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Manfred Naescher
Still
Book Launch
6/29/14

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2Distance Over Time is pleased toannounce Still, a new book ofwatercolors by Manfred Naescher.
Still is a handmade limited edition of 50,
published on June 29th, 2014 in conjunction
with Manfred Naescher’s solo exhibition Stillund Laut at Galerie Hollabolla in Eschen,
Liechtenstein, May 18th to July 13th, 2014.
Still contains the ten watercolors of the series of the same name by Manfed
Naescher. The watercolors are created in the traditon of the allegorical stilllife. They depict flowers and house plants rendered in vibrant primary colors
in pots and vases in earth tones. The still lifes are not created through direct
observation of inanimate objects, but instead sourced from action movies:
Terminator (James Cameron, 1984), Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988), Enterthe Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973) and The Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang
Yimou, 2006). The plants are mute witnesses of the violent scenes performedin front of them. Merely decorative elements, often only seen for split seconds,
they remain irrelevant to the plot of the movie and fleeting in their visualpresence. By isolating these insignificant, inconsequential backgroundelements from their context and positioning them center stage, their fleeting
nature is inverted: Action becomes still life. With color as an abstract
allegorical means, elements of the action genre like suspense, explosions,blood, chaos and noise become overlaid with and reflected by the still life.
The titles of the drawings are in reference to On Kawara’s date paintings. Eachpicture is named after the point of time in the film at which its source image
occurs, plus the year of the film’s release, e.g., 12.31, 1988 for an image derived
from the movie Die Hard.

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9Manfred Naescher (1973, Liechtenstein) studied at the Emily Carr Universityof Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada, and at the Rhode Island School of
Design in Providence, USA. He has participated in group exhibitions
internationally (among others in Salon für Kunstbuch at Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany, 2010; This Is My Education at Art in General
Gallery, New York, 2010; Publicity at Shibaura House, Tokyo, 2012). He has
self-published numerous artist books that were distributed internationally.
The artist book Still is published in conjunction with Still und Laut, his firstsolo exhibition in Liechtenstein (May 18-July 13, 2014).
Manfred Naescher lives and works in Berlin.

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10June 2014, Berlin

Introducing Distance Over TimeThe Communication of Ideas
Through Various Formats
A conversation between the artist Manfred Naescher
and the publisher James Mckinnon on Mckinnon’s
new publishing venture Distance Over Time.
MN - Your background is in graphic design.

What is it that attracted you to publishing?
JM -Five years ago I was at a Dieter Roth exhibition in Hamburg. On a dimly lit table
at the end of the show was a collection of his artist books in various sizes andshapes, small editions of beautifully printed books, each with its own styleof binding and subject matter, numbered from 1 to 20. I felt a magnetic attraction
to each artist book, I wanted to hold them, smell them and flip through every
page. Each book was an experience; a bit like an array of small chocolates ina box. To me, the fact that they were books created in small editions by the artist
pushed them into a realm between original artwork and duplication. I felt as if
it was a creative language I understood, something that I was intimately familiar
with through my own earlier experiences in publication design.

With art being distributed as a book,a lot of people can own it and in a
way nobody owns it.
As time went by, I began to seek out more artist books meant for distribution.
Yoko Ono published Grapefruit, a book of instructions that guided its readers
to experience conceptual art through movement and the creation of objects.
In these works by Dieter Roth and Yoko Ono, I found a place that was not only
about the creation of art, but also about a certain kind of interaction. Art seems

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11pure and disconnected from money for a moment as it hangs in a gallery
or exhibition space. With art being distributed as a book, a lot of people canown it and in a way nobody owns it. It’s an economical way to have art as partof the everyday.

MN - I can see from the book you made with me that you are interested

in this convergence of art and book. Is this book indicative of thedirection you will be taking as a publisher? In other words:
What kinds of books are you planning to publish
JM -I would like Distance Over Time to be a catalyst for the convergence of book making, art objects, emotional design and conceptual approaches. In a sense I would
like to publish many kinds of things that can be labeled as a book. For Still, I reallywanted to not only create a catalogue for a gallery exhibition, I wanted to create anart object that could be distributed like a book. With the folded pages of Still, when
they are standing upright with the marbled paper as a floor, they evoke a gallery
space in which each plate is showcased in a curated order - kind of like an exhibitionat the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, marbled floors and hanging art. The watercolor
images converge with the form of the book and its three dimensional behavior tocreate a certain experience. The coming projects will similarly take on varied forms
that bring together content and book structure.

I wanted to create an art object that
could be distributed like a book.
I would really like to try to push the boundaries of what a publishing company can
do a bit further. I would like to extend working relationships with artists to develop
a series of works in an attempt to extend and enrich the collaborative relationshipbetween the designer/publisher and artist, with the goal of distributing ideas andcreative work in an affordable way.
One project I am currently working on is a drawing machine. This project will be athree way collaboration between the publisher, an artist and a hardware programmer: An experimental working model of publishing ideas that bring together technology and art, and, as in this case, that take on the form of conceptual, interactive,
handmade pieces.

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12My goal is to set certain parameters where creativity can thrive and be distributed:
Can the publisher have an active role in shaping creative content? Aside from books
what can be made? Can my publishing become an art practice?

