FACES
MOUNTAINS WITH SUBTITLES
ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT FILMS
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
THE ENDLESS SUMMER
FIGHTING
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
VARGTIMMEN
CONTE DE PRINTEMPS

FACES

A BOOK OF 9 DRAWINGS OF FEMALE
ACTORS IN FILMS



24 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
SIGNED AND NUMBERED EDITION OF 100
FIRST EDITION 2010
12 EUROS / 16 DOLLARS
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Faces presents a series of watercolor portraits of female actors in films. As the marks of watercolor have solidified into visible traces of the passage of time on paper, the resulting image reveals a memory of the process. Derrida’s concept of cinema as “the art of allowing ghosts to come back” is interpreted here with watercolor acting as the medium through which ghosts are invited to the present. This process “presupposes a memory of the past that has never taken the form of the present” (Derrida), which is especially valid for film, a mere product of artifice. The images of Faces are both portraits and evocations of ghosts.

MOUNTAINS WITH SUBTITLES

A BOOK OF 10 DRAWINGS OF MOUNTAINS
WITH SUBTITLES



28 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
SIGNED AND NUMBERED EDITION OF 100
FIRST EDITION 2010
12 EUROS / 16 DOLLARS
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Basing the approach for this series of drawings on the ideas of interplay and chance, I invited a number of artists, curators, designers, musicians and journalists to submit screenshots or photos of mountains in films with subtitles. The ready-made juxtapositions of text and image that I received through e-mail and that I then translated into drawings on paper offer varying degrees of tension between what is said and what is shown. The subtitles range from the prosaic or descriptive to the obscure and metaphysical. From the interplay between text and image arises a complex reciprocal relationship between the ephemeral, intangible nature of language and the relative permanence of the mountain.

The source images for this series are from L’avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960), Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006), The Bucket List (Rob Reiner, 2007), Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001), The Silent Star (Kurt Maetzig, 1960), Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1950), and Twin Peaks (David Lynch, 1990). This project would not have been possible without the kind assistance of Raffael Doerig, Sebastian Haslauer, Mirak Jamal, Patrick Juchli, Markus Schoenfeld, Christian Walt, and Easton West.


ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT FILMS

A BOOK OF 19 DRAWINGS (WALL-RUBBINGS)
OF BUILDINGS IN FILMS



44 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
SIGNED AND NUMBERED EDITION OF 100
FIRST EDITION 2010
12 EUROS / 16 DOLLARS
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In this series of drawings, the play of light on buildings (or what appear as buildings) is extracted from screenshots taken from films. By projecting the images onto a wall and by the use of pencil and paper to create a wall rubbing of the architectural elements in the frame, architecture permeates the paper from both sides of the sheet: the front side of the sheet receives the shape and tonality of the projected building, while the back side connects to the wall and transmits a surface texture of a building that, in the process, becomes imprinted onto the paper. This process contributes actual light and stone to mere images of light and stone. All the non-architectural elements of the film frames are voided, yet the voids themselves frequently create visibility through negative space, which allows both the human element and narrative possibilites to enter the context.

Architecture Without Films presents both a process-based approach to image-making through appropriation and transformation, and a typological sequence of fragmented (cinematic) space. The source imagery is from Berlin Express (Jacques Tourneur, 1948), Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist, Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955), Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986), Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977), LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997), Play Time (Jacques Tati, 1967), and Sasom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly, Ingmar Bergman, 1961).

The title of the series is in reference to the catalogue of Bernard Rudofsky's 1964-65 exhibition Architecture Without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art. The typeface used on the cover was designed by Masayuki Sato in 2009.




I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE

A BOOK OF 22 DRAWINGS OF SCREEN-
SHOTS FROM THE FILM I WALKED WITH A
ZOMBIE (1943) BY JACQUES TOURNEUR


48 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
LIMITED NUMBERED EDITION OF 50
FIRST EDITION 2010
12 EUROS / 16 DOLLARS
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AVAILABLE AT MOTTO BERLIN
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In Jacques Tourneur’s film, the zombie is not an imminent threat, but a permanent reminder of a past that stays present, an undead memory. The horror, here, lies in how haunted a life can become, as opposed to horror being derived from shock effects and gore. It’s a slow-burner of a horror movie, full of symbols and hints that provide a glimpse into a world that remains incomprehensible, a world governed not by the laws of physics or logic, but by the tribal rites of voodoo, and above all by the magic of inventive, evocative filmmaking.

The series of watercolors in this book builds on the film’s premise of being followed, literally and figuratively: being haunted. The zombie, devoid of life, yet undead, lives with the other protagonists for the sole purpose of being a constant presence, like a disease, or a curse. The film’s ambivalent atmosphere (tropical yet sinister, light yet tense) and haunting imagery is reimagined using a wide spectrum of the diffuse effects and sharp edges of watercolor painting, in a sepia palette that returns us to the past, like a memory.

