Das Wunder des Lebens
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2014, 477 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 30 × 29 cm, English / German
Price: €25

Like a pictorial encyclopedia, Das Wunder des Lebens contains over four hundred drawings that show all that the modern world has to offer, from maps and city views to cars and airplanes. However, unlike conventional pictorial dictionaries, there is no symbolic system.

Copublished with Kunsthalle Wien and Kunsthalle Basel on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the former, 7 February–4 May, 2014, and Projekt 13 at the latter, 16 January–14 March, 2010.

Designed by Antoine Begon and Boy Vereecken.

#2014 #antoinebegon #boyvereecken #josdegruyterandharaldthys #kunsthallebasel #kunsthallewien #sternbergpress
Mondo Cane
Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys
Published by the Belgian Pavilion, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussels, 2019, exhibition guide, 22 pages, (b/w ill.), 10.4 × 15 cm, English
Price: €6

Mondo Cane presents itself as a local folkloric museum that displays the human figure. Silent, pale and frightened, the pavilion’s inhabitants appear as aestheticized shells, stuck in a loop of formal activity that the visitor perceives as odd and out of touch with contemporary reality.

Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys have the habit of distilling fictions out of a reality that is, sometimes, ‘too real.’ Both willingly concede that they feel attracted to the psychotic state of contemporary societies, a state that they simultaneously dread and disseminate in their work.

Designed by Boy Vereecken and Antoine Begon.

#2019 #antoinebegon #boyvereecken #ephemera #josdegruyterandharaldthys
WT reader: The Summer Reader, Again, or A Diamond in the Rough
Published by Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem, 2008, 256 pages (b/w ill.), 10.5 × 17.5 cm, English
Price: €12 (Temporarily out of stock)

Being at once a school and at the same time not a school, a workspace, the WT tends to want to comment on its own distinctive form of academic pursuit (by way of, amongst other outlets, these School Journals). And during this sometimes faltering, sometimes successful quest, I’ve often thought about Jacques Rancière’s Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, not least because it outlines an “intellectual adventure” whereby any hierarchy amongst the students and between them and their tutor dissolves.—Maxine Kopsa, ‘Editorial Considerations’ (excerpt)

Including the work of Guy de Cointet, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Scott Ponik, David Lieske, Stephen Willats, Na Kim, Morgan Fisher, Karl Nawrot, Boy Vereecken, Cecilia Costa, Joris Kritis, Julie Peeters.

#2008 #boyvereecken #davidlieske #guydecointet #ianhamiltonfinlay #joriskritis #juliepeeters #karlnawrot #maxinekopsa #scottponik #werkplaatstypografie