‘DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS LOVER’
© Olaf Nicolai
Special Edition for Motto Books, 2021
Edition: 100
37 x 39 cm
Black bag with red text
Inside printed label
80% Recycled cotton, 20% Recycled polyester
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The edding 780 book is a collection of 2418 drawings produced in 2020 by Félix Gastout with an edding 780 pen. Each drawing is reproduced at original size in the book.
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Vrach is Renaud Regnery’s collection of all the sketches made for the painting of the same name: Vrach, 2019, plaster, acrylic paint and alkyd lacquer on wallpaper on canvas, 200 x 135 cm.
The painting is photographed at various stages of its completion and these printed images are used as the basis for further Studies. The artist reuses the loose sheets he finds in his studio: fragments of theoretical texts printed for the preparation of exhibitions, essays on the work by other artists, extracts of bank statements, failed copy of car documents etc.
Published by Motto Books
Edition of 150
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Not-human, Not-fly is a publication made of two books. One contains a study on the concept of the posthuman using David Cronenberg’s film The Fly as a starting point. It argues that the human-fly mutant in the film, Brundlefly, is not just another cautionary tale that invalidates deviations from conventional expressions of humankind. The creature is worthy of consideration both as an organism that functions on their own terms, beyond the features of humans and houseflies, and as a picture of Dorian Gray that reveals not some underlying immorality, but the terms for living in an age of systematic environmental destruction that has been called the Anthropocene. The second book is a work of fan fiction: it presents a series of fictional DNA sequence constructs belonging to Brundlefly, which create a narrative based on the genetic transformations that Brundlefly was subjected to, revealing the not wholly linear relations that connect humans, posthumans and houseflies.
Hugo Almeida is an artist (who goes by the name Mao) and postdoc researcher at the Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT), Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is an alumni of the Art & Science residency program of the IMéRA Foundation, Marseille (2016-2017), France and of the Saari Residence, KONE Foundation, Mynämäki, Finland (2016). He has been a postdoc at CIEBA, Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University (2013-2016) and holds a PhD in Molecular Biology (2013, NOVA University of Lisbon), from his research at the Telomere and Genome Stability Laboratory, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Oeiras, Portugal. Mao normally exhibits and publishes with the art research collective and publishing label Massacre. His work has also been published by Chili Com Carne and Komikaze. He was a founding member of zine label Clube do Inferno (2012-2019).
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The artist’s publication Eye of the Tiger is composed of close-ups of the eyes of 99 male characters from various films. The stills portray the characters in situations where they are driven into some sort of readiness; these stares express everything from controlled calm to furious aggression. The films were all released between 1977 and 2000, the formative years of Guermouche’s childhood and coming of age, including schooling, sexual debut and military service.
The black wooden pattern on the cover, along with the blackened edges and the deep black endpapers, are reminiscent of the installations in the form of barricades that Guermouche has created in recent years, for example the work “You Made Me” (ICIA, 2016) in Gothenburg. The dust jacket is made out of Swedish kraft paper, which draws ammunition packaging to mind. The metallic foiling refers to the machine as a male ideal, and to the steely-eyed stare. The black-and-white images with their graininess and deep black, give the impression of memories rather than direct depictions.
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Dear world you have made the persons slow uses the World Health Organization’s collected 2020 press statements about COVID-19 as its source material. Composed using blackout poetry, the project casts light on the ongoing and mostly unconscious consumption of online information. In reproducing the affect of online communication, these poems are both violently abridged and easy to consume.
In a world filled with transnational commercial chains, empathy and solidarity tend to stay local; the sudden violence of a worldwide pandemic paired with personal crises raises long overdue awareness for a more global concern for other subjects as well. Dear world you have made the persons slow contains potential further worldwide statements and there, they just need to be dis-covered.
Elena Kaufmann, born in 1992, is a contemporary artist based in Berlin, working primarily with poetry and language.
COISAS QUE MATAM (THINGS THAT KILL) is a label of the present, unleashed to publish sound and visual works afflicted by the now. If there are things that kill, there are also those that ignite and exhort. Since 2017, Stefanie Egedy and Simon Fernandes have been creating this circumstance between São Paulo and Berlin.
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Behind the public face of diplomatic gifts
Throughout history, the exchange of gifts has played a central role in the conduct of international relations. While the rules, traditions and culture of gifting evolve, it remains a universal ritual that often reveals deeper truths about what it means to be human.
Polite Fictions examines this gifting ritual in the diplomatic field, where gifts once had the power to initiate negotiations, ease tensions or send subtle messages. What role do gifts play in fostering international relations today? What messages do they carry? And what can they tell us about the relationship between two countries?
Intending to research the meaning and significance of diplomatic gifts, my camera was denied access by the authorities. The government of my home country the Netherlands and the European Commission refused me permission to take photographs, as such transparency has the potential to harm bilateral relations. Only in carefully controlled settings is it possible to see, photograph and interpret diplomatic gifts.
In contrasting that which is seen in the public eye and that which happens behind the scenes, I created new representations of the gifts and their fate. Stored away and concealed, they underline both the prudence and practicality of European diplomacy. Polite Fictions uncovers the paradoxes of diplomatic gift exchange and portrays a system of conflict avoidance and securing interests.
Drawings by Claude Eigan
Texts by Clara Pacotte, Jackie Donie, Elodie Petit and Thomas Conchou
Published on the occasion of:
‘dandelion menace’
Claude Eigan
Curated by Thomas Conchou
At Artemis Fontana gallery, Paris.
June 05 — 26, 2021
dandelion menace is Claude Eigan’s first monographic exhibition in France. It unfolds around plant presences that form three families: fists bouquets, shields corollas, and wolf trap leaves, all linked to the central figure of taraxacum, which gives the exhibition its title. Commonly called pissenlit in French (piss in bed), in reference to its diuretic properties, this plant with depurative virtues is also called dent-de-lion for its sharp leaves and bushy yellow collar. The works presented at Artemis Fontana all trace, in their own way, the emotional coordinates of the artist. The fists of their friends and relatives make up the intertwined cornucopias in the series Soft and Stone and High, 2020, chimerical presences oscillating between the floral and the aquatic: somewhat plants, somewhat mermaids. The outlines of Berlin’s pavements inhabit the series under no kings, 2021, composed of wall pieces arranged in a defensive formation. Straps in the back allow them to be worn on the arm while brandishing white and purple fleur-de-lis, placed upside down in a cheeky misuse of royal and religious emblems. Finally, the coordinates of LGBTQIA+ places dear to the artist adorn the laughing jaws of the dandelion’s leaves in the series Pissed, 2021, alongside queer slogans and symbols.
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‘Subject to’
Kristin Loschert
Opening Friday Sept. 3 @ Motto Berlin
Exhibition 04.09-02.10.2021
