MER. is a publishing house that was founded to investigate the book medium as an art medium or as a place for exhibiting art. MER. is an initiative of Studio Luc Derycke and has since 1998 been publishing books under the imprints LD, MERZ, MER., AsaMER, AraMER and MediuMER. In 2018, MER. entrusted its book publishing activities to Borgerhoff & Lambrigts,where it continues its programme under the name MER. B&L, as the art imprint of the www.studiolucderycke.bewww.merbooks.behouse. B&L Art imprint of Borgerhoff & Fall-winterLamberigts2022
MER.
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The gaze that looks ahead and then slowly wanders down or to the side, looking for traces and signs of a landscape, rather than the landscape itself. Van den Broek paints what others pay no attention to or simply overlook. Cracks, borders, shadows, lines, corners, and also bridges, trees, trucks, reflections. They are set up crisply, and stripped of their frills (or as van den Broek puts it: “Cut away the snoopy!”), which leaves them somewhere between figura tion and abstraction. Are we in a video game or in a sundrenched Californian landscape? It’s hard to say. Van den Broek is greatly fascinated by the American panorama, immeasurably wide and lonely, without human figures. Like an experienced DJ, he easily mixes and samples elements from gray-looking Belgium and the country’s artists (De Keyser, Raveel, Spilliaert) with characteristics of American colleagues and idols (Ruscha, Baldessari, Newman). Until at some point he starts sampling himself, and half abstraction becomes complete abstraction. Completely out of place.
Author John C. Welchman, a prominent academic who previously wrote similar surveys about Guillaume Bijl and Mike Kelley, and who has been a long-time friend of the artist, describes and analyses van den Broek’s oeuvre to date in a masterly overview. The Complete Koen van den Broek.
Koen van den Broek OUT OF PLACE
Out of Place is the largest and most comprehensive mono graph on van den Broek’s work to date. It covers a career spanning more than twenty years.
ISBN 9789463939140
John C. Welchman
English / 290 × 290 mm / Hardcover / 660 pages / € 65,00 / Release December 2022 / NUR 642
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vol. i
Liesbeth Decan, Hilde Van Gelder, eds. Lies Daenen, Marie-Pascale Gildemyn, Hans M. de Wolf, Alexander Streitberger, Paul Tanghe, Lore Van Hees vol. ii
English / 260 × 210 mm / Softcover / vol. I: 352 pages – vol. II: 128 pages / vol. II: € 34.90 – box: € 65.00 / Release November 2022 / NUR 642 vol. II ISBN 9789463939362vol. I ISBN 9789461170026
DYNAMIC PROJECT I & II
Dynamic Project (2010) was the first monographic study on the artistic work of Philippe Van Snick. This book revealed Van Snick’s years of experimentation with different materials and techniques, such as drawings and works on paper, photography, film, sculptures, and works in situ. The connection between the artworks and everyday reality, life, and nature formed a common thread throughout his oeuvre. This first publication was prefaced by Lies Daenen, and the all-encompassing texts by Marie-Pascale Gildemyn were supported by in-depth essays by Liesbeth Decan, Hans M. de Wolf, Alexander Streitberger, Paul Tanghe, Hilde Van Gelder, and Lore Van Hees. Both publications will be available together in a collec tor’s box. The second volume, Dynamic Project II, will also be sold separately. Graphic design of vol. 2: Inge Ketelers & Thomas Desmet.
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Philippe Van Snick
Wouter de Vleeschouwer, Lewis Biggs, Carles Guerra, Philippe Van Cauteren, Marta Mestre, Luk Lambrecht
Dynamic Project II is published on the occasion of the retro spective Philippe Van Snick – Dynamic Project in S.M.A.K.. This publication complements the book Dynamic Project from 2010, an illustrated monograph that offers an overview of the work and life of the artist between 1970 and 2010. Dynamic Project II picks up where Dynamic Project left off: it starts in 2010 and contin ues until the death of the artist in 2019. The research and writing for this second book was done by Wouter de Vleeschouwer. The chronological overview is accompanied by essays written by Lewis Biggs, Carles Guerra, Philippe Van Cauteren, and the curators of the exhibition Marta Mestre and Luk Lambrecht.
