Stedelijk Book Club Print! Press! Publish! 2017

On 29 September 2017 the Stedelijk Museum’s Friday Night is all about books: this will be the second edition of Stedelijk Book Club: Press! Print! Publish! Presentations and performances by authors and artists will take place in the newly designed entrance area and at various spots across the museum. Two exhibitions will open on this evening: The Best Book Designs and Always at Risk, yet never in Danger. Rietveld Graphic Design 2017.

Throughout the year the Stedelijk Museum receives proposals for book presentations and publication-related projects. These have been compiled into one grand book event: an evening that will offer a survey of recent, remarkable and innovative publications in the field of visual arts, photography and design. In addition, Yannick Bouillis (Offprint) will install a number of book tables based on the theme 1917 – 2017. After her earlier presentation at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Radna Rumping was invited to present a version of her work Get Rid Of Yourself, Again: an essay in the format of an audio installation. The Stedelijk’s Publications team will discuss recently published artist’s books with Roma Publishers. 

ANNUAL BOOK SALE

Naturally, the library is part of Stedelijk Book Club as well. The annual book sale will take place here, allowing visitors to purchase numerous publications about contemporary art from the Netherlands and abroad (both used and brand new copies). In short: this evening will be a delight for all book lovers.

PROGRAM

Download the program.

PRESENTATIONS

Antonis Pittas presents Road to Victory, a book inspired by exhibition designer Herbert Bayer. Bayer gained fame mostly for his 1942 exhibition by the same name at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in which he presented a highly aestheticised and celebratory representation of the American involvement in the Second World War. The Road to Victory project conjoins archival materials and textual contributions by acclaimed authors.

Architect Florian Idenburg presents the first monograph publication by his New York architect agency SO – IL, entitled Solid objectives: order, edge, aura, written by Idenburg with his founding partner Jing Liu and recent partner Ilias Papageorgiou. In 2014 SO – IL designed the exhibition structure for BAD THOUGHTS at the Stedelijk Museum, and the agency is currently involved with the transformation of the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. The book presents a collection of completed and unfinished projects, texts, processes and experiments by the agency.

In the book Events: Situating the Temporary by Herman Verkerk/EventArchitectuur, Herman Verkerk and his team share their knowledge and experience with the world of design. Their agency in Amsterdam has over twenty years of experience with exhibition and interior design, as well as contemporary architecture, through projects in Berlin, Paris, New York and other locations worldwide. The book presentation will take the shape of a performance. 

The Egyptian Postures by Dr. Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha’nish has been re-published with illustrations by Ian Whittlesea and an essay by Pádraic E. Moore. This book is a guide to the advanced Mazdaznan exercises that Johannes Itten taught his students at the Bauhaus. Often performed while singing or humming, the postures were intended to activate glands and re-channel internal energies, stirring the blood in ways that would contribute to the perpetual evolution of humanity.

Food Design Katja Gruijters is Katja Gruijters’ first presentation of 35 projects, events and products against the backdrop of current developments in the restless world of nutrition. This publication addresses the consumption, industry and sustainable development of our daily food. While much food design concerns the appearance of food, this is a unique and integrated approach that stimulates awareness, making us see and feel what we eat.

LAPS (Research Institute for Art and Public Space) presents the book Being public: how art creates the public by Jeroen Boomgaard and Rogier Brom. Boomgaard is Professor of Art and Public Space at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam and head of the research master’s programme Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam. Together they wrote a publication that investigates the notion of ‘public’ from different perspectives. What does it mean to be public today? And what is the role of art in constituting both ‘public space’ as well as ‘a public’?

Marjan Teeuwen’s publication Marjan Teeuwen, Destroyed House offers a survey of her photographic projects entitled Destroyed House, on which she has worked since 2008 in the Gaza region, Krasnoyarsk (2009), Piet Mondriaanstraat (2010/2011), Bloemhof (2012), Noord (2014), Verwoest and Leiden (2015). In detailed photo series this survey presents the polarity of Teeuwen’s captivating images: memory and amnesia; chaos and order; destruction and construction; falling and standing; horror vacui in relation to spatiality. The autors generate new perspectives on the art-historical, architectural, philosophical and social significance of Teeuwen’s work. 

Michael Tedja presents The Holarium: Negeren Series 818:32, a publication that assembles a series of 818 drawings divided into 32 chapters. His work appears to exceed and absorb the institutions that attempt to codify him one way or another. Whereas his peers may seek to transcend identity as such, Tedja’s practice is hypersubjective and all-encompassing.

