MER. Brochure spring & summer '22 by Borgerhoff & Lamberigts

MER.B&L

SPRING & SUMMER ’22

MER. B&L Art imprint of Borgerhoff & Lamberigts Spring-summer 2022 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 house. www.merbooks.be www.studiolucderycke.be

Ricardo Brey GAP IN THE CLOUDS

Tomislav Nikolic INVOCATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Raimund Girke BETWEEN WHITE / WASS WEISS DAS WEISS

ADVENTURES IN TECHNOS DYSTOPIUM: ORSHI DROZDIK, THE FIRST TWO DECADES (1973-1993) 12

Ria Bosman SELECTED WORKS 1978–2021

Willem Boel SANCHO DON’T CARE

PETRUS DE MAN

DESINGEL 1980–2020

Clara Spilliaert SEKIRARA

Michel Mazzoni RIEN, PRESQUE

Charlemagne Palestine AA SSCHMMETTRROOSSPPECCTIVVE

Liam Gillick ‘A MAX DE VOS’

Angel Vergara WE, THE WORKS OF ART

Ricardo Brey GAP IN THE CLOUDS Ricardo Brey, Hannah Iterbeke, Koen Leemans, Samuel Mareel, Peter Verhelst Gap in the Clouds is published to accompany the solo exhibition by Ricardo Brey in Museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen. It is his first major exhibition in Belgium after his participation in the 56th Venice Biennale. With Gap in the clouds, the artist wants to make a positive statement and give a sign of hope in these troubled times. The globally shared humanity of the pandemic and the rousing social movements for racial and gender equality have prompted Brey to create a series of introspective works that seek to weave a web between his disparate works. Colour and light are playing an important role encompassing the artist’s ongoing exploration of concepts like time, mythology, human expression, and the natural universe. In his works of this period of solitude in his studio due to the lockdowns Brey explores the colour blue as he associated this colour with the sky and the sea, symbols of expansiveness and freedom, with open spaces, intuition, imagination, inspiration, and sensitivity. The book will include artist writings and a collaboration with author and poet Peter Verhelst.

ricardo brey (°1955, Havana) is one of the most

important artists of our time. His artistic roots lie in the 1970s and 1980s as an active member of the group Volumen I, a landmark in Cuban art history. After extensive travel, Brey receives an invitation from Jan Hoet to participate in Documenta IX in Kassel. Brey moves to Ghent in 1990, where he still lives and works. In 1998 he received a Guggenheim fellowship for installation art and sculpture and the Flemish Visual Arts Prize. Brey has held n umerous international group and solo exhibitions including in Belgium SMAK (2006) and M HKA (2015). The artist is represented by Alexander Gray A ssociates, New York.

ISBN 9789463937375

English / 310 × 240 mm / Hardcover / 228 pages / € 39,99 / Release May 2022 / NUR 640 / Theme AGC

Raimund Girke BETWEEN WHITE / WASS WEISS DAS WEISS Madeleine Girke, ed. Gottfried Boehm, Dietmar Elger, Anke Hervol, Peter Iden, Florian Illies When post-war art in Western Europe was characterised by happenings and installations, the artist Raimund Girke (1930–2002), born in Heinzendorf (today Poland, then the GDR), continued to regard art as a twodimensional application of paint on canvas or paper. Although he exhibited several times with artists of the ZERO movement, founded by his fellow students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, he was determined not to be a part of it. Later, he was associated with some other artists’ movements, such as Analytische Malerei, Essentiele Malerei, Fundamentele Schilderkunst or Radical Painting — the one founded by critics or curators, the other by artists themselves. However, the only term that applies with certainty to Girke’s oeuvre, is painting, more specifically the search for the possibilities of the presence or absence of white — for him, the “Königin der Farben”. This book provides the first overview of Girke’s involvement in these different movements, contextualising his relationships with artists he admired or could count among his friends, such as Ryman, Calderara or Uecker. It identifies the important historical exhibitions in which Girke participated, such as documenta 6 (1977) or the Venice Biennale (1990), and looks at the evolution of his technique and palette. Florian Illies, Anke Hervol and Peter Iden wrote new, comprehensive contributions; the important essays by Dietmar Elger (1995), Gottfried Boehm (2000) and a speech by Gunther Uecker (1961) are translated and brought together for the first time, contextualised with historical photographs of exhibitions and gatherings, as well as reproductions of invitations, posters and catalogues.

