Dusseldorf The Christmas days are approaching again much faster than expected and with them the prospect of long cozy evenings with people and things that are close to your heart. If you are running out of time, let yourself be inspired by our gift ideas: from an original postcard calendar to an artist’s cookbook to an edition with a glamor factor – everything to order.
Cooking can be as enjoyable as it is funny, especially when creative people are at work and guests are there. In the artist’s cookbook by curator Olaf Stüber, 80 video artists reveal their favorite recipes and tell which story they associate with them.
The Norwegian artist Christian Falsnaes, for example, describes how, as a student in Switzerland, he tried to make a miserable living from the income as a street singer until he hit upon the idea of confronting death by being emaciated with broccoli vegetables. Klaus vom Bruch presents a recipe for venison fillet and tells with tender irony how things continued after the upper-class hunt with bloody venison in the home of his Cologne grandfather.
The book is amusing and inspiring, even for those who think they already have enough cookbooks. 256 pages, 247 color and 48 black and white images have “The Videoart at Midnight artist cookbook, 80 artists / 80 recipes”. It was published by Kerber Verlag and costs 39.80 euros.
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The “statuettes” fired from porcelain are guaranteed to provide material for table discussions.
(Photo: Galerie Hengevoss-Dürkop; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021)
The Hengevoss-Dürkop Gallery sends these “statuettes” by Keiyona C. Stumpf, made of fine porcelain, carefully packaged. Bizarre, charming to erotic, the small sculptures are reminiscent of imaginative table decorations from the Rococo period.
Her creations burn themselves to a blunt. She works with found forms, bowls and devices from everyday life, creates negative forms of them and shapes them further. The unique items created this year cost between 600 and 2600 euros.
Elisabeth Gerhardt confided in her diary on October 11, 1905, the question “Who am” I “and what am” I? ” She only married August Macke four years later.
(Photo: Kunstmuseum Bonn, permanent loan from a private collection)
Nothing sad or at least irritating ever seemed to cling to the expressionist painter’s genius August Macke, neither as a person nor as an artist. For this reason alone, there is great curiosity about the diaries of his wife Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke (1888–1978), published for the first time by Kerber.
But the short marriage to the celebrated painter was only the beginning of an eventful life. On 632 pages, Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke immerses us in the first half of the 20th century. She reports on her marriage to the publicist Lothar Erdmann, life in the turbulent twenties in Bonn and Berlin, Hitler’s rise to power, the terrible death of her second husband in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the war years and her return to Bonn.
According to the Bonn Museum August Macke Haus, this history lesson from a personal perspective is “a small sensation”. The volume “Moving Life: Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, Diaries 1905–1948” was edited by Margarethe Jochimsen and Hildegard Reinhardt. It has 632 pages, 30 color and 70 black and white illustrations. The complete text documentation is enclosed with the book on CD. Cost: 39.90 euros.
Most of the drawings in the book are unsigned and undated. They were created between the mid-1950s and 2020.
(Photo: Galerie Friese)
Sometimes interesting artists appear out of nowhere. Like this draftsman, who almost casually drew a subterranean, anthropomorphic being with raised hands with a red ballpoint pen above which a tree is sprouting above ground. What a beautiful picture that can now be found in the recently published artist book by Klaus Heinrich.
The “Klaus Heinrich. Reality and imagination. Drawings ”was the title of the volume following a solo exhibition at the Friese Gallery in Berlin almost two years ago.
Connoisseurs know that behind the artist is the philosopher Klaus Heinrich, who once taught at the Free University of Berlin, a professor with cult status. Someone who liked to draw while thinking.
Who knows that Heinrich received his doctorate with an “attempt on asking and the question” and wrote his habilitation thesis on the “attempt about the difficulty of saying no”, will not be surprised at this unorthodox and yet so obvious path to knowledge. The book can be obtained from Galerie Friese or ça ira-Verlag for 59 euros. The original drawings cost 900 euros each.
Published by Strzelecki: The tear-off calendar with postcard collages by Kasper König and illustrations by Anna Haifisch.
(Photo: Strzelecki)
In publishing circles, Kasper König is perhaps the most famous postcard writer in the art business. Anyone who wants to check this out – with the “Mail art” in mind – can purchase the weekly calendar published by Strzelecki Books with a selection of collaged cards from the curator’s fund.
The tear-off calendar is decorated with drawings by the artist and illustrator Anna Haifisch. Since Art Cologne, the original postcards in the calendar have also been sold for 250 euros each, with the proceeds going to a good cause. Of course, the calendar with 52 postcards is cheaper: Cost: 19.80 euros.
This illustrious plant society could appeal to art and garden lovers alike (detail).
(Photo: Van Horn Edition, Düsseldorf)
Actually, the still life of flowers has not had a boom for a long time. But there is something about the way in which the British artist Paul Morrison arranges dahlias, fern fronds or lions in the surface that demands closer inspection.
Stylized but familiar plants can only be discovered at first glance. A vegetal togetherness that Morrison composes like a silhouette in a hard black and white contrast. This creates a world with its own order, which at times also takes on dangerous or fairytale traits.
Morrison is inspired by historical etchings, botanical illustrations, but also by comics. His pigment print of a plant society in black and white, “Vortex”, of which only a section can be seen here, costs 714 euros in a 50 edition, framed 952 euros. The edition can be obtained from Galerie Van Horn in Düsseldorf.
The fairtrade-certified hooded sweater has an embroidered artist’s monogram on the sleeves and a photo print from the “GlassPhone” series on the chest.
(Photo: Galerie Gebr. Lehmann; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021)
The artist Tilman Hornig, who lives in Berlin and Dresden, took care of the aesthetic and ideal enhancement of this down-to-earth item of clothing for men. The fairtrade-certified hooded sweater is equipped with an embroidered artist’s monogram on the sleeves and a photo print from the “GlassPhone” series on the chest; Motif of the series of works of the same name, in which Hornig deals with how media-savvy mankind forms an image of the world.
The edition for the current exhibition “GlassPhone (Museum)” is limited to two motifs in green and three in blue. It costs 150 euros and can be obtained from the Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden.
Don’t make a mess and don’t have to go out: Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog (Blue)” is available from Weng Contemporary.com
(Photo: Weng Contemporary.com)
Anyone who has always wanted a dog for Christmas, but doesn’t want to take any chances, could look forward to Jeff Koon’s “Ballon Dog (Blue)” 2021. At 29,500 euros, it is really not an inexpensive gift, despite its high circulation of 799 pieces. The sculpture scores with a glamor factor and a possible prospect of increased value.
If you want to go one better, add a diamond to the dog made of the finest French, metal-coated porcelain: “Diamond (Red)” 2020. Cost 21,000 euros. The set would cost 48,000 euros in a 99 edition. On the e-commerce platform www.wengcontemporary.com you can buy a pair with identical numbers.
A blockchain-based “utility token” will soon also be offered, with which the work can be traded on platforms for digital assets.
More: Review: Approaching a life’s work: The new book about the photographer Helmut Newton