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ISBN 9789463939126
THEDONALD1965-71JUDDLOWCOUNTRIES
English / 170 × 240 mm / Softcover / 160 pages / € 19,00 / Release November 2022 / NUR 640
Wouter Davidts
Historiographical accounts of the American artist Donald Judd, and of Minimal art in general, have focused primarily on the debates surrounding the emergence of his work in the United States, and New York in particular, from the mid to late 1960s. Little is known about Judd’s early exposure in Europe in between the artist’s inclusion in a group show at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden in 1965, up until his first solo show in Europe at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands in 1970. Based on extensive material from archives in the Netherlands and Belgium, the area that is commonly known as the Low Countries, this publica tion shows that in the very same years that the artist established his formal and con ceptual language in the US, his work met with an exponentially growing institutional and critical interest in Europe as well.
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9 TAMI AMIT Ory Dessau ed. English, French, German / 360 × 270 mm / Hardcover / 144 pages / € 65,00 / Release October 2022 / NUR 642 Tami Amit’s self-titled monograph compiles reproductions of her recent work on paper and canvas. Amit’s practice is a particular mode of action painting which processes child hood memories and issues of self identity and expression. This is her first monograph as a painter. ISBN 9789463939089
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Zlatko Kopljar Luc Tuymans MERCY (POLITICS)
Ory Dessau ed.
Mercy (Politics) derives from Zlatko Kopljar and Luc Tuymans’ two-person exhibition titled Mercy (December 22-February 23, Galerija Vartai, Vilnius, Lithuania). The book revolves around the politics in the artists’ work, as well as their political views. It consists of an extensive inter view with each of the artists and a curatorial statement by Ory Dessau, the editor of the book and the curator of the exhibition mentioned above. 9789463939102
11 English / 210 × 130 mm / Softcover / 256 pages / € 29,00 / Release December 2022 / NUR 640
ISBN
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ISBN 9789463939294
Pieter Vermeulen ed., Claire Contamine, Benoît Lamy de la Chapelle, Boris Groys, Pierre-Olivier Rollin
Xavier Mary VICTORY OVER THE SUN
Nonobstant, au point zéro de l’apocalypse, une vérité ontologique se révèle : tout se manifeste soudain dans son inexorable matérialité, un cosmos fantoma tique d’objets autonomes. En combinant une sélection pertinente de vues d’exposition et des contributions textuelles d’auteurs invités, Victory over the Sun [Victoire sur le soleil] offre la première présentation complète et détail lée de l’œuvre intrigante de Xavier Mary. Graphisme: Pierre Smeets. Spanning fifteen years of artistic practice, this monograph derives its title from a 1913 avant-garde Cubo-Futurist opera celebrating the demise of the sun. It confronts us with the speculative state of reality after the end of the world, a barren ontological wasteland in which artifacts have lost their utility. In his work, Xavier Mary is concerned with the dreams and nightmares of modernity, result ing from its inherently industrial nature. The sense of an impending apocalypse or total destruction seems particularly topical for the current times. Where the Promethean nature of technology typically allowed humans to liberate themselves from the whims of nature (such as the limited availability of sunlight), this gift for self-preservation has now given way to the threat of self-anni hilation. And yet, in the zero point of the apocalypse, an ontological truth is revealed: everything suddenly manifests itself in its inexorable materiality, a ghostly cosmos of Inautonomous objects.combiningathoughtful selection of exhibition views and text contributions by guest authors, Victory over the Sun offers the first comprehensive overview of Xavier Mary’s intriguing oeuvre. Graphic design by Pierre Smeets.
