Editorial


During my studies as a sculptor at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art (class of Klaus Rinke) from 1977 to 1980 I started editing and publishing „Salon“, a magazine with original contributions (series of drawings, photographs, watercolours with and without text…) by artists I knew personally (Bernhard Johannes Blume, Walter Dahn, Hans-Peter Feldmann…) but also by world-renowned artists whom I met in pubs or at museum- or gallery -openings (for example Lawrence Weiner, Robert Barry, Giulio Paolini, Chris Burden…).

There were contributions by class-mates too (Yuji Takeoka, Eva-Maria Schön, Reinhard Mucha…). After having finished my studies I titled my own work ‘„original reproductions’“ (reproductions of 20th– century masterpieces; paintings, drawings, photographs) which I showed in several exhibtions as my own work of art.

In 1995 I stopped reproducing other artists’ work and established Salon Verlag publishing house, which started up where Salon magazine has stopped. My aim was and is to make the work of admired artists public (now as books and multiples). Over the past few years I started some artists-book-series: the now finished édition séparée (with co-editor Reiner Speck) as a series of artists books in which the range from unknown to famous artists is nearly the same as in Salon magazine. Then I established Edition Ex Libris, where the invited artists presents their „favorite“ book as a reprint with their new cover and a specially made bookplate. This series is like a view inside the bookshelves of such artists as Thomas Ruff, Louise Bourgeois, Lawrence Weiner, Rosemarie Trockel, Candida Höfer, Thomas Demand, Peter Doig, Mark Dion, Norbert Schwontkowski, Rachel Whiteread, Luc Tuymans, Jack Pierson, Gregor Schneider, Marcel Dzama, Marcel van Eeden, Jockum Nordström, Peter Buggenhout, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Mamma Andersson, Franz Erhard Walther, Axel Hütte, Johannes Wohnseifer, …… who present not only their favorite book but also a kind of link to their own work of art, a sort of reference….

My intention as a publishing artist is to generate a sort of mosaic in which not just the colourful covers but also the contents of the books which I publish will eventually show the portrait of the artist as a publisher of art.

Facts: Since 1995 about 650 books were published of which about 50 are still available.

Some artists were frequently published: Lawrence Weiner, Chris Newman, Nora Schattauer, Günther Förg, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Duka, Reinhard Doubrawa, Stefan Bohnenberger, Alexander Braun, Christian Sery (= Sery C.), Norbert Schwontkowski, Rosemarie Trockel, Michael von Biel, Alexander Roob, Roland Schappert, Marcel van Eeden, Marcel Dzama, Mark Dion, Franz Erhard Walther, Klaus G. Gaida,  .…