Autumn/Winter 2021-22
Uta Eisenreich Mark Peckmezian Karel Martens Josse Pyl Jeff Weber Experimental Jetset Anika Schwarzlose Louis Lüthi Nick Geboers Bart Lodewijks René Heyvaert Kara Walker Batia Suter Lous Martens
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Roma Publications Nieuwe Herengracht 11a 1011 RK Amsterdam The Netherlands www.romapublications.org info@romapublications.org Distribution: www.ideabooks.nl
Prices are subject to change. No rights may be derived from the information found in this brochure. 2 / 18
ROMA 407
Uta Eisenreich AS IF
160p, colour 21.5 × 28.5 cm, hb, English ISBN 9789492811967 Euro 42.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
This book of photographs is the longawaited sequel to A NOT B (2010). Again, quotidian items are staged and captured through the unblinking eye of the camera. Yet the images are no longer set in the innocent atmosphere of the preschool years, when the world is read through analogies, but catapulted into a darker space of representation at the cusp of adolescence, against the backdrop of a hyper-commercialized world. The compositions seduce the viewer into a distinctive play with logic, language and meaning. Like protean characters in a play, objects transform from their humble selves into abstract shapes discharged of meaning or, alternately, star as products with ascribed values, advertisements for themselves charged with desire or bad omens of an ominous future. Design: Julia Born
3 / 18
ROMA 408
Mark Peckmezian Nice
240p, colour 21 × 28 cm, hb, English ISBN 9789492811943 Euro 36.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
You look nice. How exhilarating and terrifying to be looked at, to be seen – to realize you’ve been an image this whole time. All that patient primping, that painstaking preparation, suddenly confronted with its own potential: This is me! you say, aspirationally tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, I’m trying to look like me! You turn to face the audience, and in that state of perpetual becoming, you wonder: Will my outside ever meet my inside? Will I see it when it does? Design: Jop van Bennekom
4 / 18
ROMA 409
Karel Martens Patterns
208p, colour 24 × 30 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789492811974 Euro 35.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
This publication contains a collection of patterns designed by Dutch graphic designer Karel Martens between 1960 and 2021. Although Martens is widely recognised for his specialisation in typography, the dozens of colourful full-page patterns shown here are devoid of any text, allowing the sequence to become a mesmerising pattern in itself. Design: Karel & Aagje Martens
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ROMA 410
Josse Pyl i THINK and I think i’ve THOUGHT a thought
240p, colour/bw 21 × 29.7 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789464460018 Euro 35.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Language abounds in all areas of Josse Pyl’s artistic practice. His sculptures and drawings are often attempts to translate the hidden logic of signs and symbols, while his animatronic works draw attention to the ways communication is performed. i THINK and I think i’ve THOUGHT a thought collects the various components of Pyl’s practice from 2014 to 2021 in one publication by making use of the frottage technique. Working with pencil and paper, Pyl has inscribed each page with elements taken from different works. From these fragments, when they are taken together, a new vocabulary can be assembled: a collection of semantic artifacts rendered in binary patterns of light and shadow, negative and positive, and in no gradated or hierarchical order. The images that can be composed from these fractured parts are revealed only gradually as they superimpose upon each other, conjuring new associations, new ways of reading, with each turn of the page. Design: Jungmyung Lee
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ROMA 411
Jeff Weber Serial Grey
192p, bw 20 × 30 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789464460001 Euro 28.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Serial Grey is the publication for Jeff Weber‘s exhibition at Carré d’Art, Nîmes. The four chapters of the book correspond to the four galleries of the exhibition. It starts with the Neural Networks, a series of large format grid-like photograms that establish an enigmatic dialogue with his photographic and archival practice. As counterpart to these photograms, the other end of the exhibition consists of black and white 35mm films. Some monochromatic animation films are projected together with short real life sequences. The publication traces the conflicting forces of photography and film within his work, up to the point that, at the end, we rediscover the principles that constituted the abstract photograms at the beginning, transposed into the linearity of the medium of film. With texts by Marie Muracciole and Jean-François Chevrier. Design: Joris Kritis
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ROMA 412
Karel Martens Uranus - Is a Gallery
688p, colour 21 × 29.7 cm, pb, English/Chinese ISBN 9789464460025 Euro 125.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
This book is an exhibition. The pages can be arranged in sequence on a wall, creating a site-specific installation of 340 individual images over 21 square meters. Distributed in a limited edition of 750 copies, Martens invites participation in the transformation of the book as an object and the movement of the exhibition through time and space. You can use this book as your own statement. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Karel Martens: Re-Production at IS A GALLERY in Shanghai, curated by Zhongkai Li. Design: Karel & Aagje Martens
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ROMA 413
Experimental Jetset Interne Correspondentie issue 3
Interne Correspondentie Issue 3 / Autumn 2021
ROMA 420 Roma Publications, Amsterdam
An irregularly published archive of documents related to Experimental Jetset
Edition of 150
With pictures and words, is this communicating? – Arthur Lee (Love), 1966
1. Superstructures Shaped postcard (130 x 200 mm)
2. To Kyo or Not To Kyo Wooden pencil (175 mm)
Announcement of the paperback Superstructures: Notes on EJ, Vol. 2 (Roma Publications, 2021). Postcard printed by Raddraaier SSP.