EN ISBN 9789463935388

DE ISBN 9789463935296

English & German edition / 290 × 245 mm / Hardcover / 536 pages / € 65,00 / Release March 2022 / NUR 644 / Theme AGB

Ria Bosman SELECTED WORKS 1978–2021 Wim Lambrecht, Isabelle De Baets EN Ria Bosman’s body of work spans four decades. Like all abstract art, her work does not depict anything other than its presence as an object. Her woven pieces are minimal, geometric, and repetitive. Coloured strips of flax are tightly woven into flat tapestries, and only show a play of straight lines and rectangular planes, or small monochrome works that consist of pieces of leather glued together with paint; they form prolonged, recurring series in her oeuvre. Silent witnesses of: nothing. Yet her works resist a negative description with all their might, they are: something. They represent the hope that bright artifacts can emerge from the unknown visible, in order to contemplate that unknown, Untitled. The book Selected Works 1978–2021 offers a complete, monographic overview of the work of this Belgian artist and her unique career.

ria bosman was born in 1956, in Beveren-Waas,

Belgium. She studied Monumental Arts at LUCA School of Arts Ghent, then known as Sint-Lucas Institute. After graduating, she won various prizes for her minimal works out of leather, including the Provincial Prize for Textiles and the Jugend gestaltet prize in Munich. In the meantime she has been working on her subdued body of work for almost four decades. Bosman is represented by Gallery Tatjana Pieters in Ghent.

NL Het œuvre van Ria Bosman overspant vier decennia. Zoals alle abstracte kunst beelden haar werken, buiten hun aanwezigheid als object in de wereld, niets af. Haar geweven stukken zijn minimaal opgezet, geometrisch en repetitief. Gekleurde repen vlas die strak tot vlakke muurtapijten geweven worden en slechts een spel van rechte lijnen en rechthoekige vlakken vertonen, of kleine monochrome werkjes die bestaan uit lapjes leer die met verf op elkaar gekleefd worden; vormen lange, weerkerende reeksen in haar oeuvre. Stille getuigen van: niets. Toch weerstaan haar werken met alle macht een negatieve beschrijving, ze zijn: iets. Ze vertegenwoordigen de hoop dat uit het onbekende zichtbare, heldere artefacten kunnen ontstaan, ter contemplatie van dat onbekende, zonder titel. Het boek Selected Works 1978-2021 biedt een volledig, monografisch overzicht van het werk van de Belgische kunstenares en haar unieke parcours.

ria bosman werd geboren in 1956, in Beveren-

Waas, België. Ze studeerde Monumentale Kunsten aan LUCA School of Arts Gent, het toenmalige Sint-Lucas instituut. Na haar afstuderen won ze met haar sobere, lederen werken diverse prijzen waaronder de provinciale prijs voor Textiel en de Jugend gestaltet prijs in Munchen. Ondertussen werkt ze al bijna 4 decennia gestaag verder aan haar ingetogen oeuvre. Bosman wordt vertegenwoordigd door de Gentse Galerie Tatjana Pieters.

ISBN 9789463937351

English, Dutch / 290 × 270 mm / Hardcover / 176 pages / € 55,00 / Release April 2022 / NUR 642 / Theme AGB

