Books in the Zeitgenössische Kunst series

Seit dem Jahr 2000 findet während der Art Basel, der weltweit wichtigsten Messe für zeitgenössische und moderne Kunst, Unlimited statt. Unlimited ist die innovative Plattform für großformatige Kunstprojekte, die die Maßstäbe des klassischen Messestandes sprengen - und sich bei Sammler*innen und Publikum großer Beliebtheit erfreuen. Kuratiert von Giovanni Carmine versammelt Unlimited 2023 Arbeiten von über 70 Künstlerinnen und Künstlern. In einer gigantischen, 17.000 Quadratmeter großen Halle werden überdimensionale Kunstwerke, Video-Projektionen, großformatige Installationen und Live-Performances gezeigt. Die aktuelle Ausgabe von Unlimited verspricht - wie ihre Vorgänger - einiges Aufsehen zu erregen. Im Katalog werden alle beitragenden Künstler*innen und ihre präsentierten Werke vorgestellt.

It is estimated that, as a result of climate change, illegal trade, and habitat loss from the encroachments of technology and industrialization, as many as one in eight species of birds is heading towards extinction. Created in close collaboration between Sean Scully and Kelly Grovier, each pairing of poem and drawing is devoted to the beauty and mystery of an individual species of bird. Scully's visual language, at once measured and impassioned, geometric and free-flowing, captures the essence of creatures that are, themselves, on the brink of becoming mere abstractions. Though his first series of iPhone drawings are consistent with his signature style, they reveal a fresh intimacy, playfulness, and exhilaration of gesture, color, and form that is in accord with the wonder of feathered flight. Created on a digital device, the drawings are, as Scully remarked, the ironic embodiment of "technology which is ruining nature turned inside out to protest its demise." Yet taken together, these duets aim to offer something uplifting in the face of an accelerating tragedy. "Hope" is, after all as Emily Dickinson famously wrote, "the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul."Having developed a style over the past five decades that is uniquely his own, SEAN SCULLY (*1945, Dublin) is one of the world's most acclaimed contemporary artists. He is known for his large-scale abstract sculptures, installations and paintings, comprised of vertical and horizontal color bands, blocks and geometrical forms as well as his intellectually engaging writings and lectures.KELLY GROVIER is a poet and cultural critic. Educated at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of Oxford, he is a feature writer for BBC Culture and co-founder of the international scholarly journal European Romantic Review.

Jakub Julian Ziólkowski's vibrant works are bizarre and alluring. In his wild, surreal cosmos of mutant humans, organic forms and circulatory systems, the Polish painter mixes cultural symbols, the decorative and the fantastical. Juxtaposing the spiritual and the microscopic, he creates a universe bristling with detail and a kaleidoscope of references-from Hiernoymos Bosch visions of heaven and hell and James Ensor's grotesque allegories to Philip Guston.Yet, his paintings show a highly personal world that is populated by a recurring cast of characters. This publication is the first comprehensive overview of his work from 2005 to the present, giving insights into his artistic practice in different media: from painting to sculpture, ceramics as well as drawing. The book includes essays by Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and Cecilia Alemani, curator of the 59. Venice Biennale, an in-depth interview with the artist, as well as texts by philosopher Kajetan Mlynarski and psychologist Bartlomiej Dobroczynski.JAKUB JULIAN ZIÓLKOWSKI (*1980, Zamosc, Poland) is one of the most eminent Polish contemporary painters. He trained at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he lives and works today. Since 2003, his work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including Hauser & Wirth, London (2017), Neues Museum Nürnberg (2017), and the 55. Biennale di Venezia (2013).

