[EXHIBITION] Michalis Pichler: The Term Artists Book Is Problematic (Pedestal Problem)

June.7 2023 – July.2 2023

Michalis Pichler is a contemporary artist known for his multidisciplinary practice that encompasses visual art, writing, publishing, and curating. He explores themes of language, communication, and the dissemination of information in his works.

The exhibition at Bananafish Gallery Artist’s Book as a Term Is Problematic seeks to challenge the traditional understanding of the term “Artist book” as a static and limited concept, exploring Michalis Pichler’s perspective that the term itself is problematic and restricts the possibilities of book-based artistic practices. Through multimedia installations, text-based sculptures, and performative elements, Pichler blurs the line between literature and visual art. By showcasing Pichler’s decades’ of works which push the boundaries of bookmaking. The exhibition also encourages visitors to reconsider their preconceived notions of what constitutes an artist book.

Exposition littéraire autour de Mallarmé, recalls an exhibition of the same name by Marcel Broodthaers in 1969 at Wide White Space in Antwerp, Belgium. The exhibition is centered around re-readings and re-writings of Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard across different media, around that icon of the avant-garde. The exhibition will be a 1-on-1 appropriation of a historical exhibition, hence a “greatest hit” in its own right.

Coup de Dés (Collection) unites a vast number of editions of Mallarmé’s chef d’oeuvre as well as many of its historical and contemporary editions and appropriations by other authors such as Claude Balif, Fritz  Balthaus, Derek Beaulieu, Jérémie Bennequin, Christopher Brennan, Marcel Broodthaers, Bernard  Chiavelli, Jim Clinefelter, Lucien Desalmand, Mario Diacono, Sammy Engramer, Marie Louise Erlenmeyer, Cerith Wyn Evans, Ernest Fraenkel, Rodney Graham, Paul Heimbach, Angela  Grasser, Barry Guy, Felix Philipp Ingold, La Bibliothèque Fantastique, Brian Larosche, Alexandra Leykauf, Benjamin Lord, Stéphane Mallarmé, Michael Maranda, Guido Molinari, Monchas, Francoise Morel, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Aurélie Noury, Michalis Pichler, Henri Pousseur, Nicolas Richard, Mitsou Ronat, Sam Sampson, Camille Soula, Ultralab, Klara Vith, and Eric Zboya.

The collection also includes a variety of publications (backgammon tutorials, pulp fiction, and militaria books) that feature the phrase “Coup de Dés” on the cover without explicitly referring to Mallarmé. Coup de Dés (Collection) is ongoing and subject to open submission.

The exhibition includes Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’abolira Le HasardSCULPTURE, a close copy of the 1914 edition of Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem, but with all the words cut out by laser, in a way that corresponds directly to the typographic layout used by Mallarmé. When turning the pages, numerous shadows are generated by the cutouts. Pichler’s version is juxtaposed with editions by Broodthaers and Mallarmé, who had written Un Coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard. POÈME in 1897, and also saw it published in a magazine called Cosmopolis. Mallarmé left copious notes as to how it should be typeset, instructions that were finally carried out 16 years after his death, in 1914. In 1969 this work was appropriated in three renditions as Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’abolira Le Hasard. IMAGE by Marcel Broodthaers, who replaced the words by black stripes.

A glass version of Un Coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard. SCULPTUREis installed in the airspace of the gallery as a spatial installation or walk-through book, even though there is no text displayed on the plates. Through its “strategic illegibility,” it seems to establish what Jacques Derrida would call “a text, that is, a readability without a signified”.

Somewhere in the gallery, a player piano rocks away with a that somehow resembles aleatoric music. The turn-of-the-century pianola is indeed playing Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’abolira le Hasard. MUSIQUE, created by running a 288mm tracker roll of Pichler’s cut-out windows/verses.

The exhibition is accompanied by a Catalog with texts by Craig Dworkin, Annette Gilbert, Luc Boltanski, Arnaud Esquerre, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and Michalis Pichler, and reproductions of the works, co-published by Center for Book Arts and Spector Books in Germany.