MN - Content-wise, what are the themes or ideas you are interested in forthe books you are publishing?
JM -I’m interested in distribution as a practice through which art can move from one
point to another: Ideas or art that can be shared in a sort of unownable sense..
For the first 3 books, my work was focused on interesting content and creativity to
produce unique, affordable, small editions of books. As I move forward I would liketo extend this practice. My aim will be to push the relationship between the publisher and the artist in a fluid collaborative model where both roles become interchangeable. Where publishing and distribution become creative art forms. I would
like to move beyond the idea of a publisher publishing books, to publish objects thatare unique, affordable and in small editions. As a book is an object, so is a robotic
arm that makes art. My goal will be to create objects of conceptual meaning, objects
that ask to be shared, and ultimately, to allow the distribution of ideas.
As I write this, I’m thinking about Thelonious Monk. It was said that he could neverplay the same song exactly the same way as he played it before. I find this really
poetic. In life we have routines and things we do in the same way every day. But what
if you could never do your routines in the same way? Things would become impossible. My goal with Distance Over Time is to play out the same methods each time
an object is created, but to never do it the same way. To create a system, but to notrepeat the vocabulary in the system.
Obviously, my main objective would be to build upon what I do and grow, but to do it
in a way where I’m constantly learning. New techniques, writing styles, methodologies, ways of seeing and failure. A process that evolves not from fear of dying out or
growing old, but from curiosity.

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13MN - In the last few years you have worked mainly on online projects,

in the digital realm. I’m wondering about this switch. Why Books?
Why not a web portal for art and photography, or e-books?
If accessibility is a key concern then the web seems like the morelogical platform, with books your audience is automatically limited.
How do you reconcile this?
JM - I’ve worked in the digital industry for 10 years. I feel as though our current culture
heavily relies on digital media. But what is happening is that we are forgetting how
to feel while we are surrounded by so much ephemeral information.
It’s a culture that makes us miss the value of holding things in our hands. We haveforgotten the value in seeing and feeling something in its physical form. Instead of aphotocopied zine, we have tumblr. Instead of a flea market, we have ebay. Authenticity has been homogenized in our culture. In the digital world, we don’t even call people “people”, we call them users. That’s weird. I think it’s pretty sick. Touch screensremove us from texture and keyboards create sloppy handwriting. In a way we are
more invested in ephemeral devices and digital platforms than we are in physicalhuman relationships.

It’s about the accessibility of our own
feelings and thoughts.
A book can be held, it can be smelled, the paper can be felt, and no matter how fast
you flip through the pages, there is always something new to see. My goal isn’t tochange the world, or put a book in the hand of every smartphone user. The accessibility I write about isn’t about getting more people to pick up my products. It’s about
the accessibility of our feelings and thoughts.
In our current culture, we have documented more of our daily lives than ever before.
Almost every object you can buy - from a phone to a watch, a car to a refrigerator has a camera in or on it. We see everything. Most of it is digitally, stored on a hard
drive. I’ve never felt that this is an example of living photography.

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14We demand better and higher resolution screens, faster memory and expanded hard
drives. A better faster stronger digital product that draws us further away fromreality to a simulated reality. As this happens there is a kind of emotional
decapitation, between our minds and our bodies. Our bodies become heavy,
we lose empathy.

I’m interested in publishing as a creative
practice with the focus of communicatingideas through various formats.
Photography has a great need for printed existence. We are surrounded by digital
images every day. We see so many pictures on small screens and on big screens,but never think about them again. Sure, we can save them to our computers,
but this isn’t an existence for a photograph, when it can’t be physically handled,
flipped through in a book, hung on a wall. Physical existence is enriching. Digital
photo galleries are great, but have you ever traveled to another city to see that
actual photo?
Digital distribution brings artificial engagement. I want the few people who engage
with my work to connect to it and feel something. Maybe the fact that it’s somethingso limited reinforces how special it is. When something is rare, people tend to covet
it, but also they tend to share it as well, in a way that proves its existence and rarity.
With a digital platform, anyone - any “user” - can have it for free, it ultimately loses
meaning.

MN -In an earlier conversation you mentioned John Baldessari and his
influence on your thinking about books and distribution. You’ve
touched on this in your replies above, but could you elaborate a biton this idea of accessibility? What are concrete steps you will takeas a publisher towards this?

JM -Through his career, John Baldessari created a wide variety of artist books. His main
goal with the creation of these books was to find an alternative way to distribute theartist’s work and ideas in a cheap way. He believed in the idea that books are owned
by no one, because books can be shared, distributed, sold and given away. If an idea

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15is contained in a book it has much more influence and power than art in a gallery
space. He also used books as a way to control how a viewer sees and understands
his art and he also made the viewer an active participant in this exchange.
John Baldessari believes that if an artist calls something art, it is art. This gives
the artist the freedom to do what he chooses, because we live in such a subjective
world. In the way I publish, I want to be subjective as well. A publisher that publishes
books can just be a salesman. I’m interested in publishing as a creative practicewith the focus of communicating ideas through various formats. Whatever that may
be labeled as. Concretely, I will be publishing in various approaches because ideas
can be distributed as small edition books, but also as, say, drawing machines.
Intermedia, a term created by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins, is used to describe an artform without any boundaries between art and life, therefore no boundaries between
art forms. The idea behind intermedia is that our current culture calls for artforms
that can pull from several roots of media to create hybrids. Like art that is made ofof 10% music, 25% architecture, 12% drawing, 18% shoemaking, 30% painting and5% smell.
How would publishing with an intermediate approach work? How would the objects/

BALDESSARI SINGS LEWITT (1972)

ideas/books function?

“Since no form is intrinsicallysuperior to another, the artist
may use any form, from an
expression of words(written or spoken)
to physical reality, equally. ”
Sol Lewitt (1969)
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D I STA N C E OV E R T I M EDistance Over Time
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www.distovertime.com
hello@distovertime.com

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