Von Nutella und Penaten-Creme über Produkte aus dem Hygienebereich bis hin zu einem ausrangierten Wohnwagen oder alten Kühlschränken - Produkte industrieller Massenproduktionen bilden eine Grundlage für die skulpturalen Werke von Thomas Rentmeister. Seine körperbezogenen, minimalistischen Skulpturen und Installationen kombinieren Ästhetisches und Abstoßendes auf unlogische Weise. Damit, ebenso wie mit dem Einsatz teils absurd großer Materialmengen, formuliert er spielerisch einen - teils humorvollen - Gesellschaftskommentar, der visuellen wie thematischen Anlass dazu liefert, neu über die Dinge nachzudenken, die uns im Alltag umgeben.Der Katalog bietet einen guten Werküberblick, mit neuen Arbeiten seit der letzten großen Publikation von 2011. Die Texte von Anna Mosemann und Hendrik Bündge sowie ein Interview mit dem Künstler öffnen neue Perspektiven auf Rentmeisters Werk.THOMAS RENTMEISTER (*1964) arbeitet in den Bereichen Skulptur und Installation. Seit 2007 ist er Professor an der HBK Braunschweig. Seine Arbeiten sind in zahlreichen Sammlungen vertreten und wurden weltweit ausgestellt, so im Hamburger Bahnhof, im Kunstmuseum Bonn, in der Kunsthalle Nürnberg, im Museum Boijmans van Beuningen und im Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

Georg Baselitz enters a dialogue with the Old Masters - invited by Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the acclaimed German painter and sculptor engages in a visual conversation. Baselitz himself curated this selection of works, focusing exclusively on nude painting. Both the exhibition and the catalogue revolve around this elemental human state, and its fundamental role in European art.From the beginning of his career, Baselitz's work has been informed by a pronounced awareness of art history, above all he was inspired by Mannerism's break with classical rules. Insights into the history of nude painting, as well into the topicality of painting itself, emerge from this encounter of Baselitz's works with historical paintings of an idealized beauty from Kunsthistorisches Museum. The carefully chosen juxtapositions open up a space in which one can reflect and experience the essence of painting anew.GEORG BASELITZ (*1938, Deutschbaselitz) is without a doubt one of the most influential painters and sculptors of our time. His work eludes easy categorization, but has continuously returned to his search for a new approach to updating classic figurative painting. In a celebrated turning point in 1969, he literally turned his paintings upside down and thereby managed to change the public's viewing habits, and to sharpen their perceptions.

Wayne Thiebaud's famous, literally candy-colored still lifes of pies, cakes, gumball machines, and lipsticks reflect the promise and abundance of the American way of life¿a society of plenty, where supply exceeds demand.The tactile impression created by his pasty layers of paint brings the objects to life and creates an atmosphere in which irony and melancholy are carefully balanced. Testing the possibilities of painterly expression, Thiebaud's brilliant painting technique explores the boundaries of the real and imagined world. This catalogue presents all aspects of the legendary American artist's oeuvre, including still lifes and portraits, as well as his deserted, multi-perspective cityscapes and river landscapes, in luminous pastels that exude a peculiar summertime sadness.WAYNE THIEBAUD (1920, Mesa, AZ-2021, Sacramento, CA) began his career as a cartoonist and graphic designer, briefly working for Walt Disney Studios. As an artist, Thiebaud was associated with the US Pop Art movement: his still lifes gained nationwide attention as part of the landmark exhibition New Paintings of Common Objects in 1962, which also featured Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Ed Ruscha and is considered a milestone in the critical reception of Pop Art.

Als autodidaktische Künstlerin und angestellte Büroleiterin in Ost-Berlin nutzte Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt ihre Schreibmaschine, um Buchstaben und Zeichen zu Grafiken zwischen Konkreter Poesie, Grafikdesign und Konzeptkunst zu verdichten. Ihre ins Abstrakte tendierenden sprachlichen Erkundungen, die sie insbesondere in den 1980er-Jahren zu Collagen erweiterte, beruhen oft auf Mehrdeutigkeiten.Nichts Neues erscheint anlässlich der großen Retrospektive im MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam. In thematischen Episoden werden ihre Typewritings, Druckgrafiken, Collagen und Gemälde beleuchtet. Zwar hörte Wolf-Rehfeldt nach dem Fall der Mauer auf, künstlerisch zu arbeiten, doch ihre Kunst hat nichts an Aktualität eingebüßt. Im Gegenteil: Auf poetische, eigenwillige und oft humorvolle Weise setzte sich die nonkonformistische Künstlerin mit Themen wie Naturschutz, geistiger Freiheit, Gemeinschaft und Kommunikation auseinander. In ihrem mal subtilen, mal plakativeren Spiel mit Wörtern, Bedeutungen und Formen offenbart sich bis heute immer wieder Unerwartetes.RUTH WOLF-REHFELDT (*1932, Wurzen, Sachsen) kam 1950 nach Berlin. Seit den 1960er-Jahren schuf sie als Autodidaktin Gemälde, Pastelle, Zeichnungen und ab etwa 1970 sogenannte Typewritings. Aus der DDR heraus beteiligte sie sich aktiv am internationalen Mail-Art-Programm. Erst in den vergangenen Jahren erlebt sie eine Wiederentdeckung - 2017 war sie mit ihren Typewritings Newcomerin und zugleich der älteste Star der documenta 14.

