Stephan Berg - Böcker

What is the mutual relationship between TV and art? The publication introduces artistic strategies used to explore TV and its specific contents and narrative forms in video, film, painting, sculpture and performance, ranging from the sculptural object of the TV box to the manipulation of the TV image and the use of its structure of lines and pixels in works of art. Television, which is among the most important inventions of the twentieth century, has developed a unique aesthetic and new communication structures worldwide. The early 1960s, the beginning of the development of TV as the first visual mass medium, were also the beginning of an artistic exploration of TV. From artists known for their work in this field such as Nam June Paik and Vostell to current works by younger generations of artists such as Thomas Demand, Tobias Rehberger, Ulrich Polster and Melanie Gilligan, this publication focuses on the analysis, paraphrasing and parody of TV formats and their pictorial nature, amongst other things.

What is the place of painted pictures? What is their relevance? And what is their reality? Thomas Huber is an internationally acknowledged painter whose cool picture constructions, mostly devoid of humans, circle around these questions. In meticulously composed, surreal-looking scenarios he creates a world of paradox combinations and reflections that challenge reality. Thomas Huber (*1955) mostly creates pictorial spaces with an architectural character. In them he has been sounding out the various forms of appearance and effect for more than thirty years. This volume presents mainly recently created works by the artist, who was born in Zurich and now lives in Berlin. They refer to the horizon as a constant of all pictures constructed using perspective and as a metaphor for a boundary between the visibility of the motif and the invisibility of the associated dialogue. Texts by and a conversation with Thomas Huber demonstrate the systematic pictorial theories of the artist.

Gerhard Richter (*1932) is an exceptional personality – not because his pictures are world famous, but because he has demonstrated a new approach to painting. His art masterfully moves between abstraction and representation, sensuousness and denial – ambiv alent attitudes which he demonstrated even in his early work. Gerhard Richter’s oeuvre overcomes the division between abstract and representational art. His pictures neither cultivate a modest interplay of colours and forms nor do they deliver an intact p icture of reality. Richter is a sceptical artist who questions the reality of his art even when the prime subject of his paintings is the tangible. This applies in particular to his door, curtain and window pictures of the 1960s, which form the central foc us of this volume. They stage a playful examination of the illusory nature of art, which always questions what painting shows or conceals. This lavishly appointed volume is published to mark the artist’s 85th birthday.

It is always with us: our shadow. But when it comes to art, what role does this constant companion play? Richly illustrated and vividly narrated, this publication reveals the wide range of approaches and levels of meaning that shadow has in contemporary painting and photography, and in video art and installations.Symbol of death and emblem of the uncanny, metaphor for beings that exist at the fringes – the shadow is a multifaceted – and frequently political – presence in contemporary art. Through outstanding images, this volume portrays the emancipation of shadow as an autonomous element in contemporary art while offering astonishing discoveries in relation to classical artworks. In this expansive survey, the shadow itself steps out of the shadows, revealing itself as a unique element of artistic style. Artists: Vito Acconci, Christian Boltanski, David Claerbout, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Hans-peter Feldmann, Vadim Fishkin, Lee Friedlander, Ralph Gibson, Jenna Gribbon, Janice Guy, Nadia Kaabi-linke, William Kentridge, E.l. Kirchner, Jürgen Klauke, Astrid Klein, Farideh Lashai, Zilla Leutenegger, Johanna Von Monkiewitsch, Edvard Munch, Claudio Parmiggiani, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff, Regina Silveira, Javier Téllez, Kara Walker, Jeff Wall, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Et Al.

Georg Aerni is a photographic artist with a particular interest in architecture. Educated as an architect himself, he has been working with the camera on this subject with great precision and consistence for the past fifteen years.Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Tokyo: each metropolis is also a zone where mankind's will to create is driving constant change. Aerni documents this change in a scrupulously prepared and carefully designed series of images. But also when he focuses on receding glaciers in the Alps, his studies of cages in zoological gardens and of mankind's interventions in nature, the extraordinary carefulness and quality inherent to all of Aerni's work is captivating. It sets his oeuvre in sharp contrast to the quickly done, impromptu photography that has become so widespread in recent years.Sites and Signs is the first comprehensive monograph on Aerni's photographic work. The book presents his complete work with an emphasis on the most recent series. Essays on his work in the context of contemporary photography and on images of architecture and landscape, and a complete catalogue of Aerni's oeuvre so far round out the book.Text in English & German.