Kerber Verlag – förlag

The Chelsea Hotel in New York has been an iconic spot for the art and music scene since the 1960s. From 1969 to 1971, the artist Albert Scopin, who was, at the time, an assistant to photographers Mikel Avedon and Bill King, also lived there. The hotel was always abuzz with activity and everyone who lived there seemed to be searching for something. What the young Scopin was searching for was an unfiltered view of the people who came and went. To capture the lively goings-on as discreetly as possible, he often didn’t even look through the viewfinder of his Kodak Instamatic.The resulting images depict an as-yet unknown Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe as a fledgling couple, both individuals on their path to fame; film directors Wim Wenders, Rosa von Praunheim, Milos Forman and Jonas Mekas are there; the Warhol crowd performs a play; the hotel staff throw a crazy party in the basement; up on the roof, people contemplate what the future might hold, looking down on a city just waiting to be conquered. Brief accompanying texts by the artist as well as an interview complete the volume, which provides an unusually intimate look behind the façade of what is perhaps the most famous hotel in the world.

Entitled Mythos, the 13th edition of THE OPÉRA Magazine for Classic & Contemporary Nude Photography celebrates the naked body as a symbol of truth, vulnerability and divine beauty. Inspired by ancient myths in which gods and humans dwell side by side, this issue combines art, philosophy, and photography to create a poetic tale of body, soul, and origins. International photographers depict the human body as a mirror of age-old desires and modern identity—sensual, timeless, profound. Mythos conceives of nudity not as a provocation, but as a revelation; as an expression of purity and inner truth. Each image echoes mythical stories of love, power, transformation, and creation. It is a unique collector’s piece that unites beauty, aesthetics and mysticism in new harmony.Artists: Alessandro Casagrande, Alwin Maigler, Anastasia Mihaylova, Anne Nobels, Anne-Marie Kloss, Arne Grashoff, Ayline Olukman, Bruno Clement, Brut de Peaux, Daria Gaiduk, Emanuelle Morose, James Hensby, Katja Heinemann, Lisa Lind, Malcom Sinclair Lobban, Maria Knofe, Milena Schilling, Nananano, Nanda Hagenaars, Nastya Spacey, Neeltje de Vries, Nina Claudia Lucie, SMPH (Stefan Milev & Phil Hoffmann).

Whitening Heights is both photography and a way of life at once. Inspired by the Alpine sun that seems to drain everything of colour, Sandro Livio Straube has been creating an ongoing series of images since 2015 that express a sense of deceleration and desaturation. Through this exercise in observation, looking at the world through the camera lens, he explores themes of transience, the vulnerability of all living beings, and the fragility of the environment created by humankind. The black-and-white and colour photographs taken in the Alpine valley of Lumnezia bear witness to a fulfilled presence that reveals things in all their inherent beauty. The three accompanying texts shed light on various aspects of this photographic work, with passages in Rheto-Romanic and Swiss German that also convey something of the attitude to life in this valley of light.Text in German, English, Rheto-Romanic and Swiss German.

Circumambulations is the first monograph of the Swedish artist Arijana Kajfes. It presents her body of work since the late 1980s, categorised according to the themes: Light, Circles, Rotation, Spirals, Earth, Domes, Body, Fire, and Sound. In close collaboration with the graphic designer Sandra Praun, Kajfes developed the content, both image and text, as a work-in-progress. The loose form of a sketchbook allows for the incorporation of notes, quotations, and cross-references, providing the reader with deep insight into Kajfes’s working process. The publication concludes with a conversation between Arijana Kajfes and art critic Lars-Erik Hjertström Lappalainen.

In Overburden, photographer Mikael Lundström journeys through the central Appalachian mountains in the East of the USA, an area shaped by coal-mining, poverty, and deep religion. It is also thought to be the birthplace of country music. The first settlers, fleeing religious persecution in their home countries, appreciated the remoteness and quiet of the region. Over many generations, they lived separate from other immigrants, resulting in the formation of a unique mountain culture. However, this relative isolation was brought to an end at the close of the 19th century with the rise of the coal industry. Mining settlements sprang up around the mines, revealing the harsh face of capitalism. The mixture of old mining traditions, new waves of immigration, and the ruthless exploitation of people and nature continues to shape the area to the present day.Now that the coal mines have shut down, the population of these once-flourishing mining towns is dwindling, and the opioid crisis has left behind deep scars. Lundström’s images are an uncensored yet empathetic testimony to the region. They tell of turbulent times and of the people who live and work here, the daily challenges they face, and the hopes that carry them through.

On the evening of May 4, 2007, a catastrophic tornado tore through the small town of Greensburg, Kansas, USA, destroying 95 percent of everything in its path and reducing the community to rubble. Photographer Susanne Walström had first visited Greensburg in 1993, documenting a sleepy Midwestern town where life moved at a slower pace. Now—more than three decades later, and 18 years after the tornado—she has returned to document its transformation. How did a town, almost entirely wiped off the map, choose not only to rebuild, but to do it differently—with sustainability as a central focus? What became of the people she once photographed? And what is it like to live in 'Tornado Alley,' a place repeatedly battered by violent storms?At a time when the world is being rocked by one crisis after the next, the question of resilience and endurance is more significant than ever. With the book Greensburg, Susanne Walström has initiated a dialogue about the fragility of human existence that extends far beyond the borders of this small American town.

