Walter Pfeiffer – författare

A humorous tribute to Matteo Thun, one of Italy’s most distinguished designers and architects, and his work. In the summer of 2009, Swiss photographer Walter Pfeiffer made an extensive trip from Zurich to the Italian island of Capri, taking shots of some 50 of Thun’s design objects en route. Yet, rather than doing a mere documentation of these items, Pfeiffer created highly lively tableaux vivants. The artist was accompanied on his journey by Thun’s two then teenage sons, who thus form the main visual narrative of the book and appear in many pictures together with their father’s creations. A brief introduction by Matteo Thun’s wife Susanne and an index of the depicted design gems round out this extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue.

Published by Mousse Publishing in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin, this publication provides an essential reading of Walter Pfeiffer’s practice in the field of photography. Conceived as a photo book instead of a traditional exhibition catalogue, the publication includes an extensive image section, focused on juxtapositions of images based on visual associations rather than chronology. This editorial decision mirrors the longstanding practice of the artist in the field of bookmaking and honors Pfeiffer’s anti-hierarchical approach, which has been a guiding principle of the exhibition.The publication features an essay by Nicola Trezzi—co-curator of the exhibition alongside Simon Castets—which echoes the exhibition’s structure in order to propose a renewed interpretation of Pfeiffer’s practice, positioning him as a “prophet of image-making.” It is complemented by a fully illustrated list of works, designed to counterbalance the associative logic of the image section with a rigorously constructed historical record.2026English / ItalianHardcover, 19 x 27.5 cm144 pages