Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Pavilion by multimedia artist Samson Young revisits THINK, the film created by Charles and Ray Eames for the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Reflecting on its legacy, the work explores the optimism and anxieties surrounding early database cinema in an age when generative AI has exponentially accelerated data patterning.
Nella prima monografia dedicata al collettivo femminista di arte concettuale Claire Fontaine, la teorica politica e operatrice somatica Anita Chari approfondisce le innovazioni concettuali e artistiche del collettivo, proponendo una prospettiva più aptica e incarnata nei confronti della teoria critica.
Full Rotation brings together texts and images to trace the forces that draw bodies beyond themselves. Moving between ecstasy, animal life, and light, the book explores heightened sensation, altered perception, and dissolution, where the human gives way to other forms of existence and boundaries between the physical, psychic, and cosmic begin to blur.
This is the first monograph on the influential American choreographer and dancer Trajal Harrell. In an entertaining, far-reaching conversation with curator Daniel Baumann, Harrell covers all of his choreographies and performances, as well as his influences, successes, and failures, addressing how he transforms and transgresses the history of dance.
Maxiprocesso brings together 360 photographs by Maria D. Rapicavoli, one for each of the archival folders documenting the largest mafia trial in history, held in Palermo from 1986 to 1987. The volume explores the relationship between memory, justice, and social responsibility, examining the material element of a landmark event in contemporary Italian history.
This book offers the first comprehensive overview of Anna Franceschini’s practice. Organized around recurring themes, it explores animation, the body, machines, ghosts, desire, and windows through commissioned contributions and selected writings. Its associative structure reflects her interest in repetition, transformation, and unstable images.
Edited by Béatrice Grenier
Texts by Philippe Azoury, Alenda Y. Chang, Béatrice Grenier, Ingrid Luquet-gad,
Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel
Co-published by Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
Designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio
2024, English, 16.8 x 24 cm, 274 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-66-9
The book is the first monograph of the work of Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel, published in conjunction with the release of the duo’s second feature-length film, titled Eat the Night . Formal experimentation characterises the work of emerging French film-making duo Poggi & Vinel, who employ the languages of video games, archives, and film-making to hybridise genres and break aesthetic conventions. There is ambiguity over the register within which the duo’s work should be situated: is it film, musical score, game or animation?
Edited by Béatrice Grenier, considered as an object the book is a formulation of an archive or a record of the duo’s work, encompassing the variety of mediums with which Poggi & Vinel engage, in addition to the overarching question of memory as explored in their practice. Three essays by Alenda Y. Chang, Béatrice Grenier and Ingrid Luquet-gad offer in-depth analyses of the ways in which the work of the duo constitutes a form of preservation through the use and reuse of video-game imagery. Identifying key works and turning points, the book provides a commentary on their particular, ambiguous positioning, somewhere between cinema-video and practice-gaming, and helps to explain why this positioning is critical vis-à-vis contemporary art today. In an interview with Philippe Azoury, the film-makers reflect on the role of community-building both within and outside their films, considering specifically the relationship between the digital characters and the ’real’ characters, and the importance of gaming in acknowledging and understanding other subjectivities.
Each film selected for the book is transformed into a photo essay, calling into question the nature of the image—the significance it has when moving or still. Spiral-bound, the book is punctuated by an infinity of potential covers: the object itself has no beginning or end. One can pick off where one left off, or enter the narrative at any point—a formal attempt to transcend the nature of the age-old medium.
Photos: Lorenzo Mason Studio