is the first artists’ book/monograph focused on the practice of Berlin-based artist and author Michalis Pichler, co-published by Printed Matter and Spector Books. The book is edited by Annette Gilbert and Clemens Krümmel.
The publication explores a body of artists’ publications and other works by Pichler that makes strategic use of found and pre-used material, including sources derived from image, object, sound, text or thought. Its longish subtitle is derived from a Lucy-Lippard-publication:
Thirteen Years: The materialization of ideas from 2002 to 2015: a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted text, critical essays, art works, documents, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called “greatest hits” and conceptual poetics with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as appropriation, post-naive, unboring boring, détournement, objet perdu, erasure poetry, or writing through, occurring now in the work of Michalis Pichler (with occasional political overtones), edited by Annette Gilbert and Clemens Krümmel.
The monographic work serves as a hybrid artists’ project in the spirit of the catalogs by Martin Kippenberger, with both writing addressing elements of Pichler’s artistic practice, an extensively illustrated catalogue section as well as interspersed elements which could be called primary information.
As a survey of works created over the last decade, the publication is also a reflection on the nature of canonization, and the effect of the artists’ catalog in placing and artist’s work (I.e Pichler’s) within a lineage or historical narrative, as well as the place of the book object in affirming the importance of the artists’ contribution to the field at large. As the body of work being held up for consideration is itself interested in these boundaries of authorship, and authentication, the ‘catalog’ becomes a reflection on the construction of the artistic self.
The publication includes 11 critical essays, an extensively illustrated catalogue of works, a conversation with artist John Stezaker as well as selected writings by the artist, providing an introduction to conceptual poetics.
Other critical essays include those from Tobias Amslinger, Matthias Bleyl, Eleanor Brown, Craig Dworkin, Annette Gilbert, Mark Gisbourne, Patrick Greaney, Jean-Claude Moineau, Ariane Müller, Stefan Ripplinger, Magnus Wieland.
Interspersed throughout the book is the migration collage series, in a way which makes the book a hybrid between proper monograph and artists book.