On Reality brings together Jorinde Voigt's current body of work, first exhibited in 2022 as part of the exhibition Experimental Strategies in Art + Music at the Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas. By replacing the drawn line with the cut of the scalpel, Voigt creates works on paper through cutting, layering, and mounting that expand the medium of drawing into the three-dimensional. Voigt's idea of the artistic creative process as an operation on and production of reality literally comes into being. The concept that also underlies her sketch-like drawings of more recent date recalls the beginnings of Voigt's artistic expression: notations with diagrammatic elements, musical influences, and spontaneously transferred graphic gestures of situational experience. The publication includes a foreword by the Canadian cultural theorist, philosopher, and artist Erin Manning.JORINDE VOIGT (*1977, Frankfurt am Main) is an internationally acclaimed artist based in Berlin and Hamburg. In 2004 she graduated from the Universität der Künste Berlin. Since then, her works have been presented in numerous exhibitions worldwide, and are part of prominent collections such as those of the MoMA, New York, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Jorinde Voigt is Professor of Conceptual Drawing and Painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HfBK) in Hamburg.

Since the mid-1990s, Annette and Caroline Kierulf have practiced what they themselves call "woodcut as cultural critique". Drawing on the medium's rich history as a means of communication and protest, the Norwegian artists strive to revive woodcut as a discursive tool. With subtle humor, the sisters use the visual reductiveness of the low-tech medium to critically reflect on the social, economic, and cultural changes shaping our high-tech societies. Incorporating references to pop culture and folk art, Caroline Kierulf's work explores the often overlooked aspects of everyday life, Annette Kierulf focuses on a feminist reinterpretation of the landscape genre. The publication provides insights into the artists' production and working methods, as well as their longstanding collaboration. Oslo-born sisters ANNETTE KIERULF (*1964) and CAROLINE KIERULF (*1968) have played a major role the revitalizing of graphic art in Norway. Both studied at the Academy of Art and Design in Bergen, where they also work today. As independent artists they develop their works in an artistic dialog and have for many years collaborated on exhibitions in Norway and beyond.

Josef Albers's groundbreaking series Homage to the Square comprises roughly two thousand oil paintings. His continuous reflections and refinements for more than 25 years inspired numerous young minimal and conceptual artists in their search for a reduced formal language. This outstanding catalogue explores the secret of Albers's subtle aesthetic and unearths its preconditions: What is the significance of the square? How does his impression of color and its use as a material change during this period? Featuring studies on paper, archival materials, as well as essays by internationally-leading Albers experts such as Jeannette Redensek and Heinz Liesbrock, this richly illustrated publication sheds light on the various inspirations that influenced Albers early on in Europe and later in America, and illustrates the lasting impact of his art and thinking.As an influential teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist JOSEF ALBERS (1888, Bottrop-1976, New Haven, CT) is one of the leading pioneers of twentieth-century modernism. From 1923 onwards he taught at the Bauhaus, and continued to do so after his emigration to the USA in 1933 at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and at Yale University, where he worked on his Homage to the Square from 1950 until his death. HEINZ LIESBROCK (*1953) was the long-standing director of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop. He has written extensively on Albers and his influence on art history.

For 12 years, the Schwarz Foundation has been organizing regular exhibitions on the island of Samos at Art Space Pythagorion as well as the Samos Young Artists Festival. Due to its location on the Greek-Turkish border, Samos symbolizes one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time: Migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, geopolitical conflicts at the borders of Europe, and the human impact on the oceans around he world. A Decade of Cultural Production presents the work of the Munich-based Schwarz Foundation, whose declared aim is to promote dialogue through music and art. The book highlights how its projects deal with issues of migration, social responsibility and intercultural coexistence.