Astrid Seme, Studio

Glossy on the outside, with a bright orange inside cover and a newspaper core, this publication has unconventional haptics which reflect the out-of-the-box curatorial approach of Cathrin Pichler (1946–2012) and her cross-disciplinary archive. Upon the initial consideration from an archival perspective, something becomes clear: Cathrin Pichler and her work seem impossible to clearly pigeonhole with respect to either discipline, method, or format. Projects and research interests are interleaved, interlinked, and continued, and adhere to an interdisciplinary understanding of scientific and curatorial research that resists archival categories. The index of the nearly 4,000 archival documents is printed in this book and accompanied by contributions from five artists who reflect on the written estate of this multifaceted curator and of its archiving, comment on items found, and thus bring Cathrin Pichler’s practice into the present.
For the book I sifted through heaps of ephemera, selecting handwritten notes from the curator’s archive. I juxtaposed these fragments throughout the publication, creating an enigmatic yet candid voice that comments on both the content and the book’s design, even mocking a supposedly bad print job and bridging the distance between the archival material and the present.

“Rotting Sounds” was a multi-year research project that dealt with the topic of contemporary music recording and in particular with the problem of digital storage. Digital music recordings are not statically preserved files, but as such are affected by a creeping acoustic decay. Bovermann, Grill and Schilling understand this decay and the resulting products as a new kind of music and a new aesthetic. The confrontation with decay ultimately led to all waste being collected during the research period: From yogurt cups to hard disks, USB sticks, cables, and clothing. This heap of waste was finally shredded and transformed into paper, with the amount provided determining the entire book edition. Formally and in terms of content, the book explores decay and dissolution as a means of creating a new aesthetic, thereby challenging the traditional aesthetic of collecting and preserving.

Herbert Brandl’s paintings oscillate between abstraction and figuration, and observations of nature often form the focus for his works. He creates atmospheric color spaces through his abstract pictorial worlds in which landscapes and natural elements seem to emerge over and over—thus holding his paintings in suspension between the abstract and the figural.

“Unknown Familiars,” hosted by the Leopold Museum in Vienna, showcases six collections with distinct focuses and developmental trajectories from the Vienna Insurance Group. The book design re-evaluates the traditional exhibition catalog format to align with the vast amount of more than two hundred exhibited artworks. With up to twenty photos per double page, showcasing various sizes, formats, and placements, alongside generous white space, the book of­fers up a se­ries of con­stantly chang­ing com­bi­na­tions of image and text.

“Schule Oberhuber” unfolds the multifaceted artistic practice of Oswald Oberhuber (1931–2020) as well as his critique of Austria’s conservative postwar canon. Questioning as a teacher and rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna the hierarchical separation of fine and applied arts was central to the university’s program and formed the institution we know today.

“Axel Koschier” is a speculative catalog that shatters the classic genre of artist monographs and embraces interpretation and fiction as an elemental part of an artist’s biography. The multilingual tome has contributions in 6 languages (English, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, French) and is a delight for all polyglot readers.

For many years, the artist Axel Koschier has been collecting fill-in forms that became an autonomous part of his artistic work. Although still in use, these forms almost seem like historical artifacts of the way our personal information was collected in a pre-digital era. Axel Koschier filled out a large number of the forms and gave this personal information to six authors (Ayami Awazuhara, Beatrice Forchini, Sophie Lapalu, Julia Moebus, Cristina Ramirez and Victoria Wigzell) – none of whom knew the artist. Inspired by this data, the authors have written 6 autonomous texts in their native languages. A fictional portrait emerges, ranging from the artists's early childhood to his psyche. At the end there is not one artist Axel Koschier, but many of them.

“An intriguing book, somewhere between art and theory, inviting us to question the prevalent patriarchal understanding of the photographic term. A book to be recommended to all design students. Theoretical background as well as practical exercises and instructions. Space for personal experimentation.

A necessary book, a new approach: rereading the history of photography, so far mostly formulated by men. Boiling down a complex topic with the help of many good design decisions.

The result of four women – three artists and one curator – joining forces in 2019 to bring together their shared interest in photography as an artistic motif in exhibitions, symposiums, and publications. They want to reflect on their craft, their qualifications, the technical and theoretical knowledge.”
(Jury statement Stiftung Buchkunst, Leipzig, 2023)

The visual identity for Sperling, a Munich-based art gallery, deals with both the online and social media profile as well as the design of printed matter, stationery and the gallery space itself. The website features also side by side an online magazine giving contextual information and creating a platform for curators and artists.
Keeping the design elements to a minimum was decisive as printed matter is designed both by external designers and the in-house gallery staff. For this, a wide variety of colours were defined in addition to a new custom typeface, Sperling, with two weights and has been designed for use across the gallery’s communications.