L’œuvre de Xavier Mary s’intéresse aux rêves et aux cauchemars de la modernité, procédant de sa nature industrielle inhérente. La sen sation d’une apocalypse imminente ou d’une destruction totale paraît d’une actualité parti culière ces temps-ci. Là où la nature promé théenne de la technologie permettait généra lement aux humains de s’affranchir des lubies de la nature (comme la disponibilité limitée de la lumière solaire), ce don d’auto-préser vation a désormais cédé la place à la menace d’auto-anéantissement.
13 English, French / 320 × 240 mm / Hardcover / 240 pages / € 55,00 / Release September 2022 / NUR 642
Couvrant quinze années de pratique artis tique, cette monographie emprunte son titre à un opéra cubo-futuriste d’avant-garde de 1913 célébrant la disparition du soleil. Il nous place face à l’état spéculatif de la réalité après la fin du monde, une friche ontologique stérile où les artefacts ont perdu toute utilité.
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Candles is een fotografisch essay van Tim Onderbeke. Gefascineerd door de sacrale, rituele en cerebrale handeling van het aan steken van een kaars, begon de kunstenaar met het verzamelen van afbeeldingen van kaarsen en kandelaars in een artistieke of kunsthistorische context. In Candles doet Onderbeke via zijn eigen werk en dat van anderen onderzoek naar wat hij noemt the colour of darkness, ofwel de negatieve ruimte, een begrip dat hij ontleende aan de Japanse schrijver en essayist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Tanizaki beschrijft de intense ervaring die hij beleefde in een grote, donkere ruimte van een Japans theehuis waar het licht van enkele kaarsen de donkerte rondom tast baar maakte en veranderde in monolithi sche materie. Onderbeke ziet de brandende kaars als een implosie van de architecturale ruimte waar het centrum normaal altijd vrijgehouden wordt. Een brandende kaars in een donkere ruimte keert die ervaring om en werkt in op onze perceptie van tijd, ruimte en atmosfeer. Candles toont naast eigen werk van Tim Onderbeke ook dat van onder meer Martin Kippenberger, Anne Imhof, Juliaan Lampens, Le Corbusier, Peter Zumthor, Charlemagne Palestine, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Pieter De Bruyne, Damian O’Sullivan en Robert Filliou. Wolfgang Becker, kunst historicus en voormalig directeur van het Ludwig Forum Aachen, schreef een bege leidende tekst. Candles is a photographic essay by Tim Onderbeke. Fascinated by the sacred, ritual, and cerebral act of lighting a candle, the artist began collecting images of candles and candlesticks in an artistic or art-histo rical context. In Candles, Onderbeke uses his own work and that of others to research what he calls “the colour of darkness,” or negative space – a concept he borrowed from the Japanese writer and essayist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Tanizaki describes this intense experience he had in a large, dark room of a Japanese tea house where the light of a few candles made the surroun ding darkness feel tangible, as if it turned into monolithic matter. Onderbeke sees a burning candle as an implosion of architec tural space where the centre is usually kept empty. A burning candle in a dark room reverses that experience, and influences our perception of space, time and atmosphere.
Wolfgang Becker
ISBN 9789463939287 TimCANDLESOnderbeke
15 English / 210 × 130 mm / Softcover / 160 pages / € 39,90 / Release October 2022 / NUR 656
In addition to Tim Onderbeke’s work, Candles also shows works of Martin Kippenberger, Anne Imhof, Juliaan Lampens, Le Corbusier, Peter Zumthor, Charlemagne Palestine, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Pieter De Bruyne, Damian O’Sullivan, and Robert Filliou. Wolfgang Becker, art historian and former director of the Ludwig Forum Aachen, wrote an accompanying text.
