Bernhart Schwenk – författare

Courageous, free, humorous, touching and disturbing: these works by fifty international artists show how eccentric means more than neurotic or decadent. Eccentricity resists all kinds of ideology, and indeed it can be an engine of social freedom and tolerance. Through approximately one hundred pieces – including painting, sculpture, installation art, video and design – diversity is celebrated in ways that defy rigid norms and clichés. Inspiring, thoughtful and quick-witted, the short texts in this book introduce us to some of the most brilliant eccentrics of the art world. The overall impression is just as dazzling as it is multifaceted and shows the full scope of work that is “eccentric” (from ex centro, outside the middle) through experiments with materials or free-spirited approaches to themes such as identity, body, environment and humanity. Richly illustrated and beautifully designed, this magazine-like catalogue is a feast for the eyes and will awaken curiosity about the eccentric in all of us.

Gisbert Stach's (b. 1963) monograph Jewellery and Experiment presents a multifaceted opus from twenty-five years of gold- and silversmithing. In his oeuvre the primarily conceptual artist combines jewellery with video, photography and performance. One focus of his work deals with processes of transformation and experiment - pieces disappear through chemical dissolution, and form is determined by agencies of growth in nature. Stach works with means of alienation and irritation. Ground amber serves as pigment, which he works into jewellery pieces in the form of fish fingers, sliced bread or schnitzel. A further characteristic of his work is the performative act, for example when brooches are pelted with knives.Gisbert Stach is represented in numerous museums and collections, including Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, Munich (DE); Fondazione Cominelli, Brescia (IT); Museo de Arte Moderno, Tarragona (ES); Museum of Arts & Crafts, Itami (JP); Gallery of Art, Legnica (PL); Museum of Bohemian Paradise, Turnov (CZ); Amber Museum, Gdansk (PL).Published to accompany exhibitions at Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart (DE), 9-11 November 2018, and Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein (BKV), Munich (DE) 28 February-24 March 2019.Text in English and German.