“The Reading Room” in Berlin is a new curated archive of artist’s printed projects and now they are looking “for artist’s printed projects, zines, publications, books and handouts that are actively interrogating or reconsidering the published format, and that are independent objects of artistic production, rather than functioning solely to document the artistic practice of their authors. On an initial basis, the chosen books will be shown at “The Reading Room”-study desk and advertised as publicly viewable by appointment. Secondarily “The Reading Room” will seek to temporarily locate itself in project spaces, galleries and bookshops in and around Berlin. “The Reading Room” is a project based in Berlin with the aim to maintain, archive and represent products of contemporary art practices evolving within printed and published formats. Through archival methodology, critical reflection and strategic methods of presentation, “The Reading Room” will focus on these representations of contemporary practice that both utilise and interrogate the published form as their primary medium. The archive is influenced by former institutional “Reading Rooms” (such as the one of the British Museum in London), and functions as such: it will be open for public viewing, with those wanting to use it being required to make an appointment and also register beforehand their particular interested in the publications or project. “The Reading Room” takes its initial presentation location from the idea of the “Salon”, gathering its printed matters under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host. The visitors and readers of the Reading Room will ring the bell of a private apartment, climb up the stairs to it, and then be able to sit in a study room. Refreshments will be served.” Via: Mail, thanks Regine!
Yes, we love love this new fashion magazine from Berlin. Check out this new independant magazine, undertitled “my printed blog” but not a blog that became a magazine, not at all, the blog reference is more about the logic that will lead each issue of the magazine. I Love You #2 is a collection of images, fashion shoots, quotes and articles about a determined theme. See more pictures and/or order your copy for only 5 Euro here.
The lovely nature fanzine from Berlin Balkon & Garten just released its new issue #35: “Purpur”. Featuring the very best of purple flowers and plants, photography and stories from and with Arvid Boecker, Sara Bouchard, Christoph Braun, Harri Brill, Gerd Brunzema, Erika + Helmut Buttke, Elisabeth Eberle, Eva Engler, Iris Hartwig, Wolf Klein, Kai von Kröcher, Leslie Kuo, Jörn Lauterbach, Andreas Praetsch, Jaana Prüss, s-agitterre, Gianna Schade, Ina Schilling, Claudia Stierle, Johanna L. Wange, Cornelia Weber, Katja Windau, Michael Zander and Rita Zepf. As always there are only 150 hand-sewn, numbered copies - so better be quick and order your copy here.
Once again the autonomous publisher scene gathered in Berlin: Motto organized a “One Day Self Publishing Fair” with 60 publishers coming from 18 countries. And Kunstbibliothek Berlin presented the newly acquired exhibition “KIOSK - Modes of multiplication” (until 28th february 2010) - the show has an archive of more than 6000 titels of artists books, magazines and videos collected during ten years by Christoph Keller, the founder of Revolver Books and Christoph Keller Editions and also one of our GS-jurors. Via: Mail
Save the date: From September 4 to 6 international publishers and artist/authors show their artist books at the “Miss Read“-Festival in Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststrasse 69). “An artist book is always an opportunity for an artist to create a very personal and direct artistic form. Artist books also represent the forefront of contemporary innovative publishing, addressing questions of presentation and circulation, and new distribution strategies. Together with KW and the Berlin publishers argobooks and Michalis Pichler, Miss Read has invited around 30 international publishers and independent projects to the first event of this kind in Berlin, which aims to highlight the diversity and innovation in contemporary publishing. Miss Read has organized an accompanying program of lectures and presentations with artists, publishers, and graphic designers. On Saturday, September 5, from 3 to 9 pm and on Sunday, September 6, from 3 to 7 pm there will be discussions every hour with Stuart Bailey (Dexter Sinister, New York), Antonia Hirsch (Fillip, Vancouver), Christoph Keller, Jonathan Monk, Stephan (Pronto) Müller, and others. The full list of participants is posted here. Via: Mail
Our favorite culture/nature magazine Balkon & Garten just released its 34th issue: “Cemetry In August” (Friedhof im August). Graf Tati contributed a song and video. Some stills plays the background for the images of this issue here. The others contributors are: Bettina Allamoda, Sibylle Blaumann, Harri Brill, Gerd Brunzema, Erika + Helmut Buttke, Eva Engler, Marko Förstel, Sylee Gore, Heidi Gruber, Simone Gülde, Wolf Klein, Kai von Kröcher, Calin Kruse, Leslie Kuo, Jörn Lauterbach, Andreas Praetsch, S-agitterre, Gianna Schade, Martina Schmid, Jo Spittler, Cornelia Weber, Rita Zepf + 8 extra pages: Heinz Knobloch. Order your urban balcony (again only 150 numbered copies) for only 5 Euro here.
