-Richard Schlagman Art Book Awards celebrate the most exciting art, architecture and design titles published in the last year
– Three hundred books were submitted by arts publishers, university presses, museums and galleries from around the world
– Thirty titles have been shortlisted across six categories
Whitechapel Gallery and the Authors’ Club are delighted to announce an eclectic shortlist that showcases the most exciting concepts, subjects and designs in English-language arts publishing today. Thirty titles have been shortlisted for best book in six categories:
– contemporary art
– art history
– contemporary architecture
– architectural history
– contemporary design
– design history
The shortlist includes publishers from Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, UK and the USA. The winners will be announced at the London Art Book Fair at Whitechapel Gallery in September 2019 alongside two further awards celebrating the best Artist Book and best Book Design. The shortlist is:
BEST BOOK ON CONTEMPORARY ART
Tomma Abts (Art Institute of Chicago, Serpentine, Gallery, Yale University Press, Editors: James Rondeau, Lekha Hileman Waitoller)
Thomas Demand: The Complete Papers (Mack, Editor: Christy Lange, Design: Naomi Misuzaki)
David Goldblatt: Photographs 1948-2018 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, Editor: Rachel Kent, Design: Alex Torcutti)
Arthur Jafa: A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions (Serpentine Galleries, the Store X, Julia Stoschek Collection, and Koenig Books, Author: Arthur Jafa, Design: Osk Studio)
The Love of Painting. Genealogy of a Success Medium (Sternberg, Author: Isabelle Graw, Design: Surface)
Sovereign Words: Indigenous Art, Curation and Criticism (Valiz, Editor: Katya García-Antón, Design: Hans Gremmen)
BEST CONTRIBUTION TO ART HISTORY
Art in Hungary, 1956–1980 (Thames & Hudson, Editors: Edit Sasvári, Sándor Hornyik, Hedvig Turai, Design: Daly & Lyon)
The Central Collecting Point in Munich: A New Beginning for the Restitution and Protection of Art (Getty Publications, Design: Jim Drobka, Project Editors: Lauren Johnson, Mary Christian)
Conceptual Art in a Curatorial Perspective: Between Dematerialization and Documentation (Valiz, Author: Nathalie Zonnenberg,Design: Sam de Groot)
Dubuffet and the City: People, Place, and Urban Space (Hauser & Wirth, Editor: Jennifer Bernstein, Design: Mevis & van Deursen, with Marius Schwarz)
Nicholas Hilliard. Life of an Artist (Yale University Press, Author: Elizabeth Goldring)
BEST BOOK ON CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People (Vitra Design Museum, Editors: Jolanthe Kugler, Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, Design: Double Standards)
Elemental (Phaidon, Authors and Editors: Alejandro Aravena, Gonzalo Arteaga, Juan Cerda, Victor Oddo, Diego Torres, Design: Victor Oddo)
The Empire Remains Shop (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, Editor: Jesse Connuck, Design: An Endless Supply)
Hassan Fathy: Earth & Utopia (Laurence King, Authors: Salma Samar Damluji, Viola Bertini, Design: Blok Graphic)
Miroslav Sik: Analogue Old / New Architecture (Quart Architektur, Editor: Miroslav Šik , Design: Carla Gartmann)
BEST CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY
Archigram. The Book (Circa, Editors: Dennis Crompton, David Jenkins, Design: Dennis Crompton)
Drawing Architecture (Phaidon, Author: Helen Thomas, Design: Julia Hasting (cover), Hans Stofregen (book design))
Giedion and America: Repositioning the History of Modern Architecture (gta Verlag, ETH Zurich, Author: Reto Geiser, Design: Buero 146)
The Object of Zionism. The Architecture of Israel (Spector Books, Editor: Zvi Efrat, Design: Studio Matthias Görlich)
Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980 (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Editor: Stephanie Emerson, Design: Bruno Margreth, Martina Brassel)
BEST BOOK ON CONTEMPORARY DESIGN
Color Library. Research into Color Reproduction and Printing (JRP Ringier, Editors: Maximage – David Keshavjee, Guy Meldem, Julien Tavelli, Design: Maximage)
Kenya Hara: 100 Whites (Lars Mueller Publishers, Author: Kenya Hara, Design: Kenya Hara + Tomoko Nishi)
Naoto Fukazawa: Embodiment (Phaidon, Author: Naoto Fukazawa, Design: Asami Koga, Nana Fukasawa)
Renny Ramakers: Rethinking Design (Lars Mueller Publishers, Author: Aaron Betsky, Design: Irma Boom Office)
The Serving Library Annual (Roma Publications, Editors: Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Vincenzo Latronico, David Reinfurt)
