With "Blank. Raw. Illegible... Artists' Books as Statements (1960-2022)" the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum shows a representative selection of international positions dedicated to the blank book as an artistic medium. The number of 259 artists' books on display, among others by Michael Asher, Luciano Bartolini, Irma Blank, Marcel Broodthaers, Ulises Carrión, Olafur Eliasson, Ryan Gander, Dora Garcia, Martin Kippenberger, Sara MacKillop, Piero Manzoni, Bruce Nauman, Olaf Nicolai, Ed Ruscha, Simon Starling, and Heimo Zobernig refers to the legendary exhibition "Book as Artwork 1960/72" curated by Germano Celant and Lynda Morris, but the selection focuses exclusively on the qualities of blank, raw, illegible, empty, unprinted, tautological, hermetic, dysfunctional, and mysterious.
Curated by curator, editor, and collector Moritz Küng, the exhibition explores how contemporary artists and artist collectives exploit and activate the conceptual potential of a blank sheet of paper or a book with empty pages for their artistic practice. In the process, the empty, non-existent, and invisible become meaningful, and the refusal of legibility in the conventional sense becomes a telling statement. A seemingly absent content reveals a multitude of unexpected perspectives on conventions of communication and themes of speechlessness, origin, and disappearance. Starting with a significant exploration by artist Herman de Vries of the designation of the color white, the exhibition opens up the diversity of artistic concepts in reflecting on emptiness, purity, and raw material in relation to the formal and functional criteria of books in 15 chapters, the headings of each of which are taken from one of their book titles.
Participating artists:
Åbäke, Ignasí Aballi, Bill Adler, Kasper Andreasen, anonym [3], Federico Antonini & Alessio D’Ellena, Michael Asher, Fiona Banner, Robert Barry, Luciano Bartolini, Alexis Beauclair, Walter Beckers, Jérémie Bennequin, Pierre Bismuth, Irma Blank, Barbara Bloom, Doro Boehme & Eric Baskauskas, Marinus Boezem, Christian Boltanski, Iñaki Bonillas & Roger Willems, Hans Bossmann, Heinz Brand, George Brecht, AA Bronson, Marcel Broodthaers, Evelin Brosi, Joan Brossa, stanley brouwn, Stefan Brüggemann, James Lee Byars, Patrice Caillet, Adam David & Matthieu Saladin, Ulises Carrión, Mariana Castillo Deball, Les Coleman, Mathieu Copeland, Sebastian Cremers, Cremers/Prill/Vieceli, Nicolás Cuestas, Noëlle Cuppens, Simon Cutts, Char Daley, Hanne Darboven, Raúl Dávila & Giulia Paradell, Jeremy Deller & Fraser Muggeridge, Mirtha Dermisache, Arnaud Desjardin, herman de vries, Jason Dodge, Eric Doeringer, Enrique Doza, Hugo Duchateau, Mette Edvardsen & Sonia Si Ahmed, Olafur Eliasson, Paul Elliman, Pieter Engels, Roberto Equisoain, Leif Eriksson, Joseph Ernst, Experimental Jetset, Enric Farrés-Duran, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Robert Filliou, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michel François, Ken Friedman, Jason Fulford & Tamara Shopsin, Maxime Gambus, Ryan Gander, Heinz Gappmayr, Dora García, Kendell Geers, Nicolas Geiser, Jef Geys, Michael Gibbs, Gloria Glitzer, Keith Godard, Fernanda Gomes, Kristján Gudmundsson, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Bruce Harris, Paul Heimbach, Jochem Hendricks, Anne Heyvaert, Åke Hodell, Parker Ito, I.T.U. – International Typographical Union, Peter Johansson, Ana Jotta, Jean Keller, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Michael J. Knowles, J.H. Kocman, Katsumi Komagata, Joseph Kosuth, Jarosław Kozłowski, Moritz Küng, Mikko Kuorinki, Frédéric Laé, Paul Laidler, Jürg Lehni, Lemonodo, Jochen Lempert, Craig Leonard, Jeffrey Lew, Sol LeWitt, Micah Lexier, Christos Lialios & Katerina Vazoura, Camille Llobet, Richard Long, Anne Lydiat, George Maciunas, Sara MacKillop, Ilan Manouach, Piero Manzoni, John McDowall, Christian Megert, Felix Meyer, Jonathan Monk, François Morellet, Maurizio Nannucci, Jaime Narváez, Bruce Nauman, Julien Nédélec, Olaf Nicolai, Øystein Wyller Odden, Richard Olson, Willem Oorebeek, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Mark Pawson, A.R. Penck, Ximena Pérez-Grobet, Sergio Pesutic, Michalis Pichler, Simon Popper, Lukas Richarz, Childe Roland, Dieter Roth, Francesc Ruiz, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Ruscha, Claude Rutault, Colin Sackett, Emil Salto, Karin Sander, Ed Sanders, Sarkis, Klaus Scherübel, Adrian Schiess, Martin Bruno Schmid, Tomas Schmit, Yann Sérandour, Ariadna Serrahima, Idries Shah, Rachel Mari Simkover, Jessica Smith, Ettore Spalletti, Veronika Spierenburg, Diana Sprenger & Euan Williams, David Stairs, Simon Starling, Mladen Stilinović, Derek Sullivan, Super Terrain, Christophe Terlinden, Nik Thoenen & Lorenzo le kou Meyr, Elisabeth Tonnard, Endre Tót, Timm Ulrichs, Jiří Valoch, Paul van Dijk, Richard Venlet, Oriol Vilanova, Bernard Villers, Martin Vitaliti, Jan Voss, Wolf Vostell, Robin Waart, Dan Walsh, Eric Watier, Russell Weekes, Christiaan Wikkerink, Karen Willey, Ian Wilson, WT Papier, Cerith Wyn Evans, Heimo Zobernig, Rahel Zoller