BEYOND KIOSK

Curator: Christoph Keller
Scenography: Martino Gamper

Initiated by Christoph Keller, publisher and designer who founded, at the beginning of the new millenium, Revolver editions, Beyond Kiosk – Modes of Multiplication is a travelling exhibition dedicated to independent publishing in the fields of contemporary art, design and graphic art. He is extending the Kiosk project, an ever evolving, travelling archive which today includes some 6,000 publications, artists’ books, magazines, videos and audio media linked to contemporary art, which has journeyed, since 2001, between over 20 institutions throughout the world, amongst which are the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Witte de With in Rotterdam, the ICA in London and Artists’ Space in New York. Kiosk is now presented, in a permanent manner, at the Kunstbibliothek, Stiftung Preußischer Kunstbesitz in Berlin.

Focused on approximately 700 works, Beyond Kiosk was conceived as a selection from this archive, aimed at presenting the most relevant examples of independent publishing in contemporary art. Christoph Keller views books as an instrument which can be approached as an artistic medium in itself, going far beyond simple documentation. Favouring modestly priced books which are easy to pick up, he accentuates, above all, the use of books and their circulation: “I’m not a book lover. I do not love to make books, smell books, feel books, own books, store books, touch books, sell books… What I do love though, is to use books. As a way of communicating, multiplying and distributing ideas, as a way to do art.”

For each presentation of Beyond Kiosk, the exhibition’s layout is entrusted to a different artist or designer. Mudam thus invited the designer Martino Gamper, recently noticed for his project, 100 Chairs in 100 Days, at the Design Museum in London in 2007, to imagine the exhibition design. Gamper’s scenography is devised as a platform of multilayered levels. Beyond Kiosk is accompanied by Double Pages, a project initiated by Christoph Keller, designer Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, and art historian Catherine de Smet, who invited around 50 graphic designers to photograph two double pages of works which, for them, represent an innovative dialogue between art and graphic design.