Peeping Tom was an award-winning British small press magazine in the 1990s, founded by David Bell and Stuart Hughes, and specialised in dark fantasy and horror - now a french collective arround Caroline Niémant and Stéphane Blanc refounded a new Peeping Tom magazine which aim is to promote emerging artists. And for this first issue Peeping Tom scouted talents through an unconventional open call for submissions, based on the traditional system of chain of letter: in order to be eligible, aside from being part of the Berlin art scene (the first publication dedicates itself to the great art community of Berlin), each applicant needed to forward the open call to one or several Berlin artists he (she) greatly admires. This system of chain letters placed each participant in the position of a curator/editor by proposing one or several artists. Peeping Tom believes that artists are the most exciting curators and wanted them to take part of the process of creation of this magazine. In total, Peeping Tom received more than 220 submissions and selected 53 artists to be part of this first publication. Get all details, see more pictures and participating artists and/or buy your copy of this amazing new magazine here.
A new magazine project from Berlin: Aufstieg und Fall (”rise and fall”). Released the 15th june and coming quarterly in a circulation of 10 000 copies to selected bookstores and kiosks this magazine celebrates “the exciting and often tragic rise and fall of life” and “the wild roller-coaster around every corner”. Chiefeditor Iván Aránega Tortosa explains in the editorial: “Aufstieg und Fall investigates the curious human behavior and extravagant details that lie under the headlines dominating the media and the conversations in the cue of the supermarket. As the old saying goes: what goes up must come down. True, but boring. Long before the information age, Flannery O‘Connor took it a step further and wrote ‘everything that rises must converge’. Life is and will be a journey and all what we see, hear and feel along the way come together and form who we are. People come and go, trends rise and fall, ideas heave and ho and the best we can do is hold on and enjoy the ride.”
The quality of the paper creates multiple orgasms, the pictures are amazing and very emotional (Frank Kalero is documentating the indish Holi Varanasi ritual and Casper Dalhoff photographed people with psychoses), also the illustrations of Herr Müller (who did also the cover artwork) are original and a facinating new visual approach. The layout (art director is Christian Schneider) is playful and stylish, but readable; and finally the texts: they are no revolution or will win a Pulitzer Prize, but they are very amusing and diversified (Ariadne von Schirach is writing about sleeping yourself to the top, there are last words from pilots before the crash, an interview with trend scout Jozo Juric). After all a great new launch! We hope that you´ll rise to the magazine heaven and are already curious about the next issue. More details, more pictures and you can order your copy for immediately 5,80 Euro here.
Dear Elmar Bambach, Julia Marquardt and Birgit Vogel, you dedicate each issue of your Magazin über Orte to a new place. The current issue is about the “Tatort” (crime scene). What inspired you?
The “crime scene” was a new aspect for the magazine. A place that is in principle defined after a happening, namely the action. And we wish to show a variety of places in our magazine.
Concentration camps, crimes, accidents, battlefields - this issue is very dark and sinister.
This is exactly what interested us. The last themes like “kitchen”, “park” or “desk” were not so clearly bonded with a certain association. The crime scene on the other hand is a place of a crime, a homicide; so definitely a negative thing. It was a challenge for us to make a multifaceted issue, with uncommon and unexpected perspectives.
Are you misanthropes? Or how did you came up with the idea to make a magazine only about places?
We are interested in places. Places are full of traces and they also tell many things about people. You can search for something, discover and find things there. Places as a theme suit to this way we see the magazine: a bit mysterious, often indirect and remote.