The publication Open Field explores and amplifies the work of Raffaella Crispino between research and practice in the epony mous exhibition held at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Tournai, within the frame work of the Europalia Arts Festival. In the publication, photographs of the works produced and installed in the museum are presented together with working documents, sketches, notes, historical photos, exchanges with scientists, references and architectural documents. The publication takes the form of an atlas, an index, and an encyclopaedia, allowing for a transversal reading of the historical-scientific knowledge and artis tic practice behind the six works presented in the exhibition and their relationship to selected works from the museum’s collec tion. Graphic design by Manuela Dechamps Otamendi.
ISBN 9789463939133
Raffaella Crispino FIELD
17 English / 330 × 240 mm / Softcover / 64 pages / € 29,00 / Release September 2022 / NUR 640
OPEN
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ISBN 9789463939119
Ceramics are more popular than ever. In a world becoming more digital every day, there is a growing need for tangibility again. Clay creeps and drips between hands and fingers more than any other material. From time immemorial clay has shaped the bowls we feed with, the vessels from which we pour, the houses that shelter us, evoking numerous archetypes. Being an eminently malleable material clay can shape everything, and, in uncertain times, it becomes the ultimate metaphor for possibilities.InHands, Eyes, Ceramics Liesbet Waegemans goes into sculptural ceramics, which have gained a place in the arts since the 1950s. In the movements that have developed from then on, artists bringing back ceramics to material, process, form and the resulting images, become object of her attention. She focuses on artists pointing at the relationship between man and earth such as José Vermeersch, Pierre Culot, Lutgart De Meyer, Anne Ausloos, Nathalie Doyen, Alexandra Engelfriet, and Bie Michels.
Keramiek is vandaag populairder dan ooit. In een wereld die steeds digitaler wordt is er opnieuw nood aan tastbaarheid. Meer dan welk materiaal ook kruipt en druipt klei tussen handen en vingers. Sinds mensenheugenis geeft klei vorm aan de kommen waarmee we voeden, de kruiken waaruit we schenken, de huizen die ons herbergen, en roept daarbij talrijke arche typen op. Als wend- en kneedbaar materiaal bij uitstek kan klei aan alles vormgeven en wordt het, in tijden waarin weinig vastligt, de ultieme metafoor van mogelijkheden.
Hands, Eyes, Ceramics verschijnt in het kader van de gelijknamige tentoonstelling in Museum Albert Van Dyck, Schilde.
CERAMICSHANDS,EYES, Liesbet Waegemans
Hands, Eyes, Ceramics is published on the occasion of the exhibition with the same title in Museum Albert Van Dyck in Schilde, Belgium.
In Hands, Eyes, Ceramics duikt Liesbet Waegemans in de sculpturale keramiek die vanaf de jaren ’50 op de kaart kwam te staan. Binnen de waaier van stromingen die zich ontwikkelden, houdt ze halt bij kunstenaars die keramiek terugvoeren tot materiaal, proces, vorm en de beelden die daaruit voortkomen. Kunstenaars in wier werk de relatie tussen mens en aarde centraal staat, zoals José Vermeersch, Pierre Culot, Lutgart De Meyer, Anne Ausloos, Nathalie Doyen, Alexandra Engelfriet en Bie Michels.
19 English, Dutch / 190 × 280 mm / Hardcover / 144 pages / € 39,90 / Release November 2022 / NUR 655
Christine Vuegen
Albert Pepermans ÇA SUFFIT?
ISBN 9789463938303
The book Ça suffit? is the high point of the festive year on the occasion of the 75th birthday of artist Albert Pepermans, orga nised by Schönfeld Gallery. For a whole year a different aspect of Pepermans’ oeuvre was presented every four weeks. At Art Brussels 2022 a solo booth was dedicated to Pepermans as well. The year concludes with this extensive monograph.
21 English, Dutch, French / 240 × 300 mm / Hardcover / 396 pages / € 65,00 / Release July 2022 / NUR 642
Ça suffit? is more than a barren summary of Pepermans’ oeuvre. It is an atypical reference book by an atypical artist. It is a playful, bold, and dynamic book, in which the no-nonsense attitude of this artist and his work really comes to the fore. The dimensions of the book (24 by 30 centime ters) have also been adapted to the proporti ons of Pepermans’ more recent multiples. The book examines the influences of pop art, Dadaism, and COBRA on Pepermans’ oeuvre, his memorable collabo ration with Hugo Claus, his experiences as a leading performer, and his recent work that takes a look at his many far-away travels. Graphic design by Desirée De Winter.