“Review of “COUP DE DÉS (COLLECTION)”” by Robert Bolick on BooksonBooks: https://books-on-books.com/2024/03/19/review-of-coup-de-des-collection/

January 18–May 1, 2024

ed. Michalis Pichler

Center for Book Arts
28 West 27th St, 3rd Fl
New York, NY 10001

11 January-23 March 2022

Bibliothèque de l'ESADHaR 2 Rue Giuseppe Verdi / 76000 Rouen, France

ARTISTS

antoine lefebvre editions (+ Cannelle TANC, Lawrence WEINER), Jérémie BENNEQUIN, Mariana CASTILLO DEBALL, Julien CRÉPIEUX, Ryan GANDER, Dominique HURTH, Jonathan MONK, MOREpublishers (+ Jason DODGE, Dora GARCIA, Liam GILLICK, Jonathan MONK, Olaf NICOLAI, Yann SÉRANDOUR, Johannes WOHNSEIFER), Camila OLIVEIRA FAIRCLOUGH, Michalis PICHLER, Joachim SCHMID, Bérénice SERRA

Eleanor Vonne Brown, Claudia de la Torre, The Infinite Library, Michalis Pichler, Yann Serandour, John Stezaker 

VERNISSAGE: May 31st 2023, 7:30 pm

FINISSAGE: June 28th 6:00—8:00 pm

EXHIBITION VIEWING HOURS:

Monday—Saturday 1:00—8:00 pm

Hopscotch Reading Room

Kurfürstenstraße 14b, 10785 Berlin

Anlässlich der Ausstellung Enjoy. Die mumok Sammlung im Wandel präsentiert die mumok Bibliothek Künstlerbücher, die während der letzten zehn Jahre erworben wurden, und setzt diese in Dialog mit historischen Exemplaren, die sich schon länger in der Bibliothekssammlung befinden.

Von Simone Moser

# 1 Ed Ruscha, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963

Manche Künstlerbücher schreiben Geschichte, wie Twentysix Gasoline Stations von Ed Ruscha. Und manche Künstlerbücher werden von anderen zitiert, interpretiert und appropriiert, wie ebendieses.

Exposition du programme "Déjouer Flaubert" conçu par le Frac dans le cadre du bicentenaire de la naissance de Gustave Flaubert.

Vernissage vendredi 17 septembre à 18h

Non loin de Rouen, la commune de Canteleu conserve une gravure de 1635 de Jacques Callot illustrant La Tentation de Saint-Antoine. À l’appui de l’ouvrage de Flaubert, de cette gravure, et de la collection de livres d’artiste du Frac, Ludovic Burel, commissaire, artiste et éditeur, propose de relire ce poème en prose sous l’angle de la désacralisation, en prenant pour point de départ les sept péchés capitaux.

The global publishing industry is still dominated by gatekeepers in the Global North. To what extent does the colonial gaze shape the art book market? How is it possible to decolonize the art book industry? The evening centers around two recently published publications: Decolonizing Art Book Fairs – Publishing Practices from the Souths is a workbook with primarily newly commissioned texts and interviews with artists, authors and publishers.

“In every discipline artistic theory is little avail without unremitting exercise, but especially in mnemonics, theory is almost valueless unless made good by industry, devotion, toil, and care. You can make sure that you have as many places as possible and that these conform as much as possible to the rules; in placing the images you should exercise every day.”

— Frances A. Yates

Apt 13’s A New Museum’s Triennial @ FR MOCA
Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art
Opening May 14/15, 2021
502 Bedford Street
Fall River, MA
 

Launch of Decolonizing Art Book Fairs and IDEA POLL publications
Plus a three-day online program

 Conceptual Poetics Day 2021: August 24, 6–10pm

Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
Germany

missread.com
conceptualpoeticsday.org

“it’s a book, …, the annual meeting of producers in the field of independent publishing, takes place for the twelfth time in 2021. for the eighth year in a row, it is developed as part of a project seminar at the academy of fine arts in leipzig. a group of students is conceiving, developing and preparing the event.

February 25–28, 2021, Opening, Wednesday, February 24.

Since 2005, Printed Matter’s Art Book Fairs have hosted international exhibitors featuring a wide variety of works—from zines and artists’ books to rare and out of print publications, and contemporary art editions. This new Fair expanded upon the rich tradition of our longrunning and beloved NY and LA Art Book Fairs, including over 400 exhibitors from 43 countries, with online programs, performances, games, and more.