Text and image play together in new artist's book

In the new artist's book entitled Paul Brand - Arnfinn Bø-Rygg- Stein Rønning Ka publishers introduces a new concept in the work of three well-established contributors to the Norwegian art scene. The book, that comes in two different editions, is a work of art in itself.

The book is the artwork

The book Paul Brand - Arnfinn Bø-Rygg - Stein Rønning is a new way of presenting art and aesthetic theory. Two artists and one author each present images and text, which are original to the book and only exist in and for the book. This is not artwork reproduced to fit into a book; the book is artistic expression itself. Three different contributors give three different suggestions/answers to the question: what is a picture? The pictures point to the text, the texts back to the pictures. But the text does not label the pictures, does not force them into the framework of the language. Text and image touch, collide, comment, destruct and reconstruct themselves and each other by moving in and out of each other’s spheres. The texts and the images reflect on their own genesis and confront the issue of “what is a book?”, posing simultaneously the question of all art itself - “what is art”.

The contributors

Paul Brand (1941) was born in Switzerland and is now professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He has worked for several years with representations of ‘the magic square'. The magic square shown here consists of the numbers 1 to 49 arranged so that each number in each line of seven lines makes 175. All the lines added together makes 1225, itself the square of 35. Brand has made 29 variations on this, for many unexplainable, phenomena.

Stein Rønning (1953) is professor at The Oslo International Academy of the Arts. His work in the book is cubic volumes, which are combined in different ways and photographed. In addition he has taken photographs of textures on plates, paper etc. These are combined and changed in different ways by using an image processing software.

Arnfinn Bø-Rygg (1944) is professor in art and aesthetics at The University of Stavanger and the University of Oslo. He has published several books and articles on the theory of art and music. His essay reflects upon concepts such as ‘art’, ‘beauty’ and ‘picture’ and poses the dilemma of the role of art in an (over-) aesthetic world.

More about the book

The book appears in two separate versions in February 2007. In addition to the regular edition, the artists and the author will sign a special edition limited to 50 copies. Each of these 50 books will contain an original signed and numbered work by each of the artists.

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Title: Paul Brand - Arnfinn Bø-Rygg - Stein Rønning
Authors: Paul Brand (ill.), Arnfinn Bø-Rygg (tekst), Stein Rønning (ill.)
Translator: Lucie Fæste
Publication: February 2007
Binding: Sewn wrappers
Language: German-Norwegian bilingual text
Number of pages: 160
ISBN (10): 8281470046
ISBN (13): 9788281470040
Price: NOK. 299,-
NB! There is a special limited edition of the book, available directly from Ka publisher.

Read sample from text
In Norwegian