«Hobby und Wahrheit» (Hobby and Truth) presents over 700 pages of photos, drawings and texts from the artist’s picture and data archive. The material has been edited, the layout set: now all that is missing are the funds for printing. Please support our project. As a thank you, you will receive our promotional products or one of the first hot-off-the-press copies of the book.
What is it about?
On a stage, set with grey-coloured artificial flowers, stands an oversized model of a book. From its painted front cover the artist looks out at us in a contemplative pose. The German title ’Hobby und Wahrheit’ on the spine of the book promise delight as well as profounder insights. This setting is the stage for a performance and at the same time is an autonomous sculpture and prelude to the promotional campaign for the planned publication of the same name.
The simultaneity of the differing levels of meaning and approaches typifies the creativity of Niklaus Rüegg as much as it does his engagement with the book. It thus suggests that this publication not only gives a glimpse into the artistic work of the artist but at the same time, through the systematic unorthodox use of the archive material collected over the last ten years, it will become an artist’s book, an autonomous work in its own right.
The publication «Hobby und Wahrheit» (Hobby and Truth) will be published by edition fink and is being developed in close collaboration with the artist, the publisher and the designer Jonas Vögeli. Arranged according to a modular grid with much consideration and no less happenstance, unannotated images from the artist’s archive are spread over several hundred small-format pages. Reference images meet sketches, drawings find themselves next to images of works and documentary photographs, with words or pieces of text occasionally appearing alongside.
This light-hearted hotchpotch following stringent arrangement invites you to linger and allows you to delve in to the depths and shallows of the work: a pocket atlas of art in general and of the creative work of Niklaus Rüegg in particular.
