Artists as Independent Publishers

Cabinet exhibition at the Center for Artists’ Publications

A cabinet exhibition in cooperation with the Hochschule für Künste Bremen with current artists’ books by students from Bremen, Vienna, London, Bergen and Stockholm. Exhibition and two-day symposium are part of the interdisciplinary HfK project “Artists as Independent Publishers”.

As an interdisciplinary course, international cooperation, exhibition cycle and symposium, “Artists as Independent Publishers” aims to actively record, explore and help shape trends and possibilities in contemporary art.

The project was initiated by Katrin von Maltzahn and Anna Lena von Helldorff (HfK) and has been taking place since the beginning of 2015 in association with four other European art universities – University of Applied Arts Vienna, Royal College of Art, London, Bergen Academy of Art and Design, and Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm.

The topic of “artists’ books” and “publishing as an artistic practice” was worked on individually in parallel at the different partner schools.

The HfK organized a two-week workshop in November 2015 that was open to students of liberal arts, design, and digital media. The participants created artist books with freely chosen print media and content. The focus was on explorations of different types of artists’ books as a contemporary means of expression for artists and designers. The artist book was reflected upon as a means for critical questioning, as a platform for communication between different artistic approaches, and as an autonomous form of artistic expression.

In addition to the practical production of artists’ books, the project was also always concerned with investigations into the forms, means, and reasons for which artists publish today. These topics will be publicly examined and discussed in the symposium together with the eight lecture guests from different perspectives.

Symposium:

Tuesday, May 03, 2016, 1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. and Wednesday, May 04, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. at the Center for Artists’ Publications, Weserburg.

With contributions by:

Vanessa Adler, Berlin (publisher),

Burkhard Beschow / Anne Fellner / Julian Irlinger, Berlin + Frankfurt a. M (artists), Bernhard Cella, Vienna (artist, curator),

Dominique Hurth, Berlin (artist),

Christoph Ruckhäberle, Leipzig (artist, publisher),

Elisabeth Tonnard, Leerdam/NL (artist, poet)

Participation in the symposium free