Tomislav Nikolic INVOCATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS Julie Ewington ed., Juliana Engberg, Justin Clemens, Marielle Soni, Andrew Jensen, Tomislav Nicolic “There is a lot of libido in the works of Tomislav Nikolic. An excess of desire which throbs and pulsates — palpitates — like some disco night atmosphere full of adrenaline and exaggerated lust. No!, you say. Nikolic’s works are exquisite, beautiful, serene, transcendent, mystical, spiritual. Yes, Ok they are, but they are also a bacchanal, carnival and a mardi gras; a late night in a mosh pit when things get loose and hyperventilated. They are all — everything. Yet restrained. Constrained, tamed and framed within a limit so that the libido’s extravagance can be managed and harnessed to gain the maximum effect.” — Juliana Engberg The book Invocations of Consciousness is a first survey of the impressive oeuvre of Australian artist Tomislav Nikolic (1970), edited by Julie Ewington. His abstract paintings seem to radiate energy — libido, as Juliana Engberg phrases it — for they are colours in conflict, yet remain pictorially logic events. The result of a slow and complex alchemy but drawn from emotional experiences, they are what Julie Ewington defines as “paradoxical places”, opening the canon of modernist Colour Field painting to the brutality of subjective contemplation. Essays by Justin Clements, Juiana Engberg, Julie Ewington, Andrew Jensen, and a long conversation between the artist and Marielle Soni sound the depths of this paradox. “Ours is to explore our responses to his paintings, to the experience of colour, the title of this 2015 painting, borrowed from Alice Bailey, neatly states the project: All revelation, however, when put into words and word forms, loses something of its divine clarity. That revelation is ecstasy. The joy of standing outside oneself. ( Just give it time.) There are many paths to ecstasy — singing, dance, meditation, breathing techniques, sex, and, yes, drugs. But there is also colour. One response to the haunting question, ‘What colour is the sacred?’ is that every colour must be so, in different ways. If it is mobilised. That colour not only illuminates, but also constitutes the necessary brevity of experience. Here is the paradox of Tomislav Nikolic’s painting: by entering the mystery, you may achieve the ecstasy of being transported, may glimpse existence beyond yourself. However fleetingly.” — Julie Ewington

tomislav nikolic (°1970) was born in Melbourne,

Australia, where he lives and works. He is a self-taught artist who introduced himself in the world of abstract painting. Meanwhile his work is in numerous collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Chartwell Collection at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. He was awarded the Bulgari Art Award in 2017.

ISBN 9789463937344

English / 270 × 220 mm / Hardcover / 224 pages / € 49,99 / Release June 2022 / NUR 642 / Theme AGB

ADVENTURES IN TECHNOS DYSTOPIUM: ORSHI DROZDIK, THE FIRST TWO DECADES (1973-1993) John C. Welchman ed. ‘ Drozdik has influenced the feminist movement of the early s eventies. This extraordinary oeuvre is rediscovered and reinstated as historically important and relevant.’ — J O H N C. W E LC H M A N

Hungarian born Orshi Drozdik (°1946, HU) lives and works in New York. Drozdik’s career began in the early seventies under the Socialist regimes of Eastern Europe. Her work consists of drawings, paintings, photographs, etchings, performances, videos, sculptures, installations and academic writings through which she exposes social issues that are embedded within our cultural system. By exploring themes that undermine the traditional and erotic representation of women Drozdik has had a significant role in the history of women’s art and has greatly influenced a generation of artists to follow. In this publication several of Drozdik’s writings have been brought together to make a comprehensive overview of her practice in the first decades of her fifty-year long career.

ISBN 9789463933247

English / 210 × 260 mm / Softcover / 288 pages / € 39,99 / Release Mai 2022 / NUR 642 / Theme AGB

‘ For Willem Boel, it is the action that is catalyst for the image. Actions can be controlled, but are more interesting when there are other, unwanted, unchosen influences involved, like time, temperature, or an obstruction to act as you would want. The goal is not to act, but to use the action as a means to find a residue. The residue is a far more interesting result than a chosen, ‘made’ image. A residue is formed, unchosen, unmade, real.’

Willem Boel SANCHO DON’T CARE Ory Dessau, ed. EN In his art practice, Willem Boel (°1983, Sint-Niklaas; lives and works in Ghent) establishes an expanded field of sculpture. He thematizes sculpture as performance, as architecture, as machinery. His works are situated on the intersection between monuments/ structures, kinetic sculptures, gigantic props, and stage sets. Most of Boel’s works circulate through one another. Each work literally conceals and continues the other works, creating an ongoing flow of material elements and conceptual approaches. Sancho Don’t Care is Boel’s first monograph, covering ten years of intensive work. It offers a comprehensive overview of a process which is still evolving. NL De artistieke praktijk van Willem Boel (°1983, SintNiklaas; woont en werkt in Gent) valt binnen het uitgebreide veld van de beeldhouwkunst en bevat monumenten/structuren, kinetische sculpturen, gigantische rekwisieten en decors. Boel thematiseert de beeldhouwkunst als performance, als architectuur, als machinerie. De meeste werken uit zijn oeuvre circuleren door elkaar. Elk werk verbergt letterlijk de andere werken en zet ze voort, waardoor een voortdurende stroom van materiële elementen en conceptuele benaderingen ontstaat. Sancho Don’t Care is Boels eerste monografie over tien jaar intensief werk. Het biedt een uitgebreid overzicht van een proces dat nog volop in ontwikkeling is.

