Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Through a rich selection of images, this artist’s book, published in two editions—gold and silver—explores the birth, life and death of Francesco Gennari’s work Vorrei perdermi e non trovarmi più, 2022, exhibited for the first time at the Ciaccia Levi Gallery in Paris.
This richly illustrated publication combines artwork, archival and process imagery, and includes an extended interview with the artist, as well as new essays by key thinkers in the fields of anthropology, philosophy, political economy and art history.
In the first monograph on the feminist conceptual artist collective Claire Fontaine, political theorist and somatic practitioner Anita Chari explores the artist’s theoretical and political innovations to illuminate a more haptic, embodied approach to the practice of critical theory.
Shahryar Nashat inserts his art in the pages of this new artist’s book, which takes the form of a catalogue-turned-manual: but instead of explaining its meaning, he strips it of its aura, flaunts its nature as an object and describes step-by-step how to create it.
Martin Heidegger, Glenn Gould, Jacques-Louis David, Cy Twombly, Paul Engelmann and Ludwig Wittgenstein: characters that Francesco Arena has chosen or rediscovered in multiple contexts over the time recur in this book. Ranging from philosophy, to music, to visual arts, they embrace the whole world of knowledge.
This first institutional monograph on the multimedia practice of artist and director Ali Cherri aims to highlight the themes and formal concerns running through his most recent, highly significant projects at GAMeC, Bergamo; Frac Bretagne, Rennes; Swiss Institute, New York; Biennale Arte 2022, Venice; and the National Gallery, London.
Concept by Vela Arbutina and Anna Franceschini
Edited by Attilia Fattori Franchini, Anna Franceschini, and Ilaria Gianni
Texts by Chiara Agradi, Mohamed Almusibli, Fabio Cherstich, Liv Cuniberti, Gioia Dal Molin, Bernardo De Souza, Vincenzo di Rosa, Attilia Fattori Franchini, Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, Ilaria Gianni, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Beniamino Marini, Nick Mauss, Giacomo Mercuriali, Alice Motard, Tabea Panizzi, Tobias Perse, Jennifer Teets, Roberta Tenconi, Jeppe Ugelvig, Joel Valabrega, Marianna Vecellio
Designed by Vela Arbutina
2026, English, softcover, 19 x 26 cm, 176 pages
ISBN 979-12-82771-02-3
Machines Wear Costumes is Anna Franceschini’s first monograph, bringing together works made between 2007 and 2025. Rather than a chronological account, the publication offers an in-depth look at the artist’s oeuvre through a specialized lexicon. This glossary is organized around six core entries—Animation, Body, Machine, Ghost, Desire, and Window—which are further articulated in subentries that refine their meaning in relation to the artist’s work. Newly commissioned texts by Mohamed Almusibli, Attilia Fattori Franchini, Ilaria Gianni, Ingrid Luquet-Gad, Jeppe Ugelvig, and Marianna Vecellio are expanded by a constellation of quotations from previously published texts to offer a composite yet coherent interpretation.
Indebted in structure to Walter Benjamin’s Das Passagen‑Werk, and in visual approach to Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, the book favors juxtaposition and recurrence over linear narrative, mirroring Franceschini’s own practice of repetition, rotation, and animation. By resisting a fixed reading order, the volume invites an open and recursive engagement, functioning as a “desiring machine,” activated anew through each act of looking and reading.
Machines Wear Costumes has been promoted by Kunstverein Gartenhaus and supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program (13th edition, 2024).
Photos: Nicola Gnesi