THE ENDLESS SUMMER

A BOOK OF 19 DRAWINGS OF SCREEN-
SHOTS FROM THE FILM THE ENDLESS
SUMMER (1966) BY BRUCE BROWN


40 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
FIRST EDITION 2009
SOLD OUT
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The film The Endless Summer follows two surfers on their quest for the perfect wave while sustaining a year-long Summer on a trip around the world.

This zine re-imagines The Endless Summer as a constant state of suspension in space. There is no mainland, no travelling, no beach, no waves, no movement, only a pervasive warmth. The surfers are mere two-dimensional shapes in a field of color, depicted in suspended moments not of surfing, but of either waiting or wiping out.

FIGHTING

A BOOK OF 11 DRAWINGS AND 1 TINTED
CLOSE-UP OF SCREENSHOTS OF FIGHTING
SCENES IN FILMS (1953-2004)


36 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
FIRST EDITION 2009
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Based on films of various eras and genres (from La Strada to The Bourne Supremacy), this series of drawings coalesces into one continuous, book-length/five-decade-long fighting scene. The zine’s drawings of man-on-man fighting are based on film frames from The Wild One (Laslo Benedek, 1953) with Marlon Brando as a motorcycle gang leader, Fellini’s La Strada (with Anthony Quinn as the Great Zampano, 1954), East of Eden (with James Dean, by Elia Kazan, 1954), the spaghetti western Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966), the headbanger mockumentary Fubar (Michael Dowse, 2002), and the slick action movie The Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004).

By imposing a uniform color scheme and omitting the original scenes’ backgrounds, the initially diverse imagery gains narrative cohesion. At the same time, the anonymous protagonists in their voided locations create an iconography of fighting that ranges from troubled men’s awkward shoving (Fubar) and clumsy fist fights (La Strada, The Wild One) through emotional, violent outbursts (East of Eden) and brute macho aggression (Django) to the precision of Matt Damon’s man-as-weapon in The Bourne Supremacy. Arranged in a non-chronological, non-hierarchical order, the drawings create a subjective iconographic compendium of male aggression, as well as a narrative of pure action; the whole story is about nothing but fighting, and fighting alone.


THE FRENCH CONNECTION

A BOOK OF 20 DRAWINGS OF SCREEN-
SHOTS FROM THE FILM THE FRENCH
CONNECTION (1971) BY WILLIAM FRIEDKIN


48 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
FIRST EDITION 2009
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This issue of Screenshots is concerned with only one scene: The car/elevated train chase, as reflected in Gene Hackman’s face. The book presents a series of portraits of Hackman’s cop on the hunt. The watercolors focus exclusively on Hackman’s facial expressions, while the actual car and the context of the chase remain strictly peripheral and undepicted. An homage to the power of acting (it is a scene free of gimmicks, quick cuts and other means of distraction), this series lays bare the visceral intensity and clear focus of Gene Hackman’s art.

VARGTIMMEN

A BOOK OF 17 DRAWINGS OF SCREEN-
SHOTS FROM THE FILM VARGTIMMEN
(THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, 1968) BY
INGMAR BERGMAN

40 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
FIRST EDITION 2009
SOLD OUT
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A FEW REMAINING COPIES AT MOTTO BERLIN


For Vargtimmen, the images from the film were selected in chronological intervals of five minutes. Bergman’s concern with character and composition and Sven Nyqvist’s brilliant black and white cinematography turn almost every frame into a striking portrait, which made the initially arbitrary five-minute interval an oddly effective device for finding relevant images for the book. The drawings are executed in a variety of approaches; some of the images are drawn relatively faithfully, whereas others are reduced, distorted or emphasized in one way or another, to suit the form and rhythm of the book. Foregoing a straight retelling of the film’s narrative, this deliberately and necessarily fragmented succession of portraits creates a pictorial sequence distantly parallel to the film.

CONTE DE PRINTEMPS

A BOOK OF 25 DRAWINGS OF SCREEN-
SHOTS FROM THE FILM CONTE DE
PRINTEMPS (A TALE OF SPRINGTIME, 1990)
BY ERIC ROHMER

56 PAGES, 8.25 X 5.75" (A5)
FIRST EDITION 2009
12 EUROS / 16 DOLLARS
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AVAILABLE AT MOTTO BERLIN
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In this first instalment of the Screenshots series, each image is a literal screenshot with an actual television or computer screen in the frame, partially obscured, a visual fragment. This book functions both as a self-reflective approach to the concept of the series and as an introduction to the serial publication experiment Screenshots as a whole.