Take a Walk

Author: Junya Li

Publisher: Mark Pezinger Verlag

2023

In the 20th century, walking has become a widespread contemporary art practice: Stanley Brouwn, Francis Alys, Trisha Brown, to name a few. Chinese artist Junya Li retells this art history of walking by making simplified sketches of the artists' walks and arranging them according to the length of the walk. Beginning with Claude Catellan “From Sand to Dust” at 0m and ending with Marina Abramovic & Ulay “The Lovers” at 21,196,012m.

NANG Magazine Issue No. 9

Publisher: NANG Magazine

2023

Issue 9 is dedicated to Archival Imaginaries. Archivists, artists, filmmakers, curators, and scholars of Asian cinema were invited to eschew the well-trodden “survey of the archival landscape” route and present instead imaginaries of the archive and imaginaries through archives—from film to art, from personal to collective, from private to institutional, from analog to digital, from existing to potential and impossible ones.

Encompassing essays, documents, conversations, accounts, and creative writing, this Issue considers the powers and limits of both archives and archiving. In so doing, it articulates some of the alternative pasts and speculative futures that these may enable and engender.

We hope to creatively open the past for critique and assert possibilities for the future, for us to reassess and respond to our present conditions and emphasize the importance of our cinematic and media heritages. Through archival imaginaries we point toward what we wish to make real.

51 Tan

Author: Cao Feile

Publisher: 51 Personae

2019

51 Tan is a commissioned record of the Shanghai street vendors that Cao Feile, one of the 51 Personae, took notice of and made observation of from 2016 to early 2017. Initially published as a series of social media posts on the 11th Shanghai Biennale’s WeChat platform in the form of Lianhuanhua, or Chinese pulp comics, the record outlines a collection of itinerant peddlers she took efforts to approach, get close to, and interact with. The details are vivid, subtle, and warmly human—the way the peddlers decorate their places, the logic with which they make construction, the materials they use, the spatial strategies they develop, and the way they communicate with pedestrians through these strategies. The 39 stories (instead of the expected 51) were eventually compiled into a book designed by Wu Jiayin in 2019 and printed on thin, unadorned paper. At this time, many peddlers in the book have already vanished from the streets. Peddlers build their businesses on the trust, however fleeting, of people passing by, but they themselves make the easiest targets for urban governance—they are seen as problems to be solved and when they are “solved” the effect is most visible. After making this study of peddlers as a professional architect, the author of this book, Cao Feile, stopped and withdrew from her previous job as a commercial architect (involved in urban renewal and development) and have turned to a kind of architectural practice that is more fundamental and critically engaged.

White House

Author: Mikyung Song

Publisher: nomadelab Publishing

2019

In White House Book, where all letters have disappeared, I discover another “I” that silently and without a word only observes. My “I” wants to stage writings and sounds within the stories of the two White House works in a paradoxical manner. They seem to coexist, but yet the writings and sounds that differ from each other separate and gather. This ambivalent „I“ is living in two different spaces filled with writings and sounds. Berlin and Seoul, the two cities „I“ live in, would shake me again and again and cause dizziness inside me. When I think about it, I am standing right in the middle of the sounds of those both cities. They pretend to help each other only to impede each other. Carrying these incomplete feelings and memories inside of me and being an existence that is a component of this world I myself am one of the sounds of this world, that I am going to show in White House.
text: Mikyung Song

Title / タイトル

Publisher: Rahel Zoller and Asami Murakami

2020/2021

The Western and Japanese book in a dialogue with each other, create two conceptual frameworks that invite the reader to explore the book format and its tradition. When naming the top and the bottom of a book in Japan the top is called: 天 sky or heaven and the bottom 地 ground or earth whereas in Western publishing, the top is called head and the bottom tail: this originates from the animal skin a book was bound in historically.

Another Reading. Contemporary Book Design from China

Author: Ed. Jumping He

Publisher: Hesign

2023

This catalog is published on the occasion of the exhibition "Another Reading - Contemporary Book Design from China" at the Center for Visual Arts Berlin.

The exhibition, “Another Reading - Contemporary Book Design from China”‚ creates a unique platform for pioneers of contemporary book design from China in Berlin. Nearly 150 outstanding books with the finest Chinese printing and binding techniques can be explored up close. Topics range from traditional crafts and Chinese character design to modern Chinese literature and contemporary art.

