In Phantom Avant-Garde: A History of the Situationist International and Modern Art, scholar and curator Roberto Ohrt presents the first critical chronology of this artistic movement and its era. With energy and insight, he tackles a trenchant history of modern art since 1945, covering painting, literature, film, architecture and action. Ohrt traces the connections from the Situationist International to late Surrealism, the Lettrist International, COBRA, the Nouveaux Realistes and Pop Art, and offers an indispensable index of works with up-to-date biographical details on the key figures of the S.I.Born in Chile. Ohrt has edited, written and curated internationally, and currently divides his time between Paris and Hamburg.

Phantom Avant-Garde: A History of the Situationist International and Modern Art

Arts & Photography

Ohrt, Roberto

History & Criticism

Lukas & Sternberg

Edited by Roberto Ohrt. Essays by Roberto Ohrt and Uwe Koch. 
For over twenty years, Raymond Pettibon's drawings have earned an international following for their fluid style and youthful, iconoclastic outlook. His work is acclaimed for its wit and erudite eccentricities, and reveals an affinity for a diverse group of authors, from Baudelaire to Henry James to Mickey Spillane, whose quotations abound in his drawings. This book is a catalogue raisonne of his artist books produced between 1978 and 1998, many of which are now extremely rare and highly collected in both the art world and underground music circles. Popularized by small, independent music labels and publishers like SST and Superflux, these booklets and zines were originally available only in very small print runs, edition sizes ranged from 30 to 150 copies, where Pettibon's rough yet cultivated style became synonymous with the late 70s and early 80s D.I.Y. aesthetic. Presenting over a hundred of Pettibon's publications, 32 printed in their entirety with two of these published for the first time, this very limited edition hardcover is a valuable look at the development of one of the most significant artists from the last quarter century. 
"Pettibon is as serious about the racing form as he is about Wallace Stevens, he watches surfing videos as closely as Pasolini. For all its apparent casualness, there is no more erudite body of work in American art today." Suzanne Ghez and Ann Temkin

Raymond Pettibon: The Books 1978-1998

Pettibon, Raymond

Koch, Uwe

Individual Artists

Distributed Art Pub Inc

For over twenty years, Raymond Pettibon's drawings have earned an international following for their fluid style and youthful, iconoclastic outlook. His work is acclaimed for its wit and erudite eccentricities, and reveals an affinity for a diverse group of authors-from Baudelaire to Henry James to Mickey Spillane-whose quotations abound in the drawings. This volume is a catalogue raisonn of his artist books produced between 1978 and 1998, many of which are now extremely rare and highly collected in both the art world and underground music circles. Popularized at first by small independent music labels and publishers, these booklets and zines were originally available only in very small print runs-editions sizes ranged from 30 to 150 copies, where Pettibon's rough yet cultivated style became synonymous with the late 70s and 80s underground aesthetic. Presenting over a hundred of Pettibon's publications-32 printed in their entirety-this new paperback edition is an important look at the development of one of the most significant artists of the last quarter century.

The paintings of Albert Oehlen live by audacious strategies, by questioning the image and the rules of abstraction, and by an openness and beauty often reached through the unlikeliest of means.
In this expansive monograph, we meet the full range of Oehlen’s artistic thoughts and approaches: paintings that integrate mirrors, paintings that are executed strictly in primary colors or only in gray, heavily pixelated paintings produced with the help of one of the first personal computers. We find collaged fragments of garish poster ads on canvases that transforming screaming slogans into abstract elements, charcoal drawings the size of a wall, finger paintings, and paintings in which black treelike silhouettes contort themselves into a lexicon of abstract forms. Throughout, Oehlen transforms the conceptual into the compositional, at once invigorating and challenging the viewer.
Revising and updating TASCHEN’s previous Collector’s Edition, this revelatory survey explores Oehlen’s trajectory from his early days up to the present. It features more than 400 paintings as well as insightful commentaries and interviews, covering Oehlen’s different work stages and approaches. Roberto Ohrt’s essay takes us back to the special vibe of the early 1980s where Oehlen worked alongside Kippenberger, Büttner, and others, part of a scene that painted quickly and close to the pulse of time. Oehlen discusses his computer paintings with John Corbett, and follows up on his more recent work, his thoughts on art, and his day in the studio in a lengthy conversation with Alexander Klar. Together with a collection of shorter texts and statements, this brings us close to the ideas of an artist who has been dubbed “the most resourceful abstract painter alive.”