Those in search for the essence of humanity will discover beauty and ugliness, light and shadow on their way towards it. For the eighth time,The Opéra sets out to present the human body as it was created or independently formed and shaped. In their diverse works, numerous photographers from all over the world once more share the same curiosity to explore human emotions. All of them, some reluctant and observing, others delightedly engaged and orchestrated, act out the great spectacle that is human existence.

In his latest series of works, entitled 1.000 Odysseen, Winfried Muthesius (b. 1957) uses his photographs to explore the globally divisive topics of refugeeism and displacement. The artist, who lives and works in Berlin and Cape Verde, photographed items washed ashore on the remote beaches of the Cape Verde islands. These disturbingly poetic images for the most part show details of damaged or destroyed flip-flops — the simple footwear of people living in poverty. In the exhibition at the Stiftung Christliche Kunst Wittenberg, Muthesius enters into a dialogue with Oskar Kokoschka’s piece Rest on the Flight into Egypt, using this example to evoke humankind’s long history of flight and exile. This book features numerous images from the series, with hitherto unpublished drawings by the artist, images of works from his broken gold series, as well as texts by Pia Beckmann, Christhard-Georg Neubert, and an interview with Winfried Muthesius.Text in English and German.

Resurrected is a multi-layered installation that Roger Ballen created in an abandoned family home deep in the Finnish woods. The entire house was then moved and reassembled at the Serlachius Museum in Finland. Resurrected documents not only the history and construction of this unique edifice, but reveals the aesthetic vision of Ballen where the concrete and abstract, real and imaginary and atypical and archetypal merge into a single poetic space. The publication is made to further study and presents the entire process in essays and photographs and includes Ballen's photographs created and taken within the house. Text in English and Finnish.

Contemporary media artist Claudia Schmitz (b. 1975) explores the limits and paradigms of media translation, both as a solo artist and through collaborative projects. Her work focuses on identity in virtual, expanded and real spaces, reactivity and interactivity, intermediality and transmediality, machine learning and artificial intelligence. She also examines issues of sustainability and synaesthetic experience and questions socio-urban structures and hegemonial perceptions. Tracing these boundaries, she develops spaces for transmedial experiences; pneumatic sculptures; multidimensional drawings. She also creates gustatory sculptures that develop their meaning on the viewer’s tongue.Invisyllables is the first volume in her monograph, which is based on the concept of an open archive. The three volumes in the archive, entitled Moving Space, Moving Air, Moving Line each convey alternative phenomenological depictions while reciprocally integrating the others. Invisyllables is dedicated to Moving Space and shows current series of work and collaborations of this internationally acclaimed artist. With texts by: Ana María Romano G., Bruno Besana, Chris Chafe, Dong Yeon Koh 고동연, EfeCeEle, Felipe Cesar Lodoño, Geroco, Ingo Reulecke, Jorge Barco, Kim Alpert, Kisso Kim 김기수, Laetitia Sonami, Lee YOO 유리, Liana Zanfrisco, Maria Colusi, Mariela Yeregui, Mikyung Song 송미경, Mimi Jeong, Nicola L. Hein, Rebekkah Palov, Sabine Ercklentz, Sarah Weaver, Seth Cluett, Silke Lisek, Susanna Schoenberg, Stefanie Stallschus, Sue-C, Tatiana Durán Text in English, German and Spanish.

Raul Walch is a sculptor and conceptual artist. Yet, in his site-specific interventions, he turns into a critical investigator, performer, and activist as well. Aside from being a survey of his artistic practice, It's a great pressure to be here, is a wry comment on the globalised present, the human condition, and contemporary societal issues. A topical glossary, encompassing inspirations, ideas, people, and places, scholarly essays, and an interview convey how artistic engagement can become instrumental in the examination and possible transformation of the given socio-political realities.

Today, 426 million children are growing up in war zones. Since 1919 Savethe Children has been protecting and promoting the well-being of children in more than 110 countries. For its 100th anniversary, this global, large and independent children's rights organisation is teaming with the Swiss photojournalist Dominik Nahr to present the stories of 10children and a 'baby of hope', all of whom survived the wars of the past century. This touching illustrated volume tells of their fates, of everyday life in war, of escape and persecution, but also how they foundhope and their own paths, despite the adversity they faced.Guest authors:Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ingo Zamperoni, Jon Swain, Anne Watts, Margrethe Vestager, Ban Ki-moon, Professor Wole Soyinka, Mayte Carrasco, Marcel Mettelsiefen, Ulrike C. Tscharre, Amir Hassan Cheheltan, Dr. Gerd Müller

Since studying with Anthony Gormley and Timm Ulrichs, Josef Rainer (*1970) has created an artistic world theatre made up of incidental and overlooked things, in which perspectives and proportions communicate, big things move out of view, and small things appear on the stage. In his new book, the honeycomb architecture of bees, shrunken human beings in urban surroundings, speaking busts, and reading primates encounter one another. Supplemented by forays into mythology, the history of human development, science, and politics, all of this forms the material for a wondrous 'art chamber' in book form.Text in English, German and Italian.

