Carvalho Bernau

Alexander Gutke

Brian Sholis writes in his contribution to this catalogue, “Gutke’s artworks place two ways of understanding analogue projection technology side by side: Exploded View examines what a projector is; Lighthouse demonstrates what a projector does.” We tried to look at the genre of the art catalogue in a similar way: What does it do? It displays the work of the artist, embedded in a supporting but neutral visual and material object environment. What is it? or, more open-mindedly, what is an art catalogue? Usually a large format publication, that prominently displays imagery of artworks.

In this case, these expectations are upended and conventions are subverted to draw attention to the phenotype of the art catalogue as a genre: The format is small, almost diminutive, and on first glance it appears to only contain text. Only upon more detailed inspection does the reader find that images are present – every left page is a fold-out in which the images are neatly tucked away.