ISBN 9789463934015

English / 280 × 230 mm / Hardcover / 240 pages / € 49,99 / Release March 2022 / NUR 642 / Theme AGB

Angel Vergara WE, THE WORKS OF ART Laurent Courtens, Sarah Gilsoul, Juan De Nieves, Daniel Vander Gucht, Angel Vergara The work of Brussels-based artist Angel Vergara (°1958, Spain) is a continued research into the power of the image. By means of performances, videos, installations, paintings and drawings he tests the limits of art and reality. He questions the way the contemporary image shapes the intermingled public and private spheres and so our own reality. Every work is an attempt to break through the image and to make its impact on an aesthetic as well as a socio-cultural and political level. With his work, Vergara creates a new, suspended reality, grown from the artist’s personal dialogue with reality and with the image by which it has already been transformed. This book makes it abundantly clear: the work of Angel Vergara is polymorphic, voracious, elusive. It involves public action, words, rituals, history, institutional criticism, the assembly of archives, the setting up of environments, the arrangement of relationships... Its fuel, however, its primary necessity, is painting, the desire to hold it together today, to inscribe it in the magma of images, cities and crowds. The need to make it into a living and active material, able to meet the movements of the present, to work on the layers of history, to presuppose — in actuality — the possibilities in the making.

‘ I want to reflect critically on the world I live in, I want to take in a position. I simply can’t stay neutral in this world. Popular culture has always been part of my work. It allows me to explore les elitist territories, to link art with my, and others’, daily life. Action is another element I strongly believe in. Seeing art as an action, I paint on video screens — I transform art galleries into bars, supermarkets or other places where economic transactions take place. By perturbing these places, I want to question them.’ — A N G E L V E RGA RA, 2010

ISBN 9789463936231

English / 278 × 210 mm / Softcover / 208 pages / € 39,99 / Release April 2022 / NUR 642 / Theme AGB

Clara Spilliaert SEKIRARA Delphine Lecompte NL In Sekirara — Japans voor ‘naaktheid’ en ook de titel van haar nieuwste, 288 pagina’s tellende dagboektekeningenbundel — geeft Clara Spilliaert zich bloot. Tussen 2009 en 2017 maakte ze duizenden tekeningen, als intieme reflecties op haar dagelijkse leven. Een selectie hiervan werd aaneengeregen tot een vrij te interpreteren verhaal. Spilliaerts wereld is sprookjesachtig, seksueel, getormenteerd en humoristisch. Ze tekent grote insecten, rozige varkens, gigantische penissen, hersenspinsels en schelpdieren. Haar Japans-Belgische herkomst is een belangrijke, wederkerende ondertoon. Ze is geïntrigeerd door de rol van symbolen in het totstandkomen van individuele of collectieve culturele identiteiten. De dagboeken vormen een voedingsbodem voor haar latere keramische werken, waarin ze thema’s zoals seksualiteit, geloof en onze relatie tot de natuur verder bevraagt. Wanneer we haar kleur- en fantasierijke tekeningen in ons opnemen, leren we Clara Spilliaert kennen, maar evengoed worden we met onze eigen problemen en preutsheid geconfronteerd, onze primitieve angsten en onze rauwste verlangens. De tekeningen worden in het boek vergezeld door een tekst van dichteres Delphine Lecompte, origineel geschreven in het Nederlands en voor het boek vertaald naar het Engels en het Japans. Haar dromerige wereld, vol fictieve personages en dieren, zet Clara Spilliaerts tekeningen alleen maar kracht bij. Het boek is een opzichzelfstaand kunstenaarsboek en verschijnt naar aanleiding van een solotentoonstelling van Clara Spilliaert bij het CAF (Contemporary Art Foundation) in Tokio. Deze tentoonstelling is de hoofdprijs van de CAF Award, uitgeschreven voor jonge kunststudenten in Japan. De tentoonstelling is er te zien van 05.02 tot en met 26.03.2022.