The Sandberg Instituut and Sternberg Press initiated the Sandberg Series, which focuses on changes in art education and in which the issues and urgencies of each of the school’s programs are put forward and reflected upon. With talks by Jurgen Bey and Tamar Shafrir, intersected with a performance by Stefanie Rau, they present the series and launch the latest edition, entitled Material Utopias.

The Noise of Being is a new book published by Sonic Acts Press that explores the contemporary human condition. It pieces together the dissonance that was produced and gathered at the 2017 edition of Sonic Acts Festival and features inspired contributions by various artists and thinkers that offer a chance to continue speculating about the strange and anxious state of being. The book will be introduced by the Director of Sonic Acts, Lucas van der Velden, and design studio The Rodina will give a artist presentation about the process behind its design.

Het Poëzie Museum is an innovatieve cross-over between literature, design, typography, architecture and augmented reality. It is a virtual museum on the Museumplein in Amsterdam, open for free 24/7 by means of an app, containing 60 highlights of Dutch poetry. It is an open index of possibilities through which poetry can be read anew in a contemporary, experimental, playful and at times perhaps provocative manner: an indoor theme park. Novelist Anna Enquist freely selected ten Dutch poets, each represented through six poems. 

To mark the occasion of her exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in late 2016, a monograph was published on the work of Magali Reus. Her work stands out for its use of high-tech production techniques and ‘clean’ use of materials. Reus is also known for her interest in mass production and everyday architecture in daily life. Magali Reus is a 136-page publication with extensive image sections, a conversation between Magali Reus, Andrew Bonacina and Leontine Coelewij. and contributions by Kirsty Bell, Andrew Bonacina, Liam Gillick and others.

On the basis of her earlier presentation at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Radna Rumping has been invited to present a version of her work Get Rid Of Yourself, Again: an essay in the format of an audio installation.

On occasion of the opening of the Stedelijk Book Club and the exhibition ”Always in Risk, yet never in Danger” by the Graphic Design Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, fanfare will join forces with Radio Rietveld to merge design and sound by turning the Stedelijk Zadelhof Café into a radio lounge and sound mekka for the evening. The programme will involve a constant flow of music, occasionally interrupted by existing sound pieces produced by alumni of the department. fanfare is an Amsterdam based studio and platform dedicated to creative exploration in the field of visual communication. The active programme of fanfare offers a dynamic frame for exchange of knowledge and public visibility. fanfare sets off to foster collaboration and inspiration as well as advocate awareness towards new explorative approaches to visual communication. You can find more information on www.fanfarefanfare.nl.

The Noise of Being is a new book published by Sonic Acts Press that explores the contemporary human condition. It pieces together the dissonance that was produced and gathered at the 2017 edition of Sonic Acts Festival and features inspired contributions by various artists and thinkers that offer a chance to continue speculating about the strange and anxious state of being. The book will be introduced by the Director of Sonic Acts, Lucas van der Velden, and design studio The Rodina will give an artist presentation about the process behind its design.

Yannick Bouillis will curate a number of Offprint book tables that explore  the theme of 1917-2017, arranged especially for this museum. Through the theme of 1917 and 2017 these book tables investicate contextual elements that these two years have in common, such as a technical revolution disrupting economic, social and political structures, a state of violence, a shift in values and a systematic destruction of the environment. The creation of De Sijl, Duchamp’s Fountain, the October Revolution as well as the lesser known founding of Eutophron (the first ever raw food restaurant) were probably nothing less than attempts to forge a culture that was able to offer a new, technical context that would call for new values. However, this was connected to urban policies and considered a strategy for social differentiation, not to mention market determinism. Today, however, art is able to revaluate its own position in order to provide meaningful values: participants of this evening will present and contribute in their own ways to this necessary ‘transvaluation of all values’.
Participants: Printed Matter, Inc.  (US), PrintRoom (NL), RIOT BOOKS (BE), San Serriffe (NL), Section 7 Books (FR) and ORAIBI + BECKBOOKS (CH). 

EXHIBITIONS

The Best Designed Books exhibition ranges from productions by well-known publishers to museum catalogues, anniversary books and hard-to-find privately published works. The selected publications stand out for their design, typography, treatment of images or graphic-technical production and for the coherence between form and content. With a long history dating back to 1932, the Best Book Designs annual selection by a professional jury committee is the oldest of its kind in Europe.

The exhibition Always at Risk, yet never in Danger. Rietveld Graphic Design 2017 at the Stedelijk is a cross-section of the graphic design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. For this exhibition, a selection was made of assignments carried out by graphic design students – from first-years to recent graduated – in 2017.