THE BOOK PROJECT, 2002-2005
The artist book in formal terms
Editors: Maria Anna Potocka & Andreas M. Kaufmann. Publishers: Bunkier Sztuki Krakow and Revolver Archiv für aktuelle Kunst. Frankfurt/Main.
ISBN 3-937577-79-3.

Size and qualities: (width x height) = 17 cm x 24 cm, 468 pages, ca. 200 illustrations, multilingual, but all text are included also in Polish respectively English). Hardcover binding, surface protected with matt transparency self-adhesive foil.
Prize: Euro 25,00

Contact:       www.revolver-books.de    or    Buchhandlung Walther König

Press release
Since summer 2005 the artist-book "on the occasion of an exhibition of Andreas M. Kaufmann at Bunkier Sztuki Krakow 2002" is officially available. This book and its process of creation have been always considered as something alive, with several stages. Being published, it has gone already through several phases of its existence: it has got a sort of own biography! Before being published the book has manifested itself in public two times: in the exhibition curated by Maria Anna Potocka "100%" at Bunkier Sztuki Krakow (2002) and in at the exhibition: "Claude Leveque, Andreas M. Kaufmann, Dan Graham: Palais des arts - Present Distance" (Curator: Lydia Hempel / Site: "Palais im großen Garten", Dresden (2005). This biographical process will hopefully go on in the heads of the viewers / readers, in form of texts about, book-presentations, new projects triggered by, etc.

The artist Andreas M. Kaufmann, who initiated this project, which has become the book "On the occasion of an exhibition of Andreas M. Kaufmann at Bunkier Sztuki Krakow 2002" considers himself in this case as key player who just has asked over 100 pretty different people worldwide for a reaction towards a selection of public accessible images, all collected by him. He reduced his role to deal with the authors, to organize the received materials and to write eventually the editorial"After All" which gives clues, what the book is all about.

It is a collaborative and nonprofit book project with 101 contributions – most of them made exclusively for this publication and all by different authors, such as architects, designers, filmmakers, artists, critics and curators etc from all over the world.

The book opens up to the outside by referring and linking itself to other media. It follows issues that are situated in the complex field of the "local" and "global" and asks for the collective memory/memories questioning if there can be a copyright on them.

Being rather organized like a film-story-board, it subversively undermine of what one would generally expect from a book: In the main part of the Book all contributions are displayed in the original language they had been submitted; and the names of the respective authors as a rule can only be found in in the second part of this book called "references" unless the contribution is a letter for which sender and receiver are constitutional. Here however one may find most translations, names and biographies of the respective authors, additional information, etc. All texts have been translated into Polish and English.

Last but not least the book is also to be understood as an object that wants to be used!



© Andreas M. Kaufmann
Concept For The Exhibition:
Palais des Arts – Present Distance: Dan Graham, Andreas M. Kaufmann, Claude Leveque
The "Palais im Grossen Garten Dresden" is a baroque castle. On its apex it served all sorts of pleasures. Towards today's center of the city of Dresden, it is placed in a remote site. The exhibition "Palais des Arts - Present Distance" considers concept-wise this prevailing circumstance. My proposal is a reaction to both, the exhibition concept and the context of the site: I want to build a "White Cube" in one of the corner rooms in the first floor with bright light and beautiful view towards the surrounding baroque park. The White Cube is supposed to quote a platonic body: six equal sides by 4,5 x 4,5 x 4,5 meter, with no windows and just one entrance.

The visitor enters the sober inside of the "White Cube" through the remains of a formerly rich decorated portal and a little corridor, which relates in formal terms to the aesthetics of the build-in White Cube. Being inside this implemented space, there is no visual connection to outside. Thus I detract a part of the castle's space from it self and its surroundings, alike the castle is far-flung from the center of the city. The inside of the White Cube is furnished only with a small white table and a black chair – on the table a copy of my not yet officially published book "on the occasion of an exhibition of andreas m. kaufmann at bunkier sztuki krakow 2002", It contains as well approximately 500 selected images from my collection, which mostly are stemmed from mass media, as 101 reactions towards these selection coming from all over the world. In such monadic formation the book somehow start to represent everything outside the white box, outside the castle, outside the park, outside the city, outside Germany, outside Europe, outside the planet and eventually everything from the frontiers of our imagination.



© Andreas M. Kaufmann 2004/05