No. 2: The Need to Publish - an Artist's View
24 October 2019

Looiersgracht 60 x Rijksakademie
Primer Events
Printing Plant Art Book Fair 2019

Leading up to Printing Plant Art Book Fair 2019, Looiersgracht 60 and Rijksakademie van beeldende kunstenare collaborating in a series of four special events prior to Printing Plant Art Book Fair - Amsterdam 2019. On four Thursday afternoons in October and November, various guests with different perspectives (and from different backgrounds) will engage in conversations on independent publishing and artist books within the artistic practice.

No.2: The Need to Publish - an Artist's View
Publishing as artistic practice: why use the medium of the book? Amidst shifting media, institutional, political and conceptual landscapes, printing offers up not only a way to understand these upheavals, but also as a means to introduce new rupture. The traditional publishing frameworks are being restructured, allowing individual artists and collectives to pursue more experimental and diverse forms. From the artist’s point of view, topics such as physicality, design, narrativity, place within artistic practice and more will be discussed by our speakers Ozgur Atlagan, Amie Dicke and Maurice van Es. Independent curator Radna Rumping will moderate the talk.

About the speakers
Ozgur Atlagan is a current resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. He is also a PhD candidate at the Product Design department at Istanbul Technical University, where he is conducting research on the local photobook community. Atlagan is a member of the artist collectives KABA HAT and BAÇOY KOOP (Printing, Duplication and Distribution Cooperative).

Amie Dicke’s work focuses on the ‘cut-out’; collected images and objects incrementally find their way into her studio, she then selects elements to be sandpapered away, blotched, spattered, covered with makeup or surgically incised. In 2016, Dicke had a major solo show at Looisergracht 60, entitled ‘Sucking Stones’. Her work has further been exhibited at the GEM Museum, Schirn Kunsthallen, Tate Modern, FLAG Art Foundation, Art Centre Silkeborg Bad and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

Maurice van Es uses photography to make personal books for himself. As part of his bookcase project - ‘Now will not be with us forever’, a farewell to his childhood home - he created a book centred around his mother, father, brother. In his latest endeavour ‘Rooms of Now’, he portrays houses by photographing incremental details. These books are published as limited editions copies, according to personal request.

Radna Rumping will be the talk’s moderator. She is an independent curator, writer and radio host based in Amsterdam who specialises in music culture, contemporary art, communality and a critical view towards present-day communication. She has been featured on numerous broadcasting platforms, including Red Light Radio and Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee. Her recent projects include a series entitled 'Uncertainty Seminars' that took place at Stroom, Den Haag; a publication - 'Ludic Garden' - with artist Mehraneh Atashi, ‘Lost Property CDM’, collaborative artwork and exhibition in Mexico City, and ‘Come Closer’, a performative program at Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

Please join us on Thursday 24 October. Doors open at 3:45pm, the talk starts at 4pm. Admission is free, but due to the limited number of seats, it is necessary to register: https://rijksakademie-printingplant02.eventbrite.nl. The event will be held in English. All of the planned events will take place in the reading room of the Rijksakademie, Sarphatistraat 470.