Part of a capsule collection (pencil, tote bag, umbrella), created in 2020 as fundraiser for the Tokyo Art Book Fair (VABF/TABF, 2020).
3. The Dada/Punk Continuum A3-sized pamphlet (420 x 297 mm)
4. V–A–C Moscow Lenticular postcard (105 x 150 mm)
2021 interview for It’s Nice That – questions by Lucy Bourton, answers by Experimental Jetset. Full title: The Dada/Punk Continuum, the Synthesis of Art and the Everyday, Critical Abstraction, and Why We Hate the Word ‘Creatives’.
Six-frame lenticular postcard, introducing the diagrammatic language for the Moscowbased V–A–C Foundation, while announcing the 2021 opening of its new location, GES-2. Postcard printed by Bergman (NL).
5. High Contrast 16-page publication (240 x 330 mm)
+ EB4-sized envelope + A4-sized content page
Envelope with 5 items 33 × 26 cm, English no ISBN Euro 35.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Third issue of an irregularly published archive of documents related to Experimental Jetset. Limited edition of 150 copies. Design: Experimental Jetset
Collaboration with artist/photographer Johannes Schwartz. Published on the occasion of Temporary House (2021, Rotterdam), part of the ongoing High Series: www.johannesschwartz.com
Unless specified otherwise, all items were printed/photocopied and assembled by Experimental Jetset
Thanks to Roger Willems (Roma Publications), V–A–C (Moscow), Lucy Bourton (It’s Nice That), Yusuke Nakajima (TABF), Johannes Schwartz
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ROMA 414
Anika Schwarzlose Seeing Into Stone
136p, colour 14 × 21 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789464460032 Euro 20.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Anika Schwarzlose Seeing Into Stone
Seeing Into Stone describes a technique applied by experienced stone carvers, when they work on sculptural objects: before they start cutting into a stone they contemplate its surface to anticipate the structure and natural growth beneath it. This ritual of looking into opaque matter describes a spiritual practice. At the same time it functions as a metaphor for a special kind of tunnel vision, focused on what lies invisible under a surface.
Roma 414
This book travels through past and present, above and below ground. Landscapes, impacted and created by resource extraction are put into context with contemporary mining equipment and historical utilitarian goods. Through the combination of images from very different archives, connections are made that speak about the relationships of humans and minerals. Images and texts contribute to a debate on mineral and human co-evolution, that redefines the separation between life and nonlife.
[*] Seeing Into Stone describes a technique applied by experienced stone carvers when they work on sculptural objects: before they start cutting into a stone they contemplate its surface to anticipate the struture and natural growth beneath it. This ritual of looking into opaque matter describes a spiritual practice. At the same time it functions as a metaphor for a special kind of tunnel vision, focused on what lies invisible under a surface.
