Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Strata compiles 37 conversations with artists whose work has made a significant contribution to the Italian and international art scene since 2000. This book is the personal account of a number of encounters, friendships, and professional relationships that Vincenzo de Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini have nurtured over the past twenty years.
Pardon Façade documents the artistic output of Luca Monterastelli, showcasing almost all of the sculptures and installations that he produced between 2011 and 2022. Across four chapters—corresponding to four solo shows that he staged in Milan, Otegem, Antwerp, and Naples—the publication provides the first overview of the artist’s work.
More than half a century after its premiere, Yvonne Rainer, in collaboration with choreographer and dancer Emily Coates, directed the 2019 revival of her 1965 performance Parts of Some Sextets. This book poses questions about the trajectories of artworks, performers, and audiences, all while tracing the life—and afterlife—of a dance.
How does technology organize life? This book documents and reflects on the exhibition Proof of Stake: Technological Claims at Kunstverein in Hamburg, curated by Simon Denny and Bettina Steinbrügge. It brings together a unique group of artists and scholars who investigate the technological apparatuses and power relations of organized life.
This artist’s first monograph brings together sketches, documentation and installation shots, as well as an in-depth analysis of her practice. It highlights her process of making art, from the conception of an idea to the finished work, and from the deconstruction and re-assembling of her characters’ identities to the relentless creation of new worlds.
Published on the occasion of the first exhibition in Italy by Jenna Gribbon, staged at the Collezione Maramotti, Mirages showcases a wealth of images that highlight the fluid, sensual output of this artist who, in repeatedly portraying her wife, the musician Mackenzie Scott (aka TORRES), explores the implications inherent in seeing and being seen.
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