EN Clara Spilliaert exposes herself in Sekirara — Japanese for “nudity” and the title of her latest bundle of journal drawings counting 288 pages. The artist has made thousands of drawings between 2009 and 2017 that are intimate reflections on her daily life. A selection has been brought together into a story that can be interpreted freely. Spilliaert’s world is fairytale-like, sexual, tormented, and humorous. She draws large insects, pink pigs, gigantic penises, fantasies, and shellfish. Her Japanese-Belgian roots form an important and recurring undertone. She is intrigued by the role of symbols in the formation of individual and collective cultural identities. Her art journals are incubators for her ceramic works, in which she further questions themes such as sexuality, faith, and our relationship with nature. When we take in her colourful and imaginative drawings, we get to know Clara Spilliaert a bit better, but we are also confronted with our own issues and prudishness, our primitive fears, and our rawest desires. The drawings are accompanied in the book by poems by Delphine Lecompte, originally written in Dutch and translated into English and Japanese for the book. Clara Spilliaert’s drawings reinforce her dreamy world, full of fictional characters and animals. The book is a self-contained artist’s book, and is published on the occasion of a solo exhibition by Clara Spilliaert at the CAF (Contemporary Art Foundation) in Tokyo. The exhibition runs from 5 February until 26 March 2022.

clara spilliaert (°1993) was born in Tokyo to a

Japanese mother and a Belgian father. In 2009 she came to Belgium, where she studied drawing and ceramics at LUCA School of Arts Ghent.

clara spilliaert (°1993) werd geboren in Tokio, als kind van een Japanse moeder en een Belgische vader. In 2009 kwam ze naar België, waar ze tekenkunst en keramiek studeerde aan LUCA School of Arts Gent.

ISBN 9789463934725

Dutch, English, Japanese / 207 × 140 mm / Softcover / 288 pages / € 34,00 / Release January 2022 / NUR 640 / Theme AGC

Charlemagne Palestine AA SSCHMMETTRROOSS PPECCTIVVE Michel Baudson, Xavier Garcia Bardón, Luca Lo Pinto

1000 pictures and documents from the work and life of Charlemagne Palestine explode from the pages of the book, superimposed in ‘strumming’ layers, weaving the historical & present, works & performance, private & public into a tightly knit sschmmettrroobookk. The first print run of this book was published on the occasion of Palestine’s solo exhibition at BOZAR,

that showcased a few of his immersive and psychedelic installations involving hundreds of plush animals. This second edition is enriched with a text by Luca Lo Pinto and celebrates the arrival of Palestine in Europa, with a show at Galleria L’Attico in Rome in June 1972, exactly 50 years ago.

ISBN 9789463937689

English / 300 × 300 mm / Softcover, Swiss binding / 140 pages / € 39,99 / Release June 2022 / NUR 640 / Theme AGB

PETRUS DE MAN Ory Dessau ed., Danièle Gillemon

NL Dit boek behandelt de schilderkunst van Petrus De Man (°1955) – een oeuvre dat al meer dan drie decennia op creatieve verkenning gaat naar de menselijke figuur en diens veranderende positie in de wereld. Zoals de kunstenaar het zelf verwoordt: “Dertig jaar geleden ben ik mijn werk beginnen bouwen op de verhouding van mijn Zelf ten opzichte van de buitenwereld, op grond van het Ego dat alles door de eigen bril ziet. Later, toen mijn leven begon te veranderen en de persoon die mijn echtgenoot zou worden in mijn leven kwam, verruimde mijn kijk op mijn positie in de wereld en veranderde de manier waarop ik de schilderkunstige ruimte benaderde – niet als een contrast met de figuur die op zichzelf bestaat en verschijnt, maar als een equivalent van het Zelf; de omgeving ben ik en ik ben de omgeving. Er is een voortdurende uitwisseling tussen mijn Zelf en de wereld die het verschil elimineert, het onderscheid, tussen de voorgrond en de achtergrond, die beide samenvoegt tot één structuur, één configuratie. Het is een proces dat zich beweegt vanuit de afwezigheid van een kader, vanuit een kaderloosheid, naar een staat van ingelijst zijn, of een kader hebben. Het is een paradox. Hoe vrijer ik werd in mijn werk en hoe meer ik de uitdrukking van vrijheid nastreefde, hoe meer het werk een proces werd van het verkrijgen van een kader dat vroeger voortdurend ondermijnd werd.”

