Akebia
Jochen Lempert
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2023, offset print (b/w ill.), 21 × 28.8 cm, English
Price: €150

Edition of 100 copies numbered and signed by the artist on a certificate, plus 13 artist’s proofs.

As the Latinization of the Japanese name akebi, “akebia” designates fives species of plants native to East Asia. These are climbing evergreen shrubs that have been used in many ways (decoration, medicine, craft), including for the consumption of its sweet, white fruit. Delicately placed at the center of the composition, the leaf appears in this work as in an herbarium, its familiar but inexhaustible form offered to the viewers for their contemplation. But a closer examination reveals a constellation of water droplets on the surface, as well as irregular edges – and we finally understand that the leaf is a photographic cut-out. Just for a moment, we mistook the reproduction for its original. What appeared to be a clear reference to the standards of scientific, botanical representation drifts off towards another domain.

#2023 #artistedition #jochenlempert #keijiban #photography
道具 / Tool
Batia Suter
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2022, four offset printed posters on 70 kg Araveal paper, folded kannon-ori style, and placed in a box covered with Satogami tobi paper (colour ill.), 13 × 31 × 2.5 cm (box), 48 × 30 cm (unfolded), English
Price: €111

Edition of 80 copies signed and numbered by the artist, plus 8 artist’s proofs.

道具 / Tool consists of a set of four printed images of forks (two made of silver, two of plastic). Dramatically enlarged and slightly deformed, the utensils stand against a black background, strongly affirming their presence—until they are folded and put back in their custom-made box.

As in some of her previous works, Batia Suter is dealing here with typology and objecthood. These four images—which the artist photographed from her own collection of absurd cutlery—look like samples from a kitchenware catalogue focusing as much on the common features of forks as on their potential deformities and eccentricities. Recalling Karl Blossfeldt’s close-up photographs of plants, they highlight the specificity and variety of forms hidden in ordinary things, as well as the strange, almost threatening nature of these “predatory” tools.

#2022 #artistedition #batiasuter #keijiban
Un jour sans pain* est un jour sans soleil
Ana Jotta
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2021, Set of two leporellos (colour & b/w ill.), cover leporello: 15.2 × 21 cm (folded), 66 × 21 cm (unfolded), inner leporello: 14.5 × 21 cm (folded), 191.1 × 21 cm (unfolded), English
Price: €400 (Out of stock)

Edition of 26 copies and 4 artist’s proofs, numbered and signed by the artist.

Although the title of this edition, Un jour sans pain* est un jour sans soleil [“A day without bread is a day without sun”], sounds like a typical French saying, it is simply a sentence glimpsed in a bakery where Ana Jotta used to go in Paris. But the asterisk complicates things a little: on the back of the leporello, the artist instructs us to read “pain” in the English, thus adding a sarcastic touch to this commercial motto.

The (absence of) sun and the umbrella, as well as the wallpaper designed for the presentation of the edition at Keijiban, can refer to the tsuyu, the rainy season during which they were exhibited, in the open air.

#2021 #anajotta #artistedition #keijiban
Halo
Jochen Lempert
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2021, hand-colored offset print on 215 kg Vent Nouveau V snow white paper (colour & b/w ill.), 20.5 × 14.6 cm, English
Price: €195 (Out of stock)

Edition of sixty copies numbered and signed by the artist on a certificate and twelve artist’s proofs.

Halo is a unique specimen in Jochen Lempert’s body of work. While the artist is known for his distinctive black and white analogue photographs, for this edition he also included colour. Obviously, this is a subtle, careful, and consistent shift. The photograph here is only partially hand-coloured, with a pale yellow that is perfectly in tune with the nuances of the grey.

#2021 #artistedition #jochenlempert #keijiban #photography
Secret Outlines: Versailles
Jacqueline Mesmaeker
Published by Keijiban, Kanazawa, 2020, leperello in slipcase (colour & b/w ill.), 14 × 10.3 cm (folded), 336 × 10.3 cm (unfolded), English
Price: €295 (Out of stock)

Secret Outlines: Versailles (1996–2020) is the facsimile reproduction of one of the eight variations of the Secret Outlines (1996) series in which Jacqueline Mesmaeker over her way into books through graphic interventions, collages, and cuttings. For this edition, published by Keijiban (Kanazawa) and printed by Cultura (Wetteren) on Gardapat 150g paper, the artist has added five original drawings made with Caran D’Ache sapphire blue pencil to each of the thirty signed and numbered copies.

More images of the associated exhibition can be seen here.

#2020 #artistedition #jacquelinemesmaeker #keijiban