Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
A Cosmic Movie Camera is the title of the 18th edition of the BIM’24, which also marks the 50th anniversary of the Biennale organized by the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. By blending the real and the virtual, its catalogue captures the spirit of the exhibition, which explores the evolution of moving images, particularly in our algorithmic age.
The book seeks to define the contours of the obsession with the teenage years; a fixation that has shaped a significant strand of contemporary art over the last ten years. Adolescence is here understood as a state of mind, a prolonged condition that dissolves the transition into adulthood and becomes a critique of an unstable world.
In this multi-voiced book, starting from the Orobie Alpine range, the mountainside becomes an epistemological lens through which to interpret contemporaneity and address issues such as multi-species migrations, our relationship with geological time and intergenerational inheritance, and the rethinking of collective memories and rituals.
For years now, the Die Vier von der Tankstelle (Four from the Gas Station) have been roaming across an area stretching out to the south of the Baltic Sea. They prowl their way through sparsely populated areas, wantonly terrorizing the inhabitants. The 2026 calendar by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys bears witness to their presence.
The first monograph dedicated to Lorenza Longhi, published with the Kunst Museum Winterthur, adopts a format associated with prototypes, manuals, or working documents. Its irregularities reflect Longhi’s ongoing examination of value, functionality, and the aesthetics of the everyday.
This publication is an extensive monograph devoted to the work of Carlos Bunga, published in conjunction with his eponymous show at CAM – Gulbenkian. In addition to a number of essays, which offer an in-depth look at his multifaceted practice, the book contains previously unpublished photos that reveal his working process.
Edited by Andrea Bellini
Texts by Andrea Bellini, Lorraine Mendes, Antonio Obá, Larry Ossei-Mensah
Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio
2025, English, hardcover, 24 x 30 cm, 224 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-74-4
Antonio Obá: Rituals of Care traces the practice of the Brazilian artist from 2016 to the present, offering a broad survey of his recent work, dwelling on the recurring motifs and iconographic sources that feed the complex imagery of his painting. Extensively illustrated, the book returns the richness of Obá’s paintings, with enlargements on some of the details woven into the pictorial texture that, in addition to showing his masterful technique, make certain elements of his visual vocabulary stand out.
The conversation between Andrea Bellini and Antonio Obá that opens the book offers the opportunity to learn, through the artist’s voice, about the key passages of his research, and to examine his diverse cultural references—from the Baroque of Minas Gerais to traditional Chinese painting, from Rembrandt to the Catholic ex-votos—until we discover the Obá’s civic vocation, of painting as a spiritual practice.
The two essays commissioned for the occasion analyze the complexity of these layered signifiers. Lorraine Mendes’s essay “Every Boy Is a King” offers an in-depth analysis of Obá’s religious syncretism. It suggests an interpretation of its layered symbols, particularly the sankofa and the deity Exú, both of which pay tribute to the artist’s West African roots. Above and beyond the specific cultural contexts of this iconography, the author emphasizes the universal value of Obá’s work, its evocative, transformative, dynamic power, which—like music or dance—knows no national boundaries or barriers.
Larry Ossei-Mensah’s essay “Embodiment: The Art of Antonio Obá” investigates the complex cultural legacy that is intertwined with the artist’s practice, connected to his Afro-Brazilian roots, to the social and political realities of the Black diaspora, and to Christian, Candomblé, and Umbanda traditions. In addition to examining the context in which Obá’s work is rooted, the author situates it within a galaxy of artists who have focused on questions of identity, often using their own bodies as tools of social and cultural critique.
Completing the book is a chronology, compiled by Sara De Chiara, tracing the artist’s formative years and exhibition history, accompanied by rich documentary materials.
The book is published on the occasion of Antonio Obá: Rituals of Care, the first mid-career survey in Europe dedicated to the Brazilian artist, curated by Andrea Bellini, at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève.
Photos: Nicola Gnesi