Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Since the 1980s, Belgian artist Sigefride Bruna Hauman has created a highly original body of work in different media. Her installations, reliefs and videos are the subject of a much-overdue retrospective organized by M Leuven—and of this first monograph.
Rituals of Care is an extensive monograph devoted to the work of Antonio Obá, published in conjunction with his eponymous exhibition presented at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, curated by Andrea Bellini. Extensively illustrated, the book immerses the reader in Obá’s multifaceted oeuvre and in the magical iconographic universe of his paintings.
Claiming that the museum is not enough means asking what a museum should be and do, eventually questioning the role of cultural institutions in society. Through conversations, stills of documentaries, responses, and reprints of archival documents that explore ideas of architecture on the ground, this volume reflects on the tools deployed by the institution to redefine its relationship to others.
Affirmer que le musée ne suffit pas, c’est interroger ce qu’un musée devrait être et faire, et réfléchir de manière critique sur le rôle des institutions culturelles dans nos sociétés. À travers des conversations, des photogrammes de documentaires, des interventions et des reproductions d’archives questionnant les conceptions de l’architecture sur le terrain, ce volume réfléchit aux outils mis en œuvre par l’institution pour redéfinir sa relation aux autres.
Semi-Nomadic Debt-Ridden Bedouins is the first monograph on the work of the Palestinian artist and filmmaker Basma al-Sharif. Spanning nearly two decades of moving-image and installation work, it combines visual documentation with texts that reflect on the charged political landscapes through which al-Sharif navigates.
This monograph marks the occasion of the first European survey of Nicola L. (1932–2018). Often discussed in the context of Pop Art, activism, feminism, and design, this is the first in-depth exploration of the multi-layered and expansive nature of her extraordinary practice, which also encompassed cosmology, environmental concerns, spirituality, political protest, and sexuality.
Edited by Edoardo Bonaspetti, Erlend Hammer and Fredrik Værslev
Texts by Erlend Hammer and Martha Kirszenbaum
Design Lorenzo Mason Studio
2023, English, softcover, 23.5 x 33.5 cm, 184 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-34-8
Fredrik Værslev: The Garden Paintings is the first publication dedicated to a single body of work by the artist. As Erlend Hammer writes in his essay: “The Garden Paintings are works that exist within a complex network of references that include everything from Abstract Expressionism to suburban garden furniture as one might find in an event organized as a platform for relational aesthetics. They similarly engage, art-historically speaking, with everything from the anthropological site specificity of Robert Smithson’s relics, the theatricality of Minimal sculpture, architecturally loaded carriers of institutional critique, and post-conceptual painting objects. At the same time, they’re also just paintings.”
In her essay, Martha Kirszenbaum points to the origin of the work in the suburban architecture of Norway in the 1980s: “His Garden Paintings are as much a homage as a misuse and a detournement of the wooden decks that formed the environment of his upbringing. Each work is based on an appropriation of wooden pallets, always seemingly the same size and comprised of seven or eight slats. The repetition of structure and material seems to echo the monotony of suburban life, while the various color palettes he uses refer to Norwegian housepaint.”
The publication gives a comprehensive and chronological account of the Garden Paintings as well as their exhibition history. It thereby shows both the stylistic development of the individual works and the various ways Værslev has presented them since he first began the series in 2011.
The book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Platting held at Haugar Art Museum (2023) and curated by Erlend Hammer. The works from the series have been also exhibited in institutions such as the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, The Power Station in Dallas, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and Bonner Kunstverein in Bonn.
Photo Nicola Gnesi