In Four Over One, the Los Angeles based artist Phil Chang employs the format of an artists book to explore ideas of economy and obsolescence. In collaboration with designer Jonathan Maghen, Four Over One is structured around Chang’s interest in how new outcomes arise from an antagonism between perceived and actual forms of value. The photographs that appear in the book were created using expired photographic materials exposed by an archival book scanner. Through a sparse display of color, black and white, and half-tone photographs, in conjunction with a restrained typographic treatment, Four Over One employs an economy of scale in order to consider the roles of abstraction, methods of art production, and modes of distribution in our contemporary culture.

The Master Builder: Talking with Ken Briggs by Sara De Bondt and Fraser Muggeridge, is a slim (28 pp. plus covers) volume, the size (and look and feel, with coated and uncoated stocks) of a typical Briggs NT programme. It comprises an interview with Briggs, a short biography and portrait, plenty of pictures (24 in colour) of his pioneering posters and programmes for the theatre in the 1960s and 70s, and a detail of Briggs’ slide archive, carefully labelled with Dymo tape.

When asked about his structured, asymmetrical booking forms for the theatre, Briggs claims ‘I didn’t care about beauty or the lack of it. They are purely typographic,’ then goes on to explain his colour system: ‘from warm colours in winter to cool colours in summer: red, ochre, purple, bright blue and so on.’ Which is why he was known as the colourist.

In 2008, German artist Christoph Keller traveled through Morocco with his own version of Wilhelm Reich’s cloudbuster machine to engage local people in the age-old process of conjuring rainstorms. This artists book, which combines cinematic flip-book elements with more straightforward photo documentation, is a record of Keller’s project. Small color photographs depict the cloudbuster machine being built and used to make rain in four different locations. The only explanatory text appears on the book’s cover, which in this case is printed in English.

45 graphic designers, 90 photographs, 10 years of books on contemporary art.

This book is based on an invitation to graphic designers to choose two books on contemporary art from the past decade whose design they think is particularly pertinent to the content, to photograph one double-page spread from each book and, if they wish, to comment on their choices.

Double Page provides a selection of recent art publications as viewed by graphic designers who are internationally known for their contribution to that field, and offers a glimpse at the role of book design today in our knowledge and understanding of contemporary art.

Shedding light on this prevalent relationship between art and graphic design by means of photography, Double Page constitutes an unprecedented document of how graphic designers see the work of their peers and their own practices as an essential part of the editorial process.

Contemporary culture is witnessing one of the most significant shifts of recent times. The old dividing lines between artists and designers appear to be dissolving into one another. Indeed the breadth and range of investigation and inspiration they share is possibly the widest to date. This publication Wouldn’t it be nice hopes to present a series of projects emerging from these lines of dissolution, which reflect the current spirit of cultural production internationally.

The publication includes interviews with Jurgen Bey, Bless, Dexter Sinister, Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades, Alicia Framis, Martino Gamper, Ryan Gander, Martí Guixé, Tobias Rehberger, and Superflex. Fully illustrated, the book presents a number of projects that have been specially commissioned for the exhibition. Quoting the aesthetic of the glossy magazine, the publication is designed by London-based group Graphic Thought Facility, and has attached to each cover a Bless N°14–2000, Shopping Supports Stickerbags self-adhesive purse/multiple.

Produced as a insert for Parkett No. 15 (1988, pp. 117-127). The artists also signed and numbered an edition (8805) of 200 off-prints of the AIDS Stamps as a fundraiser for amfAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research).

Actionist, maker of objects, writer and graphic artist Dieter Roth created an exceptionally diverse and convoluted oeuvre. In Lucerne he published a series of small ads twice weekly in the newspaper Anzeiger Stadt Luzern und Umgebung, consisting of an aphorism and signed by his initials. Embedded in advertisements from real life, these ads conjured the surreal, subversive side of existence as in statements like “A good beginning is an evil end”, “A tear is as evil as a good word” and “Two tears are better than five stones”. The paper’s bourgeois readers raised such a protest over the disturbance of their peace by such enigmatic profundity that the paper felt compelled to terminate publication after 248 ads. From 1973 to 1979, Roth published his statements in artist’s books, titled The Sea of Tears (with the original pages of the newspaper) and Sea of Tears 1–5. This is the first complete, chronological publication of the ads, along with an English translation.

Paper Monument is a journal of contemporary art published in association with n+1. It is edited by Naomi Fry, Dushko Petrovich, Prem Krishnamurthy, Jessica Slaven, and Roger White, and designed by Project Projects. Issue Three includes new artworks by Matthew Brannon, Leslie Hewitt, Munro Galloway, and Jessie LeBaron; and writing by Sarah Hromack, Lauren O-Neill Butler, James Bae, Christopher Hsu, and many others.

This booklet is published as part of I Wonder What The Silence is About, a body of work, speculating on the (temporary?) disappearance of Art In Ruins. This English collaborative art practice was formed in 1984 and created a radical stance towards the art world, based on critical post-modern thinking. They have been for a short period omnipresent in the London/Berlin art scene before they fell silent in 2001. I contacted Art In Ruins and asked for permission to reprint one of their publications as part of my project. This they rejected but suggested to publish this interview instead, which was initially written for Frieze Magazine in 1994. It has not been printed until today.

—Eva Weinmayr

Paper Monument publishes its first pamphlet, I like your work: art and etiquette, with contributions from 38 artists, critics, curators, and dealers on the sometimes serious and sometimes ridiculous topic of manners in the art world.

The art world is now both socially professional and professionally social. Curators visit artists’ studios; collectors, dealers, and journalists assemble for a reception and reconvene later for dinner; everyone goes to parties. We exchange introductions and small talk; art is bought and sold; careers (and friendships) brighten or fade. In each situation, certain behaviors are expected while others are silently discouraged. Sometimes, what’s appropriate in the real world would be catastrophic in the art world, and vice versa.

Making these distinctions on the spot can be nerve-wracking and disastrous. So we asked ourselves: What is the place of etiquette in art? How do social mores establish our communities, mediate our critical discussions, and frame our experience of art? If we were to transcribe these unspoken laws, what would they look like? What happens when the rules are broken? Since we didn’t have all the answers, we politely asked our friends for some help.