New Texte zur Kunst Editions – Dec. 2020 (2nd and 3rd batch)

Charline Von Heyl - Twenty/Twenty V - 2020

Charline Von Heyl - Twenty/Twenty V - 2020Not unlike Frans Masereel’s woodcuts or Lynd Ward’s so-called wordless novels, the edition Charline von Heyl has created exclusively for “Texte zur Kunst” exemplifies the compositional sophistication that the fine art print shares with painting.

The abstract and mostly black-and-white silkscreen print’s title, “Twenty Twenty V,” is a reference to perfect vision, or the ability to see clearly without the aid of glasses or corrective lenses. On the other hand, the title takes note of the utterly extraordinary year 2020 with its unprecedented challenges and the peculiar moods that the coronavirus pandemic has prompted.

Fittingly, some of the shapes in the picture may be read as the digits “2020” while the composition as a whole is reminiscent of a kind of eye test with jumbled characters. In that sense, “Twenty Twenty V” is a vision of its own kind, anticipating a future whose contours are hard to make out.

Medium: Silkscreen
Size: 76.5 x 57.1 cm
Edition of 30 + 10 AP
Numbered and signed on the front.
Price: € 1,500

Daniel Richter - Greif Zur Feder, Gymnasiastin - 2020

Daniel Richter - Greif Zur Feder, Gymnasiastin - 2020The relationship between art and life has been central to the evolution of modern art. In the German Democratic Republic, a cultural program, the “Bitterfelder Weg,” was established to intimately connect art and life, to dismantle the alienation between artists and citizens and thus support the realization of a socialist utopia.

The program’s motto, “Greif zur Feder, Kumpel! Die sozialistische Nationalliteratur braucht dich!” (Grab the pen, mate! The socialist national literature needs you!), encouraged workers to contribute to the GDR’s cultural character. Daniel Richter, known for colorful figurative paintings that often appropriate historical and art-historical subjects, took inspiration from this motto for his edition on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of “Texte zur Kunst.”

On one side of this diptych lithograph, Richter paraphrases the motto in the form of a political poster, replacing “mate” (Kumpel) with “schoolgirl” (Gymnasiastin). On the other side, the artist appropriates CasparDavid Friedrich’s motif from “Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer” – another quintessential symbol in German history: a windswept figure looks out into the abyss. It is a creative call to arms and a commitment to history.

Medium: Lithograph
Size: 53.5 x 76 cm
Edition of 30 + 10 AP + 2 PP
Numbered and signed on the front.
Price: € 1,500

Christopher Williams - Provisional Prop (Tzk) - 2020

Christopher Williams - Provisional Prop (Tzk) - 2020Christopher Williams’s anniversary edition for “Texte zur Kunst” ponders the beauty of a gleaming pair of black leather shoes, a staple of business attire. Many of Williams’s pictures emulate the extraordinary elegance and precision of advertising photography, but as the title, “Provisional Prop (Texte zur Kunst), 2020,” already suggests, this shot foregrounds the makeshift quality of the items, which act as stand-ins for the actual product.

The provisional nature of the arrangement is most evident in the fact that the setting in which the image of the shoes was captured, including the required photographic equipment, is reflected in the shoes’ polished surfaces; this is further underscored by annotations identifying individual elements such as “Lighting Cove” and “Ceiling.” Closer inspection reveals that the picture is a fictional draft for a “Texte zur Kunst” cover. Modeling the shoe leather of critique, the work is an exceptional gift for this birthday girl!

Medium: Offset print
Size: 29 x 41.4 cm
Edition of 30 + 10 AP
Numbered and signed on the back.
Price: € 1,500

Raymond Pettibon - No Title (As You Were...) - 2020

Stamped and signed by the artist.Raymond Pettibon is well-known for his brazen pen-and-ink drawings often accompanied by cheeky or witty quotes drawn from a vast library of sources – from history and politics to pop culture and sports. In his edition for “Texte zur Kunst,” entitled “No Title (As you were...),”

Pettibon transcribed in his unmistakable scratched handwriting what reads like an artist’s skeptical reply to an admiring connoisseur. In rather formal prose, the respondent signals that what follows is an offer of his feelings “in written form”: an imposing, elongated, yet lonesome “I.” It is indeed a literal, written form: “I” as letter, as shape. But is it also the inflated ego of the artist? Self-assured and proud, the “I” is unfazed by flattery, assertive of its stature even when its line is a bit unsteady. Most likely, the joke is on us.

Medium: Ditone print on 320 g/m2 Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper
Size: 65 x 48 cm
Edition of 30 + 10 AP
Numbered and signed on the front.
Price: € 1,500

Nairy Baghramian - Handle - 2020

Nairy Baghramian - Handle - 2020For her edition on the occasion of “Texte zur Kunst”’s 30th anniversary, Nairy Baghramian created a small, abstracted door handle cast in aluminum and laid in a warmish blue wax bed. Without its requisite hardware, the handle is rendered useless and indistinct, although, set perfectly into the wax, it doesn’t appear to be in-tended for real use anyway. Rather, the grabbing and turning of the handle’s form, molded and re-molded by innumerable hands, has been paused for a moment, similar to earlier works by Baghramian such as “Maintai-ners” or “Formage de Tête,” to intensify the view of the infrastructural object in relation to spatial economies and hierarchies. As if time had stopped in this nestled sculpture, the relationship between sign and signified, between object and its meaning, is dissolved.

Medium: Casted aluminium, wax
Size: 25 x 25 x 6.5 cm
Edition of 15 + 5 AP
Numbered and signed certificate.
Price: € 2,700

These limited edition works are available at Texte zur Kunst