Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
Over the last ten years, Raphael Hefti has created an astonishingly body of work consisting of sculptures and installations, performance and “art-in-public-spaces.” The first comprehensive monograph is published on the occasion of his major exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel.
Between 1998 and 1999, the London-based art collective BANK operated the Fax-Bak Service. The group’s members proof-read and copy-edited more than 300 press releases by galleries. The publication is the most comprehensive record of this notorious project.
In the Villa Santo Sospir, Jean Cocteau conceived his pictorial work through accumulation, inspired by Greek mythology and the Mediterranean landscape. Architecture permeates the subjects of Mauro Restiffe from a viewpoint that amplifies and reverberates the simple historical record.
Oh mio cagnetto, is the artist’s first book of writings, conceived as an artwork. It is a collection of 81 little poems that revolve around the missed and mourned figure of a puppy. It intentionally plays on the ambiguity of its nature, as both a book distributed in conventional ways and an art object.
When she started writing the Corona Tales, Chus Martínez had been weighing how people and the media were addressing the outbreak of the virus as an unprecedented disaster. One possible contribution, as curator and writer, would be to write a short story a day…
Edited by Melanie Bühler
Contributions by Marie Angeletti, Karen Archey, Ute Meta Bauer, Melanie Bühler, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Harry Burke, Ann Demeester, Clémence Lollia Hilaire, Frima Fox Hofrichter, Andrea Fraser, Simon Fujiwara, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Alex Kitnick, Lynne Kouassi, Erik van Lieshout, Lloyd Corporation, Sven Lütticken, Daniel Morgenthaler, Marlie Mul, Becket MWN, Grace Ndiritu, D’Ette Nogle, Ahmet Öğüt, Ima-Abasi Okon, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, María Inés Plaza Lazo, Bea Schlingelhoff, Hito Steyerl, Juan Uribe, Dena Yago
Designed by Sabo Day
Co-published with Frans Hals Museum
2022, English, softcover, 21 x 29,7 cm, 288 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-10-2
We live in a moment in which institutions, including those central to the art world, are facing a surge of public scrutiny. Propelled by social media, profound questions about how institutions operate—whether structurally, politically, or financially—have become an increasingly prominent part of public life and discourse in recent years.
In this context, The Art of Critique revisits the artistic practice of institutional critique to ask what it means today, and to consider its ability to respond to the urgent social, political, and economic issues of our time. Taking works by Tracey Emin, Andrea Fraser, and Sarah Lucas in the collection of the Frans Hals Museum as a departure point, The Art of Critique uses a feminist approach to broaden and challenge traditional art historical definitions of institutional critique. These expanded forms of critique function as precursors to the practices of the contemporary artists presented as part of this project. Collectively, the contemporary works shed a new light on the legacy of institutional critique while addressing structural issues as wide-ranging as labor practices in the creative industry, city development, gender inequality, and the intertwined histories of capitalism and colonialism.
The publication documents the long-term project at the Frans Hals Museum (2019–22)—a symposium, Color Critique (chapter one); an exhibition, Image Power (chapter two: Image Critique); and artist commissions (chapter three: Structure Critique)—together with artworks, conversations, and newly commissioned and translated essays.
The publication has been generously supported by Outset Contemporary Art Fund Netherlands and VriendenLoterij.
