a global scale, Baltic Atlas highlights an open-ended ecology of practices, offering a taste of what is to come. Featured contributions by Åbäke (design collective, London); Indrek Allmann (architect, Eustonia); Keller Easterling (professor of Architecture, Yale University); Timothy Morton (ecological studies, Rice University, TX), Nasrine Seraji (Iranian-British architect), among many others.

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BANKLEER

finger in the pie

bankleer, Karin Kasböck & Christoph Maria Leitner (Eds.)

A carnival game played by drunken visitors to Munich’s Oktoberfest is used in a video as a metaphor for the German economy: that’s just one of the recent projects by Karin Kasböck and Christoph Maria Leitnerthe, the Berlin-based, anti-capitalist artistic duo known as bankleer. Defying easy classification, their provocative work may encompass performances, docu-fictional videos and other techniques of “expanded cinema,” editorial and curatorial projects, sculptures and drawings. This substantive monograph, produced for MOCA Leipzig, features in-depth essays and more than 450 photographs that highlight the collective’s recent projects and deployments. Essays by Nataša Ilic (WHW), Daniela Stöppel, Diedrich Diederichsen, Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll) and Dietrich Heißenbüttel.

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YAEL BARTANA

Two Minutes of Standstill

Florian Malzacher & Stefanie Wenner (Eds.)

Commonly, the “moment of silence” is one way we memorialize tragedy, how we recognize events that are, simply, beyond words. Two Minutes of Standstill was a performance initiated in Cologne by Israeli video artist Yael Bartana on Yom HaShoah, the holiday commemorating victims and resistance fighters of the Holocaust. For two minutes, Bartana called upon the city to reflect on the meeting of past and present–what it means to be German, to live in Germany as an immigrant and the consequences of the Holocaust and its instrumentalization. This catalog documents the performance and process while inviting historians to discuss collective mourning in Germany today. Bartana, whose work has been shown at Documenta XII, the Venice Biennale and in solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, uses her videos and performances to interrogate notions of homeland, Diaspora and national identity.

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Georg Baselitz

Collected Writings and Interviews

Detlev Gretenkort and Karsten Schubert

The outstanding British publisher Ridinghouse brings out the most comprehensive look into the life and work of German abstract expressionist Georg Baselitz. The book is divided into four sections: personal images; a record of Baselitz’s artworks; the artist’s own writings (some published for the first time, many never before translated into English); and interviews with the artist by noted writers and art historians. Known for his rebellious approach to painting, Baselitz discusses the act of painting, his biography and much more. The artist’s writings cover topics from his first trip abroad to other painters he’s admired. Though not a catalogue raisonné, this copiously illustrated book gives the most complete picture ever of a seminal artist.

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GEORG BASELITZ

Sigmund’s Cave

A dog is a dog is a dog—or is it? Renowned German neo-expressionist artist George Baselitz’s dog portraits of 1999/2000 continue his play with the notion of painting as an act of sublimation in which naked facts are dressed in signs, codes and ornaments. This well-illustrated exhibition catalog, with informative essay by Anselm Wagner, presents Baselitz’s large-scale upside-down frontal oil portraits of his dog that are fundamentally different from the artist’s other animal portraits. Painted in black and white, with brush strokes that look like drawings and often scribed with the name “Sigmund,” these are masks and codes of the Freudian universe, preparing the beholder for numerous hidden allusions. Made in response and homage to Sigmund Freud, who was also a dog lover, as he waited to escape the Nazi regime in 1938. Essay by Anselm Wagner.

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GEORG BASELITZ

Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work 1983-1989

The second catalogue raisonné on iconic German neo-expressionist painter Georg Baselitz’s graphic work, Baselitz: 1983–1989 complements the out-of-print two-volume set released in 1983 featuring the artist’s woodcuts, linocuts and etchings from 1963 to 1982. Oversized for easy viewing, this long-awaited and elegantly designed publication comprises over 280 graphic works, extensively illustrated in color and completing the raisonneé of the artist’s graphic output. Baselitz (b. 1938) explained his keen interest in printmaking: “it is the simplest fixed way to realize an artistic idea … made for people with little money, for common people.” His recent exhibitions at the Pinakothek, Munich, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, follow exhibitions and retrospectives of the artist’s paintings and prints throughout Europe and the US, including the Guggenheim, NY, and the Hirshhorn, Washington, DC. Thirty years in the making, this pivotal publication is a must-have for museums, art libraries, schools and collectors.

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