Royal Book Lodge Published by Hatje Cantz. By John C. Welchman. Thirty years of collaboration and collectivity from the European artist’s book network Renowned art historian John C. Welchman provides the first ever monograph on the Royal Book Lodge (RBL), an international network of artists that emerged in the late 1980s in Berlin, Paris and Marseille, initially spearheaded by the artists Juli Susin and Véronique Bourgoin. Specializing in artists’ books, the Lodge is famous for the vast scope of its activities: its numerous collaborators over the years have included Raisa Aid, Kai Althoff, Abel Auer, Linda Bilda, André Butzer, matali crasset, Dorota Jurczak, Bruce Kalberg, Jochen Lempert, Jonathan Meese, Roberto Ohrt, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades and Gianfranco Sanguinetti, among others. This substantial monograph, researched over a three-year period, explores the central themes of the Royal Book Lodge, such as biographical construction, fiction, migration and political violence, and also examines its Situationist antecedents.
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