n°06 — A series of gestures: Invisible Touch, from Farocki to l’Architecture Aujourd’hui, some notes on the handling of things. Author: Catherine Guiral
Author: Catherine Guiral
2 × 16 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, Black
10 January 2018
ISBN : 979-10-95991-05-2
ISSN : 2558-2062
n°23 — Jan Tschichold: The Master approving of his own work. Author: Žiga Testen
Author: Žiga Testen
24 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
9 September 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Author: Žiga Testen
24 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
9 September 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Design history as an independent discipline and field of study appears to be in trouble. Design historians complain about its diminishing influence within universities due to the ongoing instrumentalisation of higher education. The Eurocentric canon built upon values and methods adopted from art and architecture history has been contested by decolonial theories. And finally, it appears that the trust in the institution of ‘history’ itself and its meta-narratives has eroded.
A discipline that was once considered to provide reflection on what came before and guidance on what could come to be—under the auspice of a grand narrative of continuous progress—has been replaced by modest narratives, social anthropologies, and claims of the ‘end of history’.
In this article, I rummage through the ruins of design history and try to unpack what it was that we once considered design history and our design history canon, how we wrote about it and to what end. In particular, I focus on this one image: a portrait photograph of a well-known historical figure, the designer and typographer Jan Tschichold. How is it used? And what stories do we tell about it?
n°25 — Exhibition views? Jonathan Monk. Author: Remi Parcollet
Author: Remi Parcollet
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
24th October 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Author: Remi Parcollet
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
24th October 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Photographs of works of art in an exhibition or studio setting, enlarged to the size of the wall, have become an essential and increasingly systematic element of contemporary museography. The institutional curator accompanied by his or her set designer, and the independent curator, both use them as much to recontextualize works as for their aesthetic qualities as documentary images that have become immersive and reflexive.
The obviously richer relationship that artists have with these unique images reveals in various ways what is currently at stake in the act of exhibiting.
To create a kind of retrospective of his work, in 2016 Johnathan Monk debuted a series of exhibitions entitled Exhibit Model*, which consisted of covering the walls of the exhibition space with archive photographs that documented his work in different contexts over the last 20 years. Marie J. Jean considers these staged exhibition views as a form of augmented reality: “This manner of considering the exhibition, in other words, of exhibiting the work along with the context of its appearance, reminds us that the work of art “is a place”, “establishes a place”, is “a has taken place**”.
However for Johnathan Monk, who often uses the work of other artists, isn’t it simply a way in which to appropriate his own work?”
Jonathan Monk, «Exhibit Model Four», 2019 Kindl, Berlin. Photographie: Jens Ziehe. A1 format poster printed in CMYK on blue back paper
n°03 — A monograph: Recollected Work by Mevis & van Deursen. Author: Étienne Hervy
Sold out
Author: Étienne Hervy.
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
22th November 2017
ISBN: 979-10-95991-04-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Sold out
Author: Étienne Hervy.
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
22th November 2017
ISBN: 979-10-95991-04-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
In 2006, the publisher Artimo entrusted Linda van Deursen and Armand Mevis with the editorial direction and the Graphic Design of their own monograph, Recollected Works. Joined by Paul Elliman in writing the texts, the two Graphic Designers responded with an approach similar to that which they adopt when they accompany other artists and photographers in the creation of books whose relevance has largely contributed to the studio’s reputation. Mevis and van Deursen propose to the reader to experience their work in operation, rather than simply contenting themselves with the reproduction of the work presented as artworks in themselves. Rather than the nostalgia for a more or less formalized organization of their previous projects, the two Graphic Designers look at their previous work as the material for an autonomous project from which this book will emerge.
Such a choice directly raises the question of the constitution and transmission of a culture inherent to Graphic Design, whether it isspecifically aimed at designers or else at a much wider audience. How to transmit the issues and points of quality of a discipline itself dedicated to transmission? One must above all recognize the capacity of this eminently visual field to confront appearances.
Our study of this work will obviously reference a corpus of monographs and publications made by Graphic Designers (Christophe Jacquet, Joost Grootens, M/M (Paris), Karel Martens, Experimental Jetset, Wolgang Weingart, etc.) while at the same time looking more widely at the forms currently adopted for the transmission of Graphic Design (exhibitions, conferences, etc.). Beyond the issues discussed and the questions raised by Recollected Works, it is a matter of both pulling on the thread of the work of Mevis and van Deursen (does a continuity exist between the editorial design of Why Mister, Why? for Geert van Kesteren or the Library Of The Museum Museum of Contemporary African Art for Meschac Gaba, and the identity of the Stedelijk Museum?) and questioning the pertinence of a discourse specific to Graphic Design.
