Printing Plant: Collaborations, Special Projects and Installations
22 November – 24 November 2019

Collaborations

Printing Plant x Amsterdam Art Weekend
Amsterdam Art Weekend Gallery Night
Friday 22 November 17.00 – 20.00
For the second time, 'Printing Plant' is pleased to be a part of Amsterdam Art Weekend’s (AAW) official programme. This year, during AAW some of the city’s most exceptional cultural institutions will once again collectively open their doors to showcase the latest developments in contemporary art. The four-day event connects galleries, museums, project spaces, and residency programs with the local community as well as art professionals and collectors from all over the world. 'Printing Plant's Opening Night event will be part of AAW’s Open Gallery Night programme.

Printing Plant x Athenaeum Boekhandel en Nieuwscentrum
Magazine Corner
Throughout the weekend
In collaboration with small press specialist Athenaeum Boekhandel en Nieuwscentrum, we are delighted to introduce a new magazine corner at 'Printing Plant'. The bookshop will co-curate this pop-up dedicated to exploring the best of today’s magazines. Both Athenaeum and Looiersgracht 60 strongly believe that magazines represent a critical sphere of the publishing world, and through this addition to the fair, we hope to help celebrate their contribution to the wider community. Some publications that will be featured include: Aperture, Real Review, Archivio, Terrible People, Flaneur, The Modernist, Posterzine, Riposte and many more!

Printing Plant x Rijksakademie
Talks and a Selection of Artist’s Books
Throughout the weekend
In a special collaboration, the Rijksakademie and Looiersgracht 60 organized four joint primer events. Three events took place ahead of the fair in order to discuss themes surrounding artists books and independent publishing. The final event, ‘Staging the Artist’s Book’ will take place on Friday 22 November during 'Printing Plant'. Furthermore, the Rijksakademie will present a selection of artist’s books at 'Printing Plant'. Residents and alumni have been invited to present special limited-edition art books and book objects at the fair. The selected artists all step outside of conventional boundaries to explore new concepts and challenge the traditional structure of books.

Participating artists: Sookoon Ang, Danielle van Ark, Marika Asatiani, Maria Baturina, Feiko Beckers, Sema Bekirovic, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Ruta Butkute , Willehad Eilers, Bram Faber, Michaela Frühwirth, Lotte van Geijn , Rumiko Hagiwara, Florence Jung, Katrin Korfmann, Jean-Baptiste Maitre, Inge Meijer, Sebastián Díaz Morales, Antoinette Nausikaä, Ima-Abasi Okon, Serge Onnen, Iris Le Rütte, Bert Scholten, Boy & Erik Stappaerts, Wouter Venema, Arian de Vette, Danielle van Vree, Marijke de Vries

RijksakademieOPEN will also take place this weekend. Its presentations at Looiersgracht 60 will complement the academy’s own programming.

Printing Plant x San Serriffe
Tea Readings
Weekend afternoons at 16.00
Focusing on self-published material, Amsterdam based bookstore San Serriffe is a treasure trove of books on art, theory and design publications. It is also host to a vibrant weekly programme of book presentations, talks, and performances. During 'Printing Plant', San Serriffe will be organising ‘Tea Readings’, during which visitors are invited to take a break from the bustle of the fair and listen to artists who will read from their recent publications in Looiersgracht 60’s Room for Books. ‘Tea Readings’ will present Jonathan Aldenberg, Callum Copley, Becket Flannery.

Printing Plant x Little Steidl
Recovering Off-cuts
Friday 22 November, 12.00 – 14.00
Looiersgracht 60 is excited to announce a long-term collaboration with Little Steidl. The independent publishing house is dedicated to the meticulous execution of each step in the bookmaking process, including the final step where waste is produced and dealt with. When we throw away surplus printed matter, it decomposes, fragments, transforms, and eventually disappears. However, the off-cuts are often too precious to throw away and such a process is unsustainable for both the publishing industry and the environment. Therefore, we are delighted to kick off our long-term collaboration with Little Steidl, researching and experimenting with different ways of reusing printed matter, with a first workshop at 'Printing Plant' 2019. Through these collaborative projects, artists, designers, publishers and researchers will demonstrate the infinite versatility of the resource that is waste––demonstrating the astounding richness, potential, and value of this material.

