For the Sale of a Single Poem Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten […]
Perec – On Writing
Can I measure some of the road I have travelled? Have I achieved some of the aims that I set myself, if I ever really did one day set myself aims ? Can I say today that I am what I wanted to be in the old days? I don’t ask myself whether the world in which I live answers my aspirations, for as soon as I’ve answered no, I shan’t have the impression of having progressed any further. But does the life I lead in it correspond to what I wanted, to what I expected?
– Georges Perec in Species of Space and Other Pieces, Edited and Translated with an Introduction by John Sturrock, Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, Penguin Books, 1997.
Perec – On Writing
To begin with, it all seems simple: I wanted to write, and I’ve written. By dint of writing, I’ve become a writer, for myself alone first of all and for a long time, and today for others. In principle, I no longer have any need to justify myself (either in my own eyes or in the eyes of others). I’m a writer, that’s an acknowledged fact , a datum, self-evident, a definition. I can write or not write, I can go for several weeks or several months without writing, or write ‘well’ or ‘badly’, that alters nothing, it doesn’t make my activity as a writer into a parallel or complementary activity. I do nothing else but write (except earn the time to write), I don’t know how to do anything else … I write in order to live and live in order to write …
– Georges Perec in Species of Space and Other Pieces, Edited and Translated with an Introduction by John Sturrock, Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics, Penguin Books, 1997.
“Writing is a delicious agony.” — Art of Quotation
“Writing is a delicious agony.” — Gwendolyn Brooks, writer, poet, teacher, Pulitzer Prize for poetry, 1950
flâneur — Liminal Narratives
In airport, we looked at how Augé’s non-places are maybe not so ‘non’. They are places not merely of circulation, communication and consumption but creativity too. This suggests perhaps a further liminal characteristic of non-places – their identity is not merely singular but multiple; and these identities blur. It is a view proposed by Peter Merriman in […]
Bowie : Station to Station — Travel Between The Pages
This week, New York City transit riders have been lining up to purchase special edition David Bowie MetroCards. The city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has teamed up with Spotify to offer five different options each celebrating the late artist’s varied personas. The limited edition of 250,000 MetroCards is only available at vending machines in Manhattan subway […]
Markus Kircher – Book Artist (Salzburg, Austria)
By Marcus D. Niski
A love of books and a love of creating art have inspired Salzburg book artist Markus Kircher to bring together a major selection of his book art works currently on display in the glorious traditional framed window of the Raiffeisen Bank located at the corner of Alter Markt 8 and Residenzplatz in the centre of Salzburg’s Altstadt.
Drawing upon a selection of 50 hand-painted and collaged books that began as blank books found in such eclectic places as India, Thailand and the local flea markets of Salzburg – as well as many hand-bound books made by the artist himself – the collection represents a form of retrospective of 25 years of Markus’ work as a book artist.
Indeed, one of Markus’ personal favorites also on display is a Goa travel book that was created on his first half-year journey to India; a book that takes him back to his imagination and artistic reflections of his encounters and impressions of India.
Recently, Markus also completed a major book art masterwork known as THE FAT BOOK – a stunning 756 page collection of unique images hand painted over the course of 3 years into an enormous beautifully bound old leather ledger book that he came across by accident in a second hand store in Vienna.
While Markus’ inspirations for his book art images have come from far and wide, his love of New York and his own hometown of Salzburg have provided much artistic resonance in the various images he creates in his painting and collaging. Like all artists, it’s difficult to pin down the inspirations given by exact locations and vistas; it more about impressions and “new views of old known places”, as Markus explains.
As an art form, Markus continues to explore and push new boundaries in his love of book art and the types and forms of books that he makes use of to paint and collage in.
While his book art collection is currently on display in Salzburg’s Altstadt, images of THE FAT BOOK will also be published as a 100-page catalogue by Salzburg’s Artbook Verlag http://www.artbook.at/ in November 2018.
Having visited Markus’ Salzburg atelier on many occasions and viewed the progress of THE FAT BOOK to its final fruition, it is very exciting to anticipate the publication of images from THE FAT BOOK that will no doubt delight and impress lovers of book art not just in Salzburg, Austria but in many parts of the world where book art and book artists continue to pursue this most passionate form of creative endeavor.
Visit Markus’ website at: www.markuskircher.net
Interview and Story by Marcus D. Niski © 2018
Book Art Images as Created by Markus Kircher © 2018
Photography by Marcus D. Niski © 2018
always… brutalism — .documenting.the.obvious
Place and memory
The memorable is that which can be dreamed about a place.
– Michel de Certeau, ‘Walking in The City’ in The Practice of Everyday Life
Admiralspalast – Art Nouveau / Jugendstil — See in Berlin
A presentation of Admiralspalast – a theathre built in eclectic Art Nouveau / Jugendstil style
via Admiralspalast – Art Nouveau / Jugendstil — See in Berlin
Naked Cities Journal 
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