EN The book will cover the painterly work of Petrus De Man (born 1955) spanning over three decades of creative exploration into the human figure and its changing position in the world. As the artists himself puts it: “Thirty years ago, I had been establishing my work on the equation of Myself against the outside world, on the grounds of the Ego seeing everything through one’s own glasses. Later, as my life began changing and the person who later became my husband entered my life, my outlook about my position in the world expanded and a different consideration was given to the environment in my work, to the painterly space, not as a contrast to the figure existing and appearing on its own, but as an equivalent to the self; the environment is me and I am the environment, and there is a constant exchange between Myself and the world which eliminates the difference, the distinction, between foreground and background, amalgamating both into one structure, one configuration. It is a process moving from the absence of frame, from frameless-ness, towards a state of being framed, or having a frame. It is a paradox, the more I became free in my work, the more I pursued the expression of freedom in my work, the more the work became a process of obtaining a frame which in previous times it persistently undermined.”

ISBN 9789463937382

English, Dutch, French / 318 × 245 mm / Hardcover / 240 pages / € 65,00 / Release May 2022 / NUR 640 / Theme AGB

DESINGEL 1980–2020 Jasper Croonen 4 november 2020, deSingel mag veertig kaarsen uitblazen. Wat begon als een overmoedig conservatoriumgebouw, werd in nog geen halve eeuw tijd hét verzamelpunt voor toonaangevende muziek-, dans- en theatervoorstellingen. Een huis waar de allergrootsten op bezoek kwamen. Waar Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker haar eerste danspassen zette, waar Ivo Van Hove de kneepjes van het toneelvak leerde en waar de aanzienlijkste muziekensembles van ons land op de planken stonden. Cultuurjournalist en musicoloog Jasper Croonen dook ter ere van het jubileum in de archieven van de kunstsite, sprak met de protagonisten uit de afgelopen veertig jaar en pende de geschiedenis van deSingel neer. Het verhaal van een handvol culturele baanbrekers die het kunstenveld in Vlaanderen grondig omwoelden, van een kunstinstelling met wereldfaam.

‘ Dat ik dit huis met veertig jaar geschiedenis mag leiden, is niet alleen een hele eer. Ik besef ook het belang van de positie waar we ons als huis in bevinden. DeSingel is bepalend voor het volledige Vlaamse kunstenveld.’ — H E N D R I K STO R M E (A LG E M E E N E N A RT I ST I E K D I R ECT EU R)

ISBN 9789463937252

Dutch / 210 × 275 mm / Softcover / 272 pages / € 55,00 / Release March 2022 / NUR 680 / Theme AGA

Michel Mazzoni RIEN, PRESQUE Eric Suchère EN Situated as it is at the very turn of the century, and questioning from the outset the inflation and desubstantialisation involved in the hegemony of images, Michel Mazzoni’s photographic practice is an image factory or rather an image-thinking factory. An image which outflanks it and decompartmentalises it in multifarious ways, from its installation in situ to its editorial deployment. Either digital or analogue, mostly close-up, they are subjected to manipulations at the source (luminous, chemical or optical manipulation of the negative) or through post-processing (scans, printing, screens, inversions), in order to degrade them, to shield them from overly indicial information, and provide them with a renewed quality as an attention catcher. The editorial space is conceived and practised by Mazzoni as a genuine exhibition space whose display and reading he nevertheless replays. The intrinsic qualities of the editorial object, variations of paper, of grammage and of printing within a unity of format and of graphic design, contribute as much as the in situ installation to creating with a rare aptness the conditions for the appearance of an elliptic narrativisation. — Christine Jamart Rien, presque presents a body of fragmented images and views that draw their iconography from public spaces or from motifs specific to modernity. These images somehow represent demarcations in the urban landscape that function like minimalist sculptures generated by human actions. Mazzoni considers them as traces of daydreaming, catalysts of poetic resistance, little time capsules illuminating the world. Like the philosophical thought of Vilém Flusser, this book is about “the state of things”, the relationship between things being more significant than the things themselves. We discover in these images the aestheticism inherent in what is close to us, in the banal, in everyday life. While flipping through the book, relationships become visible between the initially disparate images. The recurring shapes are invisible connecting lines that condense into an abstract narrative.