Filip Luyckx
23 English, Dutch, French / 330 × 270 mm / Softcover / 144 pages / € 39,90 / Release November 2022 / NUR 642
The book Erased and Not Erased is the first publication on the work of Fabrice Souvereyns (°1995, BE). It shows a selec tion of works made between 2017 and 2022 and Filip Luyckx wrote an accompanying essay. In October 2021, Souvereyns became the laureate of Input/Output, a internati onal biennial competition of the Bruges Cultural Centre for young contemporary visual artists. The book will be published on the occasion of the accompanying solo exhibition in CC Brugge from 19 November 2022 to 8 January 2023. Fabrice Souvereyns is represented by Hopstreet Gallery in Brussels.
Fabrice Souvereyns always uses the same pencil. He complements this tool with paper, an eraser, and a utility knife. His landscapes are alienating and at the same time recog nisable, they explore the boundary between figuration and abstraction. Driven as he is, he covers the entire page with his arsenal of signs: dotted lines, stripes, scratches, swirls, curls, and more. He sometimes erases parts of his drawing, leaving a skin of obses sive traces as a clue of what once was. The dreamlike landscapes appear and disappear, like a parallel world to the one we know. They are pulsating, alive and surreal, extre mely detailed, and preciously made. They invite you to look very closely, to almost touch them with your nose. And suddenly we ask ourselves if they even are landscapes.
ISBN 9789463939263 FabriceERASEDSouvereynsANDNOTERASED
25 Dutch / 210 × 287 mm / Softcover / 112 pages / € 39,00 / Release June 2022 / NUR 640 Karel Verhoeven (15 november 1982 –23 september 2021) is een Belgisch beeldend kunstenaar en vormgever die vanuit grafische media gaandeweg ruimtelijk, audiovisueel en performatief ging werken. In zijn werk behandelt hij de relatie tussen de gecon strueerde omgeving en sociale interacties. Met referenties aan architectuur en muziek is zijn werk telkens een uitnodiging aan de spelendeMetmens.alsuitgangspunt een vaststaand kader – het grid van de dagelijkse strip in de krant – maakte hij tijdens de coronapande mie dagelijks lijntekeningen. Hij gaf de reeks een titel: STRIP. ISBN 9789463938679 KarelSTRIPVerhoeven Nele Buyst
Koen van den Broek, Burbank #2, 2010. Oil on canvas, 210 × 140 cm
27 CONTACT publisher Luc luc.derycke@merbooks.beDeryckeT09/2682605 coordinating editor Viktor Van den viktor@studiolucderycke.beBraembusscheM04/86226605 press Kim Van kim@borgerhoff-lamberigts.beKerckhovenT09/2682608M0495/633111DISTRIBUTION Belgium Agora Burgstraat 18k, 9000 Ghent, Belgium T 053 78 87 info@agorabooks.com00 Martine De Smet: martine@agorabooks.com The Netherlands New Book Collective Niasstraat 6D, 3531 WP Utrecht +31 (0)20 226 02 38 Sales: Publicity:verkoop@newbookcollective.compromotie@newbookcollective.com France Les Presses du Réel 35 rue Colson, 21000 Dijon, France T +33 (0)3 80 30 75 Raphaëlinfo@lespressesdureel.com23Brobst:rb@lespressesdureel.comPatriciaBobillier-Monnot:patricia@lespressesdureel.com USA Artbook LLC D.A.P. – Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. 75 Broad Street, Suite 630, New York, NY 10004, USA T (212) 627-1999 Sales Director Jane jbrown@dapinc.comBrown:T3239698985