Bernd and Hilla Becher | Industriebauten

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Industriebauten

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Städtischen Museum, 1968

19.3 x 15.5cm.

Edition of 55

The third in the series of Stadtisches boxed catalogue/multiple hybrids is the rarest of them all, and the most expensive. The work has an estimated value of over twenty thousand dollars. It originally sold for 15 DM. 

Housed in a facsimile of a Agfa-Gaevert photo-paper box, the works consists of ten gelatine silver prints of the Becher’s "anonymous sculpture” (silos, gas tanks, towers, etc). 

Rather than the high edition sizes of the other boxes (which tend to range from 220 to 660 copies), this was produced in an edition of 55. Each photograph is stamped on the verso (see below) with the couple’s copyright. 

“[Johannes] Cladders’s early 1968 institutional presentation of the Bechers’ celebrated photographs of industrial architecture helped establish them as “conceptual photographers.” The box associated with this exhibition contained ten original silver gelatin prints along with a curatorial text. Although the show, with its meticulous documentary dryness, was presumably not to everyone’s taste, how amazing it must have been for some to be able to view the photography on display and then bring home this beautiful print object including actual photographs.”

- Lucy Ives

Jasper Johns | A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose

Jasper Johns

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Stadtisches Museum Mönchengladbach, 1971

20.5 x 16 x 3.5 cm

Edition of 550 numbered copies

Often known as Gas Graphische Werk, 1960 - 1970, this boxed catalogue contains a waxed plastic rose and three rolled sheets. The texts include an introduction (in German) to the exhibit by curator Johannes Cladders, a short essay on Gertrude Stein's poem (which provides the work with its title), and a German translation of a poem by the artist. Also include are a banner advertisement for Johns' "lightbulb" works, and a checklist of the exhibition.

The work is currently valued at around a thousand dollars. 

Hanne Darboven | Ausstellung Mit 6 Filmprojektoren Nach Büchern Über 1968

Hanne Darboven

Ausstellung Mit 6 Filmprojektoren Nach Büchern Über 1968

Monchengladbach, Germany: Städtisches Museum, 1969

16.5 x 20.5 cm

Edition of 440 numbered copies

A cardboard box containing two booklets and a gridded drawing pad, issued as an exhibition catalogue for solo show of Darboven's which ran from February 25 to April 7, 1969. With text (in German) by curator and museum director Johannes Cladders.

"The reader may, for example, turn to box number six, the catalogue that accompanied Hanne Darboven’s 1968 exhibition. This white laminated cardboard box was printed with an enlargement of Darboven’s distinctive handwriting. It contained a booklet with information about the exhibition—the artist’s first at a museum—along with two short essays by Cladders, six cards reproducing Darboven’s mathematical calculations, and a blank graph-paper notebook, possibly to be used by the recipient of the box catalogue for their own calculations. For those interested in Darboven’s early career, this is an invaluable resource, a sort of treasure trove; Cladders’s lucid writing on her work and explanation of her eccentric arithmetic provided a crucial introduction to her methods and goals. His text holds up today, even after so much ink has been spilled in the elucidation of Darboven’s concepts and constructions.”

- Lucy Ives

8 works of Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner

8 works of Lawrence Weiner

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Städtisches Museum, 1973

20.0 x 16.0 x 2.5 cm. 

Edition of 330 numbered copies

The 23rd Städtisches Museum boxed catalogue was produced to accompany an exhibition of Lawrence Weiner’s work which took place in April of 1973. It consists of a grey-brown cardboard box with a printed lid that contains a folded leaflet, a book and a poster. 

The 40 page book was published a year prior, in conjunction with Weiner's participation in 1972's fifth instalment of Documenta, helmed by Harald Szeeman. Titled A Primer, it was published in an edition of 2000 copies (see below). As one of Weiner’s earliest publications, it sells for just under the price of the complete box (around $200). 

The leaflet features a text by curator Johannes Cladders, and the text-based poster folds out to 78 x 60 cm.

Richard Long | 4 Sculptures

Richard Long

4 Sculptures

Monchengladbach, Germany: Stadtisches Museum, 1970

20.5 x 16 x 2 cm

Edition of 330 numbered copies

The 11th Stadtisches Museum boxed catalogue accompanies an exhibition of Richard Long’s work (his second, ever) that ran from July 16th to August 30th, 1970. 

A floor plan of the museum’s first floor is printed on the inner lid of the box, and texts by the artist and curator Johannes Cladders are printed, in German, on the bottom inner lid. Enclosed is an 18 page bookwork containing 13 images of works and a portrait of the artist on the cover. 

The 4 sculptures of the title refer to works that Long produced in England, Germany, Africa, and America, between the years 1966 and 1970.

Reiner Ruthenbeck

Reiner Ruthenbeck

Ruthenbeck

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Städtisches Museum, 1972

20.2 x 16.5 x 1.5 cm.

Edition of 440 numbered copies

An exhibition catalogue as printed cardboard box containing a title card, two cards printed on both sides featuring introductory text by Hans van der Grinten and curator Johannes Cladders, a 45rpm vinyl record, an accordion fold featuring 32 black and white offset photographs of sirens on rooftops. 

The work is part of a series of boxed exhibition catalogues published by the  Städtisches Museum between the late sixties and early eighties. Other artists in the series include Joseph Beuys, George Brecht & Robert Filliou, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Joel Fisher, Hanne Darboven, Jasper Johns, Piero Manzoni, Lawrence Weiner and others. 

The record, a single-sided 7” disk titled Dachskulptur,  consists of air raid sounds. Because of it’s inclusion, the publication has been featured in three seminal works on Artists’ Records: Ursula Block's Broken Music, Germano Celant's The Record as Artwork, and Guy Schraenen's Vinyl Records: Records and Covers by Artists.

"Ruthenbeck’s record Dachskulptur has sounds that are more physical, collecting, with photographic

documentation, the technological wailing of Düsseldorf factory hooters. Their drawn-out blasts resound through the air to great acoustic effect, giving a tactile dimension to sound which, as a sculptor, Ruthenbeck sees as complementing his objects in rubber and steel."

- Germano Celant, The Record as Artwork