FR Située au tournant même du siècle, et questionnant depuis toujours l’inflation et la désubstantialisation qu’implique l’hégémonie des images, la pratique photographique de Michel Mazzoni est une fabrique à images, ou plutôt une fabrique de pensée imagée. Une image qui la déborde et la décloisonne de multiples façons, dès son installation in situ jusqu’à son déploiement éditorial. Qu’elles soient numériques ou analogiques, le plus souvent en gros plan, elles subissent des manipulations à la source (lumineuses, chimiques ou manipulations optiques du négatif ) ou par traitements ultérieurs (scans, tirages, trames, inversions), afin de les dégrader, pour les mettre à l’abri d’informations trop indicielles et leur donner une qualité renouvelée qui leur permet d’attirer l’attention. L’espace éditorial est conçu et pratiqué par Mazzoni comme un véritable espace d’exposition dont il rejoue pourtant la mise en scène et la lecture. Les qualités intrinsèques de l’objet éditorial, variations de papier, de grammage et d’impression dans une unité de format et de graphisme, contribuent autant que l’installation in situ à créer avec une rare justesse les conditions d’apparition d’une narrativisation elliptique. — Christine Jamart Rien, presque présente un ensemble d’images fragmentées et de visions qui puisent leur iconographie dans les espaces publics ou dans des motifs propres à la modernité. Ces images représentent d’une certaine manière des démarcations dans le paysage urbain qui fonctionnent telles des sculptures minimalistes générées par des actions humaines. Mazzoni les considère comme des traces de rêves éveillés, des catalyseurs de résistance poétique, petites capsules temporelles qui illuminent le monde. Comme la pensée philosophique de Vilém Flusser, ce livre concerne « l’état des choses », la relation qui existe entre les choses étant encore plus significative que les choses elles-mêmes. Dans ces images, nous découvrons l’esthétisme inhérent à ce qui se trouve dans notre proximité, à la banalité et au quotidien. En feuilletant le livre, les relations entre ces images qui semblaient disparates de prime abord deviennent visibles. Les formes récurrentes sont des lignes de connexion invisibles qui se concentrent en une histoire abstraite.

ISBN 9789463936569

English, French / 190 × 270 mm / Softcover with dustjacket / 320 pag. / € 44,99 / Release April 2022 / NUR 653 / Theme AGB

Liam Gillick ‘A MAX DE VOS’ ‘A Max De Vos’ is a novel by Liam Gillick. A fairy tale in 25 chapters, littered with Belgian proverbs, ‘A Max De Vos’ alternates between a flaneuristic tour of the historical surroundings of the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts and the fortunes of a young artist making his way to that very institution, without ever arriving. Part fiction, part autobiographical, the novel also takes cues from historical sources on the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts and a 1918 British book of stories collected by Jean De Bosschere titled “Folk Tales of Flanders”.

Started some years ago in Japan, the artist reworked the manuscript to coincide with ‘Project Palace: A Centenary’, an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts in 1922. Project Palace: A Centenary is held at BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts Brussels in Spring 2022 (01/04 – 21/07/2022). Graphic design by Liam Gillick

ISBN 9789463937368

English / 115 × 180 mm / Softcover / 152 pages / € 19,99 / Release May 2022 / NUR 640 / Theme AFT

Ria Bosman, studio view

CONTACT publisher Luc Derycke luc.derycke@merbooks.be T 09/268 26 05 coordinating editor Viktor Van den Braembussche viktor@studiolucderycke.be M 04/86 22 66 05 press Kim Van Kerckhoven kim@borgerhoff-lamberigts.be T 09/268 26 08 M 0495/63 31 11

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