Albert Oehlen (Multilingual Edition)

Corbett, John

Prinzhorn, Martin

Klar, Alexander

Taschen

The definitive monograph of Oehlen's work to dateOften wryly funny and just as smart, Albert Oehlen’s paintings play the medium for all it's worth—and then some. After realizing that the so-called death of painting freed him to explore "the number of aspects through which one could expand painting," Oehlen started work on a wide variety of figurative and non-objective offerings, in what he has called his "post-non-figurative" art. The artist continuously challenges himself, setting up rules that force him to overcome convention and his own routine in order to arrive at a satisfying image. During his career he has chosen to paint in primary colors only or in gray, to integrate mirrors into his canvases, or to start on computer paintings when the first PCs became available. In his most recent work Oehlen expands painting through the use of advertising posters whose in-your-face aesthetics he transforms with subtle brushwork. Never without a touch of tongue-in-cheek humor, his work seems to be winking at us as it dares us to change the way we perceive an image. This XL monograph covers the entire scope of Oehlen’s oeuvre: Roberto Ohrt discusses the early years, when Oehlen came into his own alongside Kippenberger, Büttner, and others, part of a scene that broke rules in art and rock music. Klaus Kertess examines the years from 1988 onwards, when Oehlen saw himself more self-consciously as a painter and started his first abstract works, then continued to probe the limits of the medium. Martin Prinzhorn and John Corbett take a close look at aspects of Oehlen’s iconography, and Oehlen discusses his computer paintings in a conversation with Corbett. An exhaustive biography and bibliography round out this comprehensive study. While Oehlen fans will rejoice at the publication of this breathtaking book, no one with an interest in contemporary art should pass up this unique opportunity to discover Oehlen’s remarkable body of work. Following on from the Collector's and Art Edition, this is the trade hardcover edition.

Calatrava (German Edition)

Kertess,klaus

Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997) was one of the most complex artists of the 80s and 90s. Resistant to any one medium, he instead regarded sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, catalogues, invitation cards and posters all as equally valid forms of artistic expression. His œuvre played these various media off against one another in an output so prolific that it verged on the inflationary. His maxim was that “good artists are never on holiday” and he demanded the same total commitment from those who viewed his works.
This updated edition of TASCHEN’s original Kippenberger monograph documents two decades of Martin Kippenberger’s work in 400 illustrations, from the early days of his Berlin office to his works for documenta X in Kassel and for the exhibition of sculpture in Münster, both of which were completed after his sudden and unexpected death in 1997.

Kippenberger

Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, known as Wols (1913-1951), is one of abstract painting's best-kept secrets, yet one of its most influential practitioners. Wols helped to pioneer the French style of abstraction known as Art Informel, or Tachism, alongside the likes of Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Roberto Matta, Mathieu and Henri Michaux. This style of painting developed in tandem with Surrealism, extending the latter's Symbolist inheritance into strange, nervous or dreamlike mark-making and calligraphic gestures, eventually producing a highly poetic European counterpart to Abstract Expressionism. Wols' oil and watercolor abstractions are both the epitome and the forerunner of Art Informel, but the complexity of his output, which also encompassed portrait and fashion photography and writing, makes him a more elusive and fascinating figure. This volume compiles works by artists whom Wols has inspired or drawn upon, from Mark Tobey, Guy Debord and Raymond Hains to Marlene Dumas and Wolfgang Tillmans, alongside works by Wols himself.

Wols: Circus Wols, Hommage (German Edition)

Fahlström, Öyvind

Metzel, Olaf

Walther König, Köln

The collection was not intended as such at the beginning. It was about engaging with and surrounding oneself with the unknown, the incomprehenible. It was about the fascination of imagination and bringing this fascination into one' s own home, surrounding oneself with it, in order to remain aware of the constant stimulus of life. The collector has brought in the depths of the unconscious, of philosophy, of painting technique, and he has brought the wild and bustling Berlin into his own contemplative four walls. This collection also tells a contemporary story. It tells of a Berlin of the 90s and 00s in which so much was possible because there were large spaces for little money. The collection also tells us about backyard galleries, improvised project spaces that later became institutions and about " Club Berlin" , which brought together parties with art, techno with politics.

Zeitmaschine Balthus: Cat. CFA Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin

McGrath, Tom

Hackert, Nicole

Heiser, Jörg

Žaja, Dana

Woller, Marcus

Brunnet, Bruno

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Snoeck Publishing Company

Painter André Butzer calls his art “Science Fiction Expressionism.” In the past, Butzer has used a grotesque, childlike figuration; recent works have moved towards abstraction.

André Butzer: Many Dead in the Homeland: Fanta, Sprite, UHT Milk, Micky and Donald!: Paintings 1999-2009

Jansen, Gregor

Seifermann, Ellen

Henry, Max

Kerber

An amazing publication on the late, great Martin Kippenberger, "Martin Kippenberger in Tirol" documents the artist's work in a diverse array of media--drawings, sculptures, installations, videos, performances, and unclassifiable forms. Included here are such irreverently brilliant pieces as his crucified frog sculptures, his Pollockian pizzas, and his drawings on hotel stationary, among many other works presented in color. In addition, "Martin Kippenberger in Tirol" features a witty and unorthodox essay by art critic Roberto Ohrt.

Martin Kippenberger in Tirol: Sammlung Widauer

Widauer, Sammlung

Other Media

Verlag De Buchhandlung Walter

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