Words by Nancy Li

“How can such dark color come from only light colours?”
This question stays with me. It leads to somewhere deeper, in regardless of it is of chemical nature or philosophical one.

I wouldn’t necessarily associate Berlin with blue, but the history has proven me wrong. When Kirsten mentioned this term at our first meeting casually, light flooded out of my eyes. It is simply romantic to name a color after a city or country. Thinking of China red along with the easiest associations with the Forbidden City and the red envelop that is supposed to bring you fortune both metaphorically and realistically. However, long before the romanticist movement came along, a “new” shade of blue was already accidentally created by H. Joh. Jacob Diesbach (1670 – 1748) and Pietist Johann Conrad Dippel (1673 – 1734) in Berlin in 1706. Since then, world was not the same. From art to medicine, from food to alchemy, the influence of Berlin blue has gone wider than our perception of colors and trades. Before we acknowledged this significant experiment later being repeated countless times, the trademark of Berlin Blue (also called Prussian blue) has long been part of who we are as much as the city ever is.

In 2021, the artist Kirsten Stoll with her sculpture and ceramics background and Prof. Dr. Britta Lange from Humboldt University of Berlin chose a conventional laboratory setting and tried to reenact this ancient experiment with curiosity and contemporary perspective. Instead of using the test tube as old-school chemist did, they used capillary paper to register the ever-changing patterns of this unique, bright, deep blue, born from the yellow-orange tone given by iron sulphate and the transparent tint from blood salt. Many questions started to emerge in time of shades changing, thoughts forming, research in progress. Is chemistry a (natural) art? Where is place of originality in the imitation of process? Over the past three hundred years, Berlin Blue has been copied, renamed, put into use by countless industries, benefiting thousands and millions of people, then forgotten at some point, at least the origin of it. Gazing into the blue bacteria-like molecules changing faces from one page to another, it is not so hard to have the urge to remember part of the history that has shaped how we see blue today. Britta and Kirsten, devoting years of research and work to a singular passion, they simply observe and let the blue take their breathe away. New phenomena is constantly evolving, shifting, making its own voices being heard and hopefully understood by many others, leading us to the ever dazzling galaxy of unknown. Up until today, those liquids are still somewhere undergoing a reaction which none of us know where it will take us.

At the end of our meeting, knowing I am Chinese. Kirsten shared with me her enthusiasm about Chinese tea and ceramic making which she used as an experimental practice before applying paint on her larger-scaled sculptures. By transforming minute waste into meaningful objects with mindfulness and reflection, it unveils a way of thinking I find particularly refreshing in a landfill stormed with consumer-oriented arts and images numbing our senses today. It comes from an yearning for depth, and a sensation that is bound to survive hundred years of unpredictability and human flaws.

Aufsaugen – verbreiten – vermischen – übertragen. Berliner Blau und das Kapillarische (Absorb – spread – mix – transfer. Berlin Blue and capillarity) by Dr. Britta Lange and Kirsten Stoll, written in German, translated to English by Matthew Gyngell

Every cover can be transformed into a poster to be hung at your home or anywhere else

Available at Motto Beriln and Online

Words by Nancy Li

We need stories like this in self-absorbed days to inspire us on strength, persistence, pain, solitude and to conclude, absurd action. If pilgrims in Tibet are known to tread through mountains and rivers to preach towards an invisible future. Then what is Anton’s purpose? Crossing borders of seven countries, reaching the ever strange lands. What is the profoundest philosophy he might have gained throughout his journey about giving up and starting again.

After all, there is tomorrow after another tomorrow. Facing wrinkled sea may you forget about time vanishing behind us. Walking on the forthcoming road may you see light dimming brightly over horse’s back. Further away from modern living, he was measuring the ever so abstract notions of freedom and uncertainty by steps, one heavy with question, after another light with acceptance.

When Anton walked into our store, he looked like someone with stories to tell. We sat down together outside over sporadic silence and shared passion for poetry and black and white photography. Needless to say more, you will find his personality shone briskly through the frames of moments that he thoughtfully captured with his lens – ever lasting until his next unplanned journey.

STREUNER by Anton Gartung is a photo collection documenting Anton Gartung’s three-month walk from Berlin to Athens. Every copy is numbered and signed by Anton himself with a photograph available to gift to any friend who is in vain

Poem by Ferdinan Uth in both German and English

Available at Motto Berlin and online

A collaboration between photographer Vrettos and art collective ANOSIA, which “brings to the fore the intervening body which breaks into the confounds of a ‘normal’ functioning constitution of public space and disrupts civility.”

Full-colour reproduced photographs of riotous bodies in surreal, often provocative scenes staged in abandoned public spaces where the naked, often painted or masked figures blend together into a violent, erotic and carnivalesque mass of flesh.

With an introduction by Gertrude Liebfraumilch, who also provides an impish play script, a poem by Nikos Branidis, another poem by Tanya Varveri, and a text by Yorgia Karidi.

Text in English and/or Greek.

Available at

@ Motto Berlin

and online!

AI MUST DIE is a short zine that presents critical perspectives on the way that AI is talked about, governed, and owned in 2026.

Available at

@ Motto Berlin

@ Motto Paris

and for online order!

Eric Pougeau

@motto_paris

Launch, Thursday 27 August, 6pm

Motto Paris @ Ofr Edition

6 rue des Filles du Calvaire

75003 Paris

Hugo Capablanca
@motto_paris
Saturday 22 August from 6pm

Collage works on canvas

• a live sound performance (8pm)
• archive sale

Motto Paris
Summer residence @ Ofr Editions
6 rue des filles du calvaire
75003 Paris

Motto Paris @ Ofr Editions

Summer residency

6 rue des Filles du Calvaire

75003 Paris

Daily 12-8pm

Motto Paris

38 rue du Vertbois

75003 Paris