With its grid based simplicity the design is a nod to modernist design principles yet with a forceful and reckless attitude. The interplay of expressive artworks, strong colour palette and bold yet classic typography gives enough variety to react on the individual character of the different artists and exhibitions. On Sperling’s website the interaction between the gallery and its audience—often neglected by a too “neutral” design approach—is honored in a very playful way: users are cherished by a screensaver on the index page when being idle for more than three minutes.

Since more than two decades Rebetez’ oeuvre serves him as a technique to explore our perception of landscape and composition. Based on found imagery from e.g. advertising and other printed media footage, the artist’s collages dissect with simple free-hand cuts our viewing habits. In collaboration with graphic designer Astrid Seme, a book has been created that not only reproduces Rebetez’s works, but also continues the principle of collaging in the layout, creating new collages.

The first monograph “Grotto” by Stanislava Kovalcikova creates an atmosphere around her dreamlike and bizarre scenarios, inhabited by human and animal characters. The paintings’ protagonists defy categorization, are gender-fluid, fantasy beings with ambiguous social origins, timeless age, and indeterminable skin color, as well as inscrutable intentions. Kovalcikova’s figurative painting draws on the canon of art history, often quoting from great masters, such as Titian, Goya, Gauguin, Van Gogh or Manet.

The newspaper for the Vienna Art Book Fair provides essential information about the fair and includes a map of participants. Beyond its functional role, I integrated an artistic layer by subtly blending 16 book covers into the background. This design choice humorously explores the theme of publishing, featuring titles such as “Nightmare at the Book Fair,” “How to Profit From the Art Print Market,” and concluding with “Shhh! I’m reading!”.
The reflective nature of the mirroring paper invites readers to see themselves within the context of the newspaper, creating a personal connection and making them a part of the artwork. This self-referential approach not only enhances the visual appeal but also prompts readers to reflect on their own experiences and perceptions of the artists’ books world. By juxtaposing serious and playful elements, the newspaper offers a thoughtful commentary on the publishing industry while engaging its audience in a straightforward way.

Visual identity for halfway, an architectural research program by Christian Teckert, Christina Nägele and Heidi Pretterhofer in Vienna. halfway manifests as a three-part series of case studies, which build up a consecutive discourse and platform to debate contemporary urban questions.

The Tarabya Cultural Academy in Turkey is an artist residency programme initiated by the Federal Government of Germany. Tarabya itself is a magical place located on the shoreline of the Bosphorus strait near Istanbul. In an attempt to capture and communicate the atmosphere of its location, the website opens with randomised configured imagery of Tarabya that melts away with the loading of the site’s opening page. Furthermore, subtle animations and transitions on each page reflect the color shades of the Bosphorus as it changes, allowing the website to subtly shift its appearance from visit to visit.
The visual identity and its manual includes a wide range of templates allowing in-house teams and local Turkish graphic designers to design communications with a high degree of flexibility.

As part of the ongoing collaboration with the artist residency program Kulturakademie Tarabya, I’ve worked on their bilingual annual book [eighteen/nineteen]. Divided into three sections the book opens with essays on the German Turkish cultural relations followed by 24 artist contributions spanning across different genres including literature, visual arts, music and performance printed in full color with two spot colours. The book closes with a record of events printed on a bright blue paper stock.
The cover follows the graphic identity I’ve created for Kulturakademie Tarabya with bitmapped imagery of shoreline of the Bosphorus capturing four different cover versions.

The Fine Art and Design Library of Bergen University holds a monthly series of public one-evening events. It serves as a platform that encourages ideas and discussions around concepts of ‘library’, ‘archive’ and ‘book’ as well as on the conventions of the presentation, reception and discussion of art.

“Past forward” is a record created by the artist duo kozek hörlonski (Peter Kozek + Thomas Hörl) in order to mark the celebration of 100 years of the Kunstverein Baden and its members. The vinyl’s jacket is produced from the same card stock used in the Kunstverein’s archives, stemming from the notion that the record will itself go on to form a part of the museum’s long history. I was intrigued by the thought that when the record is filed within the archive, it would blend in effortlessly with the rest of the objects, artefacts or texts that represent the previous 100 years of the museum’s work. This is, in material form, an acknowledgement of the past that has come to inform the record’s creation. The cover makes use of the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk—in reminiscence of its progressive past, which at the same time pointed to a neutral future. This seemed to be an ideal fit for the record’s title, in mirroring its own unique position in relation to posterity.