With texts by Elena Solowjowa and Monika Bakke. Design: Felix Salut
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ROMA 415
Louis Lüthi On The Self-Reflexive Page II
304p, colour/bw 13 × 20 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789464460049 Euro 25.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
On The Self-Reflexive Page II proposes a typology of nonverbal elements—or transitional spaces between image and scripture—in novels, short stories, and essays. The book is part artist’s book and part essay, part literary excavation and part typographical miscellany. A previous version was published in 2010. For this new edition, Lüthi has significantly expanded and revised the original material. Design: Louis Lüthi
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ROMA 417
Nick Geboers Træfængslet
48p, bw 22 × 33.4 cm, pb, English ISBN 9789464460087 Euro 25.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Close-up photographs of carvings left behind by temporary residents on the surfaces of a wooden prison in Southern Jutland, Denmark. None of them evil, some of them mad. They all left their mark. Carvings of love. Carvings of longing. Carvings of hate and carvings of frustration. And ever so often just to mark that they were there. Design: Roger Willems
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ROMA 418
Bart Lodewijks Noordereiland Drawings
160p, bw/colour 17.5 × 24.5 cm, hb, Dutch/English ISBN 9789464460094 Euro 22.50 (incl. 9%VAT)
Noordereiland is an island in the middle of the river Maas, lying between the northern and southern parts of Rotterdam. It is shaped like a motor ship. In the midst of the pandemic, Bart Lodewijks treks from its western to its eastern end drawing with chalk on quay walls, ship cabins, steel pipes, commercial buildings and houses. When Bart is ordered by the authorities to wash away his drawings, he becomes friends with Bep and Leendert, who allow him to draw in their apartment. Design: Roger Willems
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ROMA 419
René Heyvaert Denver Mosaic 1961
36p, colour 22 × 28.5 cm, hb, English ISBN 9789464460063 Euro 24.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
The Denver Mosaic, conceived in 1961 for an office building designed by architects Joseph and Louise Marlow, has a unique place in the life and practice of Belgium architect and artist René Heyvaert (1929-1984). In this publication the entire mural is reproduced in 4 strips; the top and the bottom half of the left wall, followed by the top and the bottom half of the right wall. Photography and text: Arnaud Hendrickx. Design: Roger Willems
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ROMA 420
Kara Walker Book of Hours
144p, colour 19 × 25.5 cm, hb, English ISBN 9789464460070 price not set
Over the course of 2020-2021, during the pandemic, Walker has produced series of drawings in the style of a medieval Book of Hours. Enigmatic images appear to traverse a range of time periods, from scenes of biblical and mythological origins, to images of historical violence, to others that suggest more recent political strife. The highly personal nature of these images, similar to the personal collection of spiritual texts in a traditional Book of Hours, capture Walker’s own response to the intersection of past and present as a way to understand our contemporary political moment and serve, in her words, as “an attempt to transmit, nonverbally, an experience of being.” Design: Roger Willems
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ROMA 100 - Reprint
Batia Suter Parallel Encyclopedia 1
592p, bw 22 × 29 cm, hb, English ISBN 9789492811981 Euro 60.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Batia Suter’s work intuitively situates found images in new contexts to provoke surprising reactions and significative possibilities. Parallel Encyclopedia, which she conceived between 2004 and 2007, contains a precise composition of numerous images taken solely from other books. Significant underlying themes expressed in the Amsterdam-based, Swiss artist’s practice are the “iconification” and “immunogenicity” of old images, and the circumstances by which they assume or become charged with new associative values. This is a reprint of Suter’s voluminous book, originally published in 2007 and covering a pictorial plethora of human history, science, philosophy, art, and culture. Design: Batia Suter & Roger Willems
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ROMA 311 - Reprint (with new cover)
Lous Martens Animal Books for Jaap, Zeno, Anna, Julian & Luca
416p, colour 17 × 24 cm, pb, Dutch/English ISBN 9789492811998 Euro 35.00 (incl. 9%VAT)
Lous Martens has five grandchildren, Jaap, Zeno, Anna, Julian, and Luca, and has begun making an animal scrapbook for each newcomer to the family. Although it is seventeen years since the first, Jaap, was born, none of the five books are finished yet. Consisting of loosely pasted pictures of animals that were clipped from newspapers and magazines about art, literature, and science, plus stamps and photographs from advertising brochures, the books are enjoyable for their small, everevolving changes as new material is added. Interestingly, the books were never intended to be published, but are now grouped into one big volume, an embodiment of familial love and dedication. Design: Martens & Martens
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Upcoming: Marc Nagtzaam Jochen Lempert Petra Stavast Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky Batia Suter Jürgen Bergbauer Dana Lixenberg Yael Davids Olivier Goethals Simon Wald-Lasowski Irene Kopelman Mark Manders Philip Metten Simon Boudvin Nicolas Floc’h Paul Bailey among others
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