Nina Zimmer - Böcker

Hannah Höch (1889–1978) moved between differing worlds: as an editorial assistant with a major Berlin-based magazine publisher, and as the only woman who could hold her own in the German capital’s vibrant Dada scene of the 1920s. Höch broke with the traditions of representation and vision. Her works dissected a world marked by the catastrophe of the Great War and an intense consumer culture, and reassembled it in revolutionary, poetic, and often ironic ways. Höch kept to her artistic means and her poetic-radical imagination, shimmering between social observation and dream world, even in the post-WWII period. Scissors and glue were the weapons of her art of montage, of which she was a co-inventor.Cutting and montage also shaped film, still a new medium in the 1920s, which strongly influenced Höch’s art: she understood her assembled pictures as static films. This richly illustrated and expertly annotated book explores comprehensively for the first time Höch’s fascination with film and the visual culture of the modern industrial age. It demonstrates how montage evolved in a field of tension between artistic experimentation, commercial exploitation, and political appropriation. A text-collage on the history of montage, in which major protagonists of Modernism and Avant-garde such as Sergej Eisenstein, Raoul Hausmann, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttman, Kurt Schwitters, Theo van Doesburg, and Dsiga Wertow, have their say, rounds out the volume.

A beautifully illustrated look at the works of Anni Albers with a focus on the architectural dimensions of her work  Anni Albers (1899–1994) has long been revered as a trailblazing weaver, textile designer, and visual artist; she also was an insightful and eloquent writer, and her books On Designing and On Weaving are canonical writings in design history. Anni Albers: Constructing Textiles explores the ideas of materiality, construction, and architecture across her body of work, establishing her legacy as a thinker, theoretician, and innovator.  The book’s essays include essential writings by Albers herself on the making and meaning of textiles, as well as new pieces by Glenn Adamson on her relationship to architecture, Karis Medina on the material and technique of her weavings, Amy Jean Porter on her writing, and Jeffrey Saletnik on East Asian influences in Albers’s work and thinking. Among the book’s hundreds of beautifully reproduced images are works held in private collections that have never before been published. An essential volume in the literature about modernism, this book reinforces Albers’s position as a leading figure in twentieth-century art.  Exhibition Schedule:  Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, SwitzerlandNovember 7, 2025–February 22, 2026Unteres Belvedere, Vienna, AustriaApril 30–August 16, 2026

Markus Raetz (1941–2020) is widely recognised as one of Switzerland’s most significant contemporary artists. His multifaceted oeuvre includes some 1,500 sculptures, installations, and objects. They are works that make us playfully aware of how strongly our perception of the world depends on the point of view we take.This bilingual French–German book, published in conjunction with a major Markus Raetz retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Bern in summer 2023, focuses on the artist’s objects and mobiles, most of which have only so far been sporadically on public display. Essays by curator Stephan Kunz and French art historian and curator Didier Semin explore this part of Raetz’s work and place it within the overall context of his art. These are complemented by images newly taken by Swiss photographer Alexander Jaquemet in Raetz’s preserved studio, thus providing a direct insight into the artist’s former working environment.Text in French and German.

The publication presents an innovative new perspective on a star of Classical modernism. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s art is characterised by austere beauty and bold colouration. However, his creative approach extended far beyond the canvas: he saw the presentation and viewing of his works as integral elements of his art. This book shows Kirchner’s complete oeuvre through his own eyes.Fresh and unexpected – a must for all Kirchner fans. The world’s first major retrospective of Kirchner’s (1880–1938) work was curated by the artist himself in 1933. In presenting the works, he created an exhibition entirely according to his own taste. This volume allows us to look over his shoulder once again and see how he approached both his artistic ideas and his curatorial strategies. Kirchner’s work continues to be an exemplar of early-twentiethcentury art and one of the undisputed highlights of Classical Modernism.

Max Bill (1908–1994), a key figure of modernism in his native Switzerland and internationally, was a true renaissance man. Equally accomplished as a painter, sculptor, graphic and product designer, and architect, he was also an eminent theorist and educator, curator, and prolific publicist. Moreover, he engaged in Swiss politics and was an activist both in Switzerland and abroad. Throughout his career he connected with fellow artists and other leading figures of modernism, maintaining a lifelong and worldwide artistic and political dialogue.This book, published in conjunction with a major exhibition at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland, takes a fresh look both at Bill’s remarkable achievements across his diverse fields of creative activity and at his international network, highlighting his contribution to art and society as a whole. Max Bill Global features some 120 of Bill’s own works in all disciplines and a selection of his designed products that went into industrial production, as well as work by some of his artist friends. Published alongside are topical essays investigating Bill’s interaction and networking with fellow artists in Dessau, Paris, Zurich, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and New York.