Christoph Schiffertl: Books on Books

With publications by Rodney Graham, Barbara Bloom, Olaf Nicolai, Nina Beier and Marie Lund, Mariana Castillo Deball, Alejandro Cesarco, Continuous Project, Jonathan Monk, Rosalind Nashashibi, Derek Sullivan, Pierre Leguillon, Paul Chan, Melissa Dubbin / Aaron S. Davidson, Dani Gal, Dora Garcia, Wade Guyton, Nick Mauss and Ken Okiishi, Michael Riedel, Allora & Calzadilla, Darren Bader, Pablo Bronstein, Maria Eichhorn, Sherrie Levine, Allan Ruppersberg, Oscar Tuazon, Ian Wallace, et al.


In conjunction with the New York Art Book Fair, the exhibition Books on Books offers an insight into Christoph Schifferli’s collection of artists’ books. The exhibition examines both the image of books and their representation in printed format. Installed so that viewers may page through and examine the works, the installation brings together three presentations of printed matter: the book as memory or documentation, as an image of itself, and as a representation of artwork.

Christoph Schifferli is a collector of photography and artists’ books. An important part of his collection is devoted to photographs related to cinema, many of which were featured in the publication Paper Dreams: The Lost of Art Hollywood Still Photography (2008, published by Steidl). In 2001, Schifferli co-edited the book The Japanese Box, a re-edition published by Steidl featuring the avant-garde magazine Provoke, originally published in Tokyo between 1968 and 1969.