What does a place need that you dedicate it a whole issue?
We actually think that every place would work for a complete issue. For us the spectrum and the series of the magazine is more import and we choose places we are interested in. The borderline question appears every time: where does a place begin? And where does it ends? Is the “dream” also a place? Or the “flipside”? This are the questions we are faced up to. And it is important for us to answer them anew over and over.
The next issue is about “home”. Can you already tell us something about it?
“Home” is for us again a kind of enlargement of the term place. “Home” is mainly a personal feeling, an attachment to a familiar place. Concomitant it is also understood as homely and concrete, as your own four walls. We find this ambiguity interesting and both sides should be found. But the issue will surely tell more about the association as of the concrete place, in contrast to the issue “desk” or “kitchen”, that are also placed in a homely environment.
How long do you need for the production of the issue? How do you proceed?
As soon as one issue is released we begin working for the next one. We learn new things every time. The start is a soon as possible agreement of the new theme. Then we start with the research of already existing works that we can imagine in the issue. This phase is very important for us because only like this we can win a feeling about how the theme can work and where the hassle is. Crucial is for us if we can wangle the balance between the individual works. A kind of river should be generated, in which every work, equal if famous or not, short or long, should find it’s place and is presented in an adequate way. Decisive for the magazine is the choice and the combination. The issue is working if we are establishing a collective ambiance at the end and if the individual works do not appear isolated. This is our goal. To reach that we are testing a lot, we discuss about the choice and the order and work intensely on the layout. We are often firmly in the last weeks deciding which works are being shown in the issue. This process is very exhausting but also exciting and we are having lots of fun doing it. What is difficult is when we have to reject some authors, whose work we liked, but finally did not fit in the combination. We are making an effort to be as honest and fair as possible.
Who are your readers?
Many readers are surely coming from fields like photography, art, graphic design and literature. Others are interested in a certain issue or a place. And there is also an international interest because the magazine appears bilingually.
What are you favourite magazines?
Three examples: “Archivo”, “mono.kultur” and “The Purple Journal”.
What would be your wish for the magazine?
We would love to find more partners that we can enthuse for our magazine. It can only survive when we find people that can identify themselves with the concept and can also financially support us. We can imagine a collaboration bounded by the theme or also a long-term cooperation. We would love to work together with institutions and to accompany each issue with a discussion meeting or a workshop. And certainly we want to develop the magazine first of all.
And finally your statement to the media crisis: is print going to die? What will happen to magazines? Are we going to read in 2020 only with Kindles?
With the media crisis the realization of smaller projects, like our magazine, is becoming more difficult. Some things in the society are concomitant winning proportionality. Thereby the people are becoming more awake, more open and more sensitive. And maybe this social climate is a special chance for the acceptance of remote things and exceptional things. Probably the reading and the reading custom will really change a lot. Precisely classic print media like newspapers, where the more important thing is the actuality, will disappear more on the internet or they will be available through other electronic forms. But on the other hand there will also be a return. The haptic experience with paper and print will win some estimation. This will surely happen in an always smaller becoming niche, but the quality will further exist. Translation: Alexandra Bieber
“Precocious” (Frühreif) is the theme of the june/july issue of Balkon & Garten - the Berlin based magazine about nature and culture. Contributor Harri Brill said: “This new issue is my favorite of the whole series: Nice thing with handy paper and scraggy fibre. Then the little numbers (nice typography) - precocious my eyes are calling for glasses. Strong pictures and cocky texts, laconic drawings; everything very sensual and a little bit of a summerwine.” The issue was hand-sewn by Rita Zepf. The other contributers are: Katharina Viorica Berndt, Sibylle Blaumann, Harri Brill, Gerd Brunzema, Helmut Buttke, Sarmina Ferhad, Sylee Gore, Simone Gülde, Fred Hüning, Wolf Klein, Kai von Kröcher, Calin Kruse, Jörn Lauterbach, Andreas Praetsch, Rattelschneck, S-agitterre, Gianna Schade, Rebecca Silus, Jo Spittler, Johanna L. Wange, Cornelia Weber and Michael Zander. Again: Only 150 numbered copies, one for 5 Euro - and you can order here.
