Tierlein
Volker Pfüller

Named as one of the most beautiful German books, 2009, by Stiftung Buchkunst.
Printed as tricolour linocuts.

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Lubok in Mexiko
Various artists

Released at the same named exhibition at Museo National de la Estampa, Mexico City, 2012.
Designed by Andrej Loll.
Four colour offset with black and white linocut-printed pages. I particularly like this juxtaposition.

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Trapped in White Tiger Sanctum
Christoph Ruckhäberle

Text by Helmut A Müller.
Released in association with the same named exhibition, Hospitalhof, Stuttgart, 2010.
Printed from polymer plates.

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Sag einfach Ja oder Nein!
Katja Schwalenberg

Printed as linocuts, 2009.

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Kombi
Franziska Holstein

Released with the same named solo show, Galerie Christian Ehrentraut, Berlin, 2012.
Printed offset. Folded sheets held by an elastic band.

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f/stop – The History of Now

Catalogue for the 5th f/stop Festival for Photography, Leipzig, 2012.
Designed by IG Grafik / Altevers / Detlefson / Fiedler / Koehn, Berlin with texts by Stephanie Siegel, Christin Krause, Thilo Scheffler, a.o.
Four colour offset.

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Lubok is an independent Leipzig publisher of (mainly) artists’ books. Particularly beautiful — in look, feel, even their smell — is their series of original linocut books printed by Thomas Siemon of the print workshop, carpe plumbum.

Henriette Weber at Lubok Verlag’s office in Leipzig.

Lubok 9
Christoph Ruckhäberle (Ed)

Linocuts by painting students at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, 2010.
Printed from the original linocut plates by Thomas Siemon on a Präsident-cylinder letterpress.

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I think there are a few people finding it tedious now: me telling them how much I enjoy Leipzig. You can stay in an arts precinct called Plagwitz and the 15 minute bike ride into Zentrum (the city centre) takes you past lakes, along canals and through dense woods — with a good coffee on the bridge at the halfway point.
Maybe the closest place Australia has to this is Adelaide.

Another reason for liking it is that it’s a centre for book design and printing — which is why I need to get back there. Thomas Siemon from Edition Carpe Plumbum with Jo Zarth, a graphic designer / photographer / chinoiserie enthusiast who lives in Leipzig.

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One of the attractions of Chinabrenner is its refreshing elusiveness when it comes to being categorised. Is it art, food or design? Is it an installation or somewhere good to eat? One catalogue calls what they do ‘artistic cooking events’, which is probably the closest I’ve read so far, to a reasonably concise descriptor.

Thomas Wrobel (the one who cooks) and Jo Zarth (the one who designs) spent some (a lot) of time in China researching the idea of  ‘street as kitchen’ then brought their findings back to Germany to become artistic cooking events in Leipzig, Berlin, Essen, Milan —and I suspect more places than this.

In essence what you see, hear, taste, smell, feel—is a traditional Chinese street kitchen, picked up, and transported to you by two people with a deep fascination for a particular culture. In the near future I hope to return to Leipzig and visit Thomas Wrobel’s new but as yet unopened restaurant.

More, in much more depth, on Chinabrenner soon. The ultimate aim is to publish on paper. Blogs don’t do it for some things.

Last 6 photographs courtesy of Chinabrenner and Zarthcore

Thomas Wrobel

Jo Zarth

GDR architecture. The Post building that follows this one is empty.

Jo Zarth’s Small Business Reconstructed catalogue.
More catalogue pictures on the zarthcore site.


Last 3 photographs courtesy of Zarthcore

Like the title type.

I was introduced to Jan Hartmann from Studio Hartensteiner who are the organisers for Designers’ Open, 28–30 October 2011. Afterwards I kept seeing these beautiful blue and black posters all over the city, combined in interesting ways.

Library of Halle 14, Spinnerei.

Leipzig is the place for publishing, book art, book design and printing. One of the reasons I need to return.

Halle 14

The type.

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