Marie Artaker

Artists’ book by Michaela Schweighofer.

With texts by Juliane Bischoff, Veronika Eberhart, Cornelia Lein, Cathrin Mayer, Gianna Virgina Prein, Agnieszka Roguski, Juliane Saupe, Michaela Schweighofer and Chloe Stead.

“The prop is thought of as a concept that spans contexts and genres: it stands for the requisite one performs with, but also for an extended space of possibilities and thoughts it opens up, in the figurative sense.”

The starting points of the book are sculptures and installations by Michaela Schweighofer, which deal with the stage as a platform and the sculpture as a prop. The authors are friends: artists, critics, curators, who the artist invited to contribute a text. The book acts as  a stage and at the same time the texts support the book.

The design focuses on the structure of the book in order to accentuate its underlying theme of feminist support structures, as well as its objectness.

The publication is divided into ten sections. Each writer had 16 pages at her disposal, which function as individual brochures. Separated by a coloured cover, all 16-pagers are bound together to form a single entity. Depending on the length of a text, the pages left blank in  a brochure were left to the next author. “The texts take each other by the hand and fill the book with this far-reaching gesture.”

The entire book is printed in two colours. While leafing through the pages, the bright red of the first booklet’s cover successively bleeds into a dark blue. The entanglements between the texts are shown both through this colour gradient and a foldable mind map, that traces the relations between the authors and texts.

Studio photography by Konrad Strutz

✷ One of The Most Beautiful Austrian Books 2020

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