Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Over the last ten years, Raphael Hefti has created an astonishingly body of work consisting of sculptures and installations, performance and “art-in-public-spaces.” The first comprehensive monograph is published on the occasion of his major exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel.
Between 1998 and 1999, the London-based art collective BANK operated the Fax-Bak Service. The group’s members proof-read and copy-edited more than 300 press releases by galleries. The publication is the most comprehensive record of this notorious project.
In the Villa Santo Sospir, Jean Cocteau conceived his pictorial work through accumulation, inspired by Greek mythology and the Mediterranean landscape. Architecture permeates the subjects of Mauro Restiffe from a viewpoint that amplifies and reverberates the simple historical record.
Oh mio cagnetto, is the artist’s first book of writings, conceived as an artwork. It is a collection of 81 little poems that revolve around the missed and mourned figure of a puppy. It intentionally plays on the ambiguity of its nature, as both a book distributed in conventional ways and an art object.
When she started writing the Corona Tales, Chus Martínez had been weighing how people and the media were addressing the outbreak of the virus as an unprecedented disaster. One possible contribution, as curator and writer, would be to write a short story a day…
Edited by Lydia Ourahmane and Polly Staple
Texts by Nicoletta Fiorucci, Lydia Ourahmane, Polly Staple
Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio
2026, English, softcover, 16.5 × 24 cm, 384 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-98-0
This book accompanies 5 Works, Lydia Ourahmane’s first institutional solo show in Italy, staged at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice and curated by Polly Staple, during the 61st Venice Biennale. As Ourahmane’s first publication, the book sets a template for her future editorial projects. Central to this design is the custom typeface “LL,” created by the artist with graphic designer Lorenzo Mason. Ourahmane’s new commission, 5 Works, followed her residency at the Foundation, which saw her living and working in Venice from January to May 2026.
One of the show’s prerequisites was that many of the artworks should be created in Venice. Ourahmane thus worked with Venetian craftspeople and technicians but also with organisations in the city and the surrounding Veneto region. 5 Works combines a wide range of visceral media—antique sculpture moulds, church lighting and decommissioned bed linen among them—with traditional conceptual gestures such as the recontextualization of found objects and the presentation of documentary processes. Several works in the exhibition are the direct result of negotiations, transactions and exchanges specific to historic sites and activist associations in Venice: the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo, Poveglia per tutti, Banco Lotto No. 10: Il Cerchio, Lavanderia LSG and TOCIA! Cucina e Comunità.
The publication encompasses the following elements: 282 photographs that Ourahmane shot during her residency in Venice while preparing 5 Works; an introduction to Ourahmane’s work and to the exhibition, written by Staple; a conversation between Ourahmane and Staple, structured as a walking tour of the exhibition; installation views, by photographer Marco Cappelletti, sequenced in the order visitors encountered the works; the floor plan of the exhibition—appearing on the book’s cover—complete with the list of works; and an endnote by Nicoletta Fiorucci.
Photos: Nicola Gnesi