BEST CONTRIBUTION TO DESIGN HISTORY
Alice Rawsthorn: Design as an Attitude (JRP Ringier, Editor: Clément Dirié, Design: Gavillet & Cie (Concept))
Camp: Notes on Fashion (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Author: Andrew Bolton)
The Playground Project (JRP Ringier with Bundeskunsthalle Bonn & Kunsthalle Zürich, Editor: Gabriela Burkhalter)
Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design (Vitra Design Museum, Editors: Mateo Kries, Amelie Klein, Alison J. Clarke, Design: Visual Fields, Bristol)
Chaired by Richard Schlagman, the panel of judges for the 2019 awards comprises the former director of the Whitechapel Gallery, Iwona Blazwick; architect Adam Caruso; critic, poet and Authors’ Club member Sue Hubbard; Turner Prize nominee artist Dexter Dalwood; art historian, curator and co-director of the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, Maja Fowkes; and design historian and writer, Emily King. The visual identity for the new awards has been designed by Astrid Stavro of Pentagram and the award itself is from leading contemporary designer Björn Dahlström.
Iwona Blazwick says: ‘The Richard Schlagman Art Book Awards reflects the urgent ideas and fascinating subjects being published on art, architecture and design today. The originality of research, rigorous scholarship and verve in writing style reflected in our shortlist is matched with beautiful design and outstanding production values. It’s going to be difficult to choose the winners!’
Richard Schlagman says: ‘I have spent the greater part of my working life in an endeavour to produce books on art and cultural subjects with a commitment to the highest standards of content and presentation, and I am delighted to chair a jury that is committed to finding and awarding the best in contemporary visual arts publishing. It was a pleasure as well as a challenge to review the great variety of submitted titles.’
Notes to Editors
Judges’ biographies
Richard Schlagman
Until October 2012, Richard Schlagman was the proprietor and Publisher of Phaidon Press, the world’s foremost publisher of books on the visual arts and culture. He acquired the Press in 1990 taking over the responsibility for resuscitating this eminent house that had, at that time, been in decline for a number of years. He collaborated with many of the world’s leading artists, architects, photographers, designers, chefs and authors. Prior to that, he started a consumer electronics business, while in his teens, and subsequently floated it on the London Stock Exchange. In 2009, he acquired Cahiers du cinéma, a French publication of legendary status.
Iwona Blazwick
Director of the Whitechapel Gallery since 2001, Iwona Blazwick is a curator, critic and lecturer. She was formerly at Tate Modern and London’s ICA as well as working as an independent curator in Europe and Japan. Blazwick is series editor of Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Documents of Contemporary Art. She has written monographs and articles on many contemporary artists and published extensively on themes and movements in modern and contemporary art, exhibition histories and art institutions.
Sue Hubbard
Sue Hubbard is a freelance art critic, novelist, award-winning poet, lecturer and broadcaster. Her poems have been read on Radio 3 and Radio 4 and she has contributed to many arts programmes including Kaleidoscope, Poetry Please, Night Waves and The Verb. Sue Hubbard’s latest novel Rainsongs, published by Duckworth and Overlook Press NY. She is a longstanding member of the Authors’ Club.
Adam Caruso
Adam Caruso was born in Montreal, studied architecture at McGill University and established his practice with Peter St John in 1990. Caruso St John Architects has offices in London and Zurich and has built throughout Europe, undertaking projects that range in scale from major urban developments and cultural projects to intricate interventions in complex historic settings. The practice first rose to prominence after winning the competition for the New Art Gallery Walsall (2000) and was awarded the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, for the Newport Street Gallery. Alongside its cultural work, the practice has assembled a portfolio of projects that intervene in a city’s fabric at the scale of an urban quarter. Projects recently completed include the Lycée Hôtelier de Lille and the headquarters for the Bremer Landesbank in Bremen, with work underway on substantial development in London, Antwerp, Cologne, Hamburg, Munich and Zurich. Since 2