Sibylle Jazra (*1973) combines fragments of culture and a biography of migration in powerful works. Forthe first time, this monograph brings together the overall context of her impressive work, which has been anchored from the very beginning in the examination of contemporary urgency. In various social contexts, Jazra combines common everyday objects and materials to create a personal narrative structure. She develops humorous and critical commentaries on the current social reality site-specifically and expansively, or as multi-layered individual works.Text in English and German.

The new media, contemporary techniques for generating pictures, novel materials and substances are currently exerting great fascination. A move away from physical-material reality and toward formless immateriality is consistently shown in her artistic practice. The work of Claudia Zweifel (*1981) assumes a threshold position. She works - in a transitive and process-oriented way - in the transition between space and imagination, object and picture, and between opposing realities. This fully illustrated monograph presents the artist's oeuvre for the first time.Text in English and German.

Over three decades, the painting of Anton Henning (*1964) has been both a challenge and an inspiration. For him, “even more modern” means showing the lasting significance of modernism for the present. The first volume of his large-scale catalogue of works of 2018 was a basic introduction to his work as a painter.“Vol. 2” now offers an unexpected shift of perspective to his in-depth examination of art history from the Renaissance to Romanticism. A rare interview with Anton Henning about his practice and his artistic self-image supplements the extensive picture section.Text in English, German, French, and Japanese.

Is there something like artistic exile? What share do planning and calculation, coincidence and impermanence have in the creation of artworks and exhibitions? Valérie Favre (*1959), an internationally renowned painter, dedicates herself to these questions with an unusual exhibition at the Berliner Galerie Pankow. It opens up a continuously developing conversation with her own works and with invited artists, poets, philosophers, and sociologists. In all of this, the mysterious figure “La Poulinière” plays an important role.Text in English and German.

This monograph presents a thorough overview of the work of the Danish artist Thomas Bang (b. 1938). Essays by four Danish art historians trace his years as a painter in the early 1960s, his subsequent development as a sculptor in the late 1960s, and his activity on the New York art scene through the 1980s. The primary emphasis of the book is on Bang’s three-dimensional work and the analysis of the range of issues on which his object- and installation-oriented work has been focused for several decades.Thomas Bang has throughout his career focused on various issues of fragility and vulnerability as physical as well as psychological states. The emphasis of his sculpture is on creating a broad field of operations, where alterations of apparent initial intentions and meaning are gradually established in the development of the work.

Over two years, the photographer Luca Ellena (*1997) “portrayed” numerous shopping carts in unusual surroundings. This has resulted in an absurd artist’s book filled with unexpected stories that we can only imagine. Text in English and German.

Since 1953, the ars viva visual arts prize has been awarded to outstanding young artists living in Germany, whose works of art demonstrate an independent formal language and an awareness of contemporary issues.This year, the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft is distinguishing Rob Crosse (*1985), Richard Sides (*1985), and Sung Tieu (*1987) with the 2021 ars viva prize.Text in English and German.

Georg Oskar Giannakoudakis' practice is regarded as a visual diary of his personal observations of the mundane, specifically in nature and people.

Janina Roider (*1986) is part of a young generation of painters whose work is positioned amid a fascination for technological progress, profound knowledge of art history, and a seismographic sensibility for current events. She confidently makes use of digital tools as well as gestural, analogue brushstrokes, which are equalised on the canvas. Fiction and reality blend on both contextual and formal levels.Make It Newer! is an ode to Günther Förg, the abstract artist whose spirit of invention she has adopted as a role model. The title is programmatic. The book’s dimensions transport the explosive force of her paintings, which collide with each other on a large scale. Featuring essays by Florian Matzner, Hans-Jörg Clement, and Johannes Ungelenk, as well as an interview with Birgit Sonna.Text in English and German.

Over six decades, Mernet Larsen (*1940) has playfully manipulated perspective within her paintings to reveal unsettling and humorous narratives that underlie ordinary situations. Curator Veronica Roberts says of Larsen’s work, “the subjects and scenarios she depicts are typically banal: friends gathered in conversation, a couple reading in bed, and faculty meetings. Through unexpected compositional moves, however, she transforms these prosaic moments into psychological dramas that hint at the dislocations, disruptions, and dread that fill our lives.”This extensive, richly illustrated monograph features works of art from all stages of Mernet Larsen’s career, as well as an interview with the artist by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and essays by the curators Susan Thompson and Veronica Roberts.