Special Projects and Installations
'Printing Plant' is pleased to present a number of special publication focused projects. The featured projects range from a three-panel video installation to a site-specific work by Pao Hu Kao to a live printing performance. The installations offer visitors new ways of questioning our relationship with art books and looks at how they relate to their socio-political context.

Printing Plant x Readers & Publishers
Official Launch of Open Book II
Throughout the weekend
For the second time we will be collaborating with Readers & Publishers (R&P). At last year’s edition of 'Printing Plant', R&P launched their much-needed online international directory of independent publishers. The platform connects publishers with one another, with readers, and with artists they may be interested in working with in the future. To mark their official launch, Readers & Publishers produced ‘Open Book #1’, a bespoke publication which invited independent publishers to respond to questions on the themes of community, readership, and their relationship to the arts. This year they will be launching ‘Open Book #2’, which acts as a discussion point and catalogue of a moment in art publishing centered around the theme ‘publishing cultures in art education’. This project is an extension of the creative vision of ‘My Bookcase’, a social enterprise that explores the role of books and readers in today’s society.

Musicographisme 2
Live Printing performance by Les Éditions Musicographiques
Every day at 16.00
Les Éditions Musicographiques is a special project by artist Maycec, in which she will be reinterpreting “Koyaanisqatsi” (1982) by the composer Philip Glass, by printing small publications live with the spirit duplicator. This editorial performance project addresses the relationship between the auditory and the visual. The song’s ostinato is linked to the function of the printing machine leading to a graphic interpretation of the musical composition. Two small publications will be printed out per day at 16:00 for 30 to 45 minutes, to make a total of six limited editions printed exclusively for 'Printing Plant'.

The Reappearance of Work by Arabic Design Pioneers
Installation by Khatt Books
Throughout the weekend
Khatt Books is presenting an installation showcasing a selection of original publications and works featured in their series of design monographs entitled ‘Arabic Design Library’. The works range from illustrations, lettering, to graphic design by pioneering artists from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, who have made significant contribution to design in the Arab World since the 1960's.

(Dis)appearing Paper
Installation by Pao Hui Kao
Throughout the weekend
Artist Pao Hui Kao believes that one of the most important, yet painful, things in life is questioning what you deeply believe in. She illustrates this conviction in her site-specific installation, ‘(Dis)appearing Paper’, created entirely with water and paper––some of the most commonly encountered materials in daily life. Her use of this medium is a metaphor for challenging that which is taken for granted, like our expectation that a sheet of paper should be a smooth, flat surface. When water is absorbed by paper, it interferes with the flattened net of fabrics and it rearranges their position. Water gives paper the opportunity to escape from the artificial form given during industrial production and transforms it into a stronger material even after it dries. Wrinkles unleash paper’s capability of styling and shaping. It turns an ordinary piece of paper into a material with extraordinary capabilities and unique aesthetics.

Press, Publish, Action
Video installation by The Future Publishing
Throughout the weekend
A new video work by the progressive publishing house The Future, ‘Press, Publish, Action’ will be screened for the first time at 'Printing Plant' 2019. The three-panel video installation expands on the development and importance of art publishing in Amsterdam over centuries of the city’s history. The installation is composed of conversations with a multitude of experts from buyers to artists and publishers to show how Amsterdam has been shaped by the books industry and to trace the revival of the medium amongst the new generation of artists and creators in recent years.

Crafting Narrative
Installation by Eriko Takeno
Friday 23 November, 17.00 – 20.00
Ahead of her workshop on Friday afternoon, Eriko Takeno’s installation ‘Crafting Narrative’ will be on view in the Room for Books. This installation invites the audience to experience the healing power of poetic thinking by following the artist’s own journey of poetic discovery and emotional recovery through a polyester film poster accompanied by a publication. Eriko Takeno developed her workshop ‘Sensory Multimodal Workshop; Space as Medium, Poetic Thinking as a Tool’, as a way to share her own introspective exploration of poetry as a therapy for anxiety with others.