More than 20 leading Chinese graphic designers in the field of contemporary book design are participating in the exhibition, especially many female designers. Although they come from different regions of China and different generations, they are all passionate about book design. However, what they earn from book design does not match their passion and work. Looking at these wonderful designs, we all know that it is the charm of books themselves that has driven these lively and influential designers in contemporary China.

Against Translation

Author: Kenneth Goldsmith

Publisher: JBE BOOKS

2016

Against Translation is an unreleased essay by Kenneth Goldsmith. Jean Boîte Éditions publishes it here in eight languages, in eight books gathered in a boxcase – English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Arabic.
The author discusses the impasses and shortcomings of translation, this “approximation of discourse that produces a new discourse” and he opposes the notion of displacement, a phenomenon born of globalization: if people and objects are moved, so it will for language. 

My Photo Books

Author: Lina Scheynius

Publisher: JBE BOOKS

2019

Taken between 1991 and 2018, these photographs offer us an unprecedented insight into the life of a 21st-century woman.

Kim Jong Il Looking at Things

Author: João Rocha

Publisher: JBE BOOKS

2012

This uninterrupted series of photographs of North Korea’s Dear Leader looking at things, fascinates with its formal rigor and intensity. Without taking away from these photographs their primary function, that of elevating Kim Jong Il to the rank of icon, this series shifts the subject and the stakes of the propaganda. The icon changes to taxonomy, the viewer is being watched, and the meaning of this images breaks away.

Accompanied by an essay by Marco Bohr entitled Looking at Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, the book reveals the sources of our fascination for these accumulated images on the Internet – these memes – analyzing how a series of apparently innocent photographs becomes viral and attractive.

what time is it?

Author: Franck Leibovici

Publisher: JBE BOOKS

2023

After de l’amour (JBE Books, 2019), Franck Leibovici invites us to a journey into six centuries of Western painting history through a simple question: what time is it? Relying on everyday knowledge and ancestral gestures – telling the time thanks to the sun –, using tools accessible to all (google street view, suncalc.org) as well as osint (open source intelligence), the artist completely renews the metadata of iconic paintings, offering us an extremely refreshing approach to the history of art.

GENDA #3 Endless Scenarios
Publisher: a+mbookstore

2019

Genda is a magazine intersecting Western and Eastern culture. Two sets of editorial staff – one in Italy and one in China – first identify a common theme which is then elaborated through the misunderstandings and complicities at the base of every concrete exchange. Genda has a title, it seeks out the conditions for triggering new questions. Its contents are apparitions; their original order is recomposed in the pages where an incidental and unexpected factor – of which the authors are aware – exists.

X Museum 2020-2021
Publisher: Mousse Publishing

2022

X Museum 2020–2021 is the first chapter in a series of annual publications dedicated to the activity of the newly opened museum. Since its opening in May 2020, X Museum has been committed to nurturing and supporting emerging artists and embracing innovative practices on a global scale, based on critical perspectives and practical concepts. The annual catalog composes a narrative of X Museum’s creative journey during its first year of activity, including exhibitions, public program events, and various off-site activities and collaborations.

SHANGHAI CONTEMPORARY ART ARCHHIVAL PROJECT 1998 2012
Publisher: Mousse Publishing

2017

The publication is the first result of The Post-1998 Shanghai Contemporary Art Archive Research Project, launched by Vigy Jin, Davide Quadrio, and Xu Zhen—founders of the nonprofit space BizArt—to sort through the history of Shanghai’s artistic development from 1998 to 2012. This book represents an important opportunity to explore the actors and the organizations who took part, the production of works, the beginning of the digital revolution, and other projects that shared the aim of having one’s voice heard.

Process Magazine Vol. 2: “Forms of Contemplation”

Publisher: Analogue Practices Enterprise 

2022

On the cover is Malaysian musician OJ Law at home in Kuala Lumpur. In our second issue, we explore the merits of doing nothing. Introspection and reflection are critical elements of the creative process, so why don’t we allow ourselves to do nothing more often? We speak to OJ Law, Atira Ariffin, Sharon Chin, Max Jala and Mandy Gioh to understand how stopping to smell the roses can be an unsung form of influence.

Author: Liu Chao-tze, Lin Junye

Publisher: pon ding ＆  Fotobook DUMMIES Day

2022

Author: Wu Meichi

Publisher: pon ding

2021

Author: Yo Yang

Publisher: DOOKS 

2021

Taiwanese photographer Yo yang's first photo book for DOOKS. She takes commercial photographs, but what does she photograph in her daily life? The fragmented images, some of which may or may not be photographs, combine with the scripture-like structure of the book to create a story (poem) that weaves horizontally and vertically, arranged like a timeline on a social networking site, speaking to us in a language that cannot be translated. I hope you will find it interesting to decipher what is hidden in the book.

Author: Eva Lin

Publisher: dmp editions

2021

The art project, The Hidden South, is an experiment that has Taitung’s indigenous townships in the South-link region as a starting point and brings contemporary art into an unknown realm to facilitate exchange with and learning from the local culture. “The south” in this context does not refers to the geographical south. Instead, it beckons a deeper spiritual world that emerges from our connection with nature when we are given an opportunity to leave existing knowledge and logic behind to perceive the world rather with bodily senses and memory.

In the village, we often make a fire. Upon seeing the fire, it feels like that we are finally home. The power of fire not only kindles the life of civilizations, but also manifests two completely different states; it is an imagery of interweaving virtuality and reality as well as a medium that connects heaven and earth. Most of the stories and ideas in The Hidden South were born around the fire; and this is the origin of the book title, “a firetime story.” My experience of “the hidden south” has been a certain diverse and heterogenous oscillating process between past and present, tradition and innovation as well as myths and histories. Through The Hidden South, it is hoped that people could regain the ability to connect with nature, dreams and reality, preserving the fleeting inspiration within a rational mind.

Les 100 chemins

Author: Huang Jia

Publisher: Huang Jia

2019

Roads, is composed of four documentary projects: "The Shoreline", "Haribo Village", "Dandori didn’t know the place where he arrived was Paris" and "Silence is speaking". In her work, the core is collaborative documentary photography, for which she has worked with autistic kids from Taiwan, a refugee who fled the war and settled in Paris, as well as gypsy children from Marseille. As we contemplate these individuals who live on the margins of society and yet possess extraordinary creativity, what Chia Huang continually tries to describe is our pain and our desire to live in an unnamed place.

P_PAL ISSUE 1

Publisher: art book in China

2020

Initiated by the editorial department of art book in China in November 2019, the bilingual magazine P_PAL was published in July 2020. It focuses on art books and bookmakers, emphasizing on the art publishing panorama of the Greater China Area.

dash issue 0: layers

Publisher: atelier Anchor

2022

"dash" is a non-schedule visual culture journal about "words", published in both electronic and physical formats. The theme of this pilot issue is about words in urban life and public space, such as streets, stores, posters, advertisements, etc. "dash" invites four creators to step into different spatial fields, exploring the diverse expressions of fonts in urban public space, transforming words from a tool for writing to a subject to be written. "layer" is the editorial idea of the journal. Readers will find in this issue the stacking of layers of text, the dissection of layers of accumulated visual impressions, and the deep analysis of time and space, memory and social texture. In addition, the pilot issue has a "dash" booklet - for the whole publication, the booklet is a true dash, a continuation, a connection, an interruption, a twist, and a complement.

te No.1 The Lost Society

Publisher: te-magazine

2021

te is an annual bilingual publication of contemporary art and cultural anthropology. Each issue expands on a specific theme, and we invite practitioners in diverse fields to explore and reflect on the dynamic cultural landscapes across regions. Recurring motifs include the fluidity of cultures, languages and beliefs in specific communities and the adaptation of individual narratives to the shifting social and geopolitical environment.

te aims to create an open creative platform. The form of our content ranges from essays and interviews to poetry, photography and more. We also publish manuscripts, personal notes, archival records and other primary sources that complement and animate the authors’ reflections. We’d like to see the content te shares with its readers as extending from the professional and creative practices of our contributors in their respective fields; at the same time, we are excited about generating new forms of content through the cross-pollination of ideas, perspectives and approaches inherent in our editorial process.

IndiGo (印度印度)

Arthur: Lu Shan

Publisher: Self-Published

2019

In the summer of 2019, artist Lu Shan traveled to India with her friends. Known for being "prolific", Lu Shan completed more than 200 sketches and several diaries during the trip. Amidst the cityscape - explosion of old buses, bright clothes, night lights tied with flowers, and the crowd of people, Lu Shan was like the most swift and violent animal, capturing information scattered everywhere at any time.

Before 2019 ends, Lu Shan has included her work in her latest self-published book, 印度印度 (IndiGo). To keep books warm in winter, Mama Swallow has hand-sewn book cloths in different fabrics and colors.

Chinese Arms (中国胳膊)

Publisher: fRUITYPRESS

Author: Zhai Ruixin

2018

A documentation of some Chinese arms and tattoos, taken between 2016 - 2018.

Yui Takada AXIS

Publisher: ori.studio

Author: Yui Takada

2022

Built out of 471 individual fragments, comprised of deconstructed work, collected and documented environmental and contextual elements such as waste bins, tree skin, “no smoking” signs, or newspaper clippings deriving from his daily life, as well as various other experimental projects, this book has become a physical manifestation of the “axis” Takada has created, where an order is generated not through a systematic application of logic, but rather in the acceptance and love for, and in the utilization of chaos which seems to have resulted in a completely new form of existence. Thus this is an object, comprised of layer upon layer of seemingly disparate material, bound together both physically and by an order generated through chaos, that gives us the opportunity to objectively see something who’s contours appear to be in a constant state of flux, and which changes along side the change in perspective from one person to the next.

赛文中年超市

Publisher: 1and½ Atelier

Author: Bai Kui

2020

赛文 = seven, a colloquial abbrreviation for the well-known convenience store 7-11. The word "中年 (middle year/age)" is a reversed word of “All Year Round” to symbolize the middle-aged citizens who can be occasionally tireless. The project is serialized on social media since 2018. The convenience store is like a street lamp that never goes out, housing millions of strange characters in the city. The stories told in the comic are related to the goods sold in convenience stores, starting with a can of drink and ending with a box of salad. If you are also a fan of convenience store, don't miss this comic. 

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Author: Xiao Longhua

Publisher: 1 and Half Atelier

2019

The Blind Men and the Elephant is the proposition creation of Xiao Longhua. The story in this picture book comes from old Buddhist sutras. You will see four born blinds came from "Mirari" Kingdom. They were trying to comprehend an elephant only by touch. After the King Mirror got the results from the four blinds, he transformed the huge elephant into a lightweight butterfly. It was a dramatic and touching moment. The butterfly began to dance and transform kaleidoscopically and endlessly. 

The cover is hided in blue. When you touch this area, the blue will fade away. Touching is the thread of the whole story, and also an important revelation of transforming. In the last opposite page, you can take down the four shapes of paper on it. While reassembling the various parts freely, you will take your own experience of the touching moment.

51 Tan

Author: A chronicler

Publisher: 51 Personae, Lee Chun Fung

2021

51 Tan, or 51 street stalls, is an ongoing documentation project by one of the participants of the 51 Personae project, as part of the 11th Shanghai Biennale 2016 – 2017. The author’s drawings and sketches outline her observations of these stalls, scattered around Shanghai, from the perspective of a customer or a passer-by, noting details of their set-up, rationale of their design, materials used, spatial strategies and even conversations overheard—and form a subtle and human record. When the book was first published in 2019, many of the stalls featured can no longer be found, for street hawkers, whose business depends on the fleeting trust of people on the move, are also the easiest and most visible targets in campaigns to tidy up the cityscape.

Poem Three Piece

Author: Yuchen Chang

Publisher: Yuchen Chang

2021

This book is a house with four rooms: three poems written by Yuchen occupy three rooms; the word “poetry” translated into coral—a written language that Yuchen has been developing, plus a small piece of wrapping paper, occupy the fourth room. Poems were written during Yuchen’s participation in the workshop series /Poetry/Race/Form hosted by Fan Wu and Zoe Imani Sharpe, in 2020 on zoom.

c-site.3: Other

Publisher: da大 in print

2021

c-site (c = conversation) is based around an interdisciplinary discussion surrounding a singular topic, exploring it in physical and metaphysical terms. It has been removed from the typical interviewer/interviewee archetype. Rather, it has been formatted to take place in a sequential manner (a → b) , (b → c) … (j → a) where participant (a) will ask a question to participant (b), who after answering will ask a question to the next person down the list (c), so as to achieve a more natural and autonomous form of dialogue. 

The theme of this issue is "other". The scale, distance, shape and complexity of ‘other’ is also constantly disturbed by the addition of new objects or by a change in scene and context. Can ‘other’ exist at the same scale as a single cell? Can a subject coincide, replace, or influence ‘other’ from its own perspective? What are the differences in perspective from inside and outside in regards to ‘other’? If boundaries are blurred, how can we define what is ‘other’? Can the space (or interlaced relationship) between ‘other’ and a subject be observed? How many instances of ‘other’ can be generated through fixed-point observation? How can we distinguish ‘other’ from the white space which surrounds it? Can the original nature of things and the nature of ‘other’ be switched? Are there a variety of methods in forming ‘other’? From our own perspectives, can the phenomenon of ‘other’ be described as an illusion? Can ‘other’ in relation to time coexist with ‘other’ in relation to space?

Inter-Asia Self-organized Woodcut Mapping III: Institution and Beyond

Publisher: Inter-Asia Woodcut Mapping

2022

The third issue of ”Woodcut Zine“ focuses on the idea of "institution" as to explore the relationship between self-organized practice and official institution. In the context of contemporary art, the term "institution" generally refers to art galleries, exhibitions, or art organizations run by the government or large-scale capital. Yet, from a conceptual level, it can also refer to a way of organization or existing ideologies that constructs intangible power in the society. Here, is the self-organized woodcut practice and "institution“ an absolute binary relationship, or is it complementing each other?

magazine into issue1:
MADE-LAND

Publisher: subfictions

2021

Magazine into’s issue #1 “MADE-LAND” presents the past, present and future of Chinese furniture design in three separate volumes. In “MADE-LAND 2021”, they discuss the status quo and challenges encountered by design thinking involved in traditional Chinese manufacturing. In “MADE-LAND 1920s-’90s”, they invited artist Lanqing Zhu to complete a set of visual creations, restore the simple emotions of Chinese families and furniture in the past few decades. “MADE-LAND 2050”, based on the development history of the past 30 years, they try to infer what Chinese design might be like in 30 years.

Monday OFF issue#2 Medical Cosmetology

Publisher: Monday OFF

2021

Monday OFF is a zoom lens into the rapidly evolving youth culture, their publication consisting of 50% visual creation, 40% text, 10% advertisement (a montage of the real and spoof).

The theme of Monday OFF Issue#2 is Medical Cosmetology, which explores what beauty is from the contemporary perspective of “becoming beautiful” with an anthropological eye. Is there such a thing as standard beauty? Could we understand that medical cosmetology is a sign that beauty is becoming more of a medical element, evolving beyond its traditional definition, and the two-dimensional discussions about it? Are artists still the creators of beauty, or has this right been given to the invisible hands? 

Prickly Paper: The Story of Liu Sheng

Publisher: Prickly Paper

2020

The cover of Prickly Paper  for each issue was made with woodblock prints by different artists, and the inner pages are printed by a home printer. The article submissions and layouts of each issue depend on the subject. 

In the spring of 2020, Prickly Paper launched a special issue called The Story of Liu Sheng. Liu Sheng is a delivery man, who often delivers packages to staff in our editorial team. Later he became friends with the editor Chen Yifei on WeChat. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Liu Sheng was stuck in his hometown Xiantao in Hubei province and was unable to return to work. After scrolling through Liu's updates on his WeChat page, Yifei found that he makes a perfect narrator. Then he asked for Liu's permission to compile the contents he posted and interviewed his friends and him. Yifei also invited past contributors to write responses to the interviews and made a special issue based on Liu Sheng's personal life.

Dispatches from TETRIS: A March from the highlands to the Mountain City and the Island

Publisher: IFP 

2021

“TETRIS: A March From the Highlands to the Mountain City and the Island” is a project initiated by Institute for Provocation (IFP),  a Beijing-based independent art space.

From August 17 to September 1, 2020, dozens of artists, researchers, curators, and journalists embarked on a 15-day journey, traversing over 4300 kilometers to visit seven sites in Xining, China on the border of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; Yushu in the Kham Tibetan region; Lanzhou on theOld Silk Road; the outer suburbs, countryside, mountainsof Chongqing; and Guishan Island at the mouth of the PearlRiver. Along the way, IFP organized topical discussions, presentations, field trips, residencies, and improvisational sessions in the context of their respective natural and social environments that enabled participants to experience and discuss social issues such as ethnic segregation,  rural reconstruction, infrastructure fetishism in the field...

24 Mails from the Railway

Author: Cheng Xinhao 

Publisher: Jiazazhi 

2020

December 1, 2019, Cheng Xinhao departed from Kunming. He decided to walk along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, of which the end is the ocean. During this journey, he picked up a piece of railway ballast for every kilometer, and sent one email to a fictitious friend X every night. Eventually, it took him 19 days to cover the part of the Yunnan of the whole railway, as long as 465 kilometers. The weight of the stone on his body reached more than 20 kilograms, and the amount of the mails was up to 24.

Through these texts and images left over a year ago, 24 Mails from the Railway tells the story of this journey: about the railway, about the land of Yunnan—personal stories once happening on this land, about the colonized history of two East Asian countries, about the modernization of the mountainous areas in Southeast Asia, and also about Cheng Xinhao’s childhood memories and geographical imagination, about his connection with his hometown and the region.

Tu Li Fu

Author: hhs

Publisher: Too Rich Group

2021

This work gradually builds a magical city that is expanding and a real estate developer, Tu Li Fu (Baldrick Rich). This real estate project aims to provide people anxious about urban consumption and life with a place to live in a first-tier city, with second-tier wages, third-tier consumption, and 18th-tier housing prices. The average rent of the apartment is 300 RMB per month, and the ceiling price is less than 100,000 RMB for purchase.

In hss's vision, the origin of Tu Li Fu is expected to form a world entrance of the meta-universe. "In the future, people will go to work in Tu Li City and find their home in the virtual world."

The Bliss of Conformity

Author: Yingguang Guo

Publisher: La Maison de Z

2018

The Bliss of Conformity is a project based on Yingguang Guo’s performance and documentary photography at the matchmaking corner of People’s Park, Shanghai. Her multi-media combination of photography, printmaking, video, performance and artist book aims for melancholia, delicacy, and abstraction related to arranged marriages, and pseudo-intimacy between the husbands and wives who are the victims of such marriages. 

Guo’s artist’s book is created in a global context, aiming to construct multi-layered interconnections between time and space and to express emotions through compositional arrangements. By the use of these artistic practices, the artist is able to explore the problems faced by educated women as individuals in the reality of the contemporary Chinese society.

A Manual of Khoomei

Author: Xiaoqing Zhu

Publisher: Xiaoqing Zhu

2022

The author of book is an amateur Khoomei practitioner. In recent years, he has understood and summarized some theoretical and practical knowledge of Khoomei through learning and self-study. The original intention of book is not only to facilitate the review and reflection, but also to share it with some friends who are interested in Khoomei art but can't learn it.

This is a guide to the rule of thumb and trap avoidance. In the content page with critical theory of Khoomei related books and personal experience of the author in practice. Suggest that you, depending on their quality and flexible adopt the methods mentioned in the book, as a scaffolding to create own way and style of singing. Want to learn process of Khoomei can bring you connect physical and mental resonance of heaven and earth.

Anything That Flies

Author: Ruben Lundgren

Publisher: art book in China

2022

Many of the wonderful dishes presented in this album go far beyond the common art of plating. The food reliefs, radish sculptures and other eatable delights were created for professional food competitions or served as sample wedding plates from the 1980s onwards. The temporary appearance most likely won over its flavour, but who would care?

Although chickens neither fly nor bath much, they are well represented just like the cranes, ducks and the occasional sparrow. Yes, an exception was made for two lovely flying fish. Don’t forget to look at the side of the plates as well. Not only will you find some of the best baijiu but also, for the true photo-detective, a canned feast of tomato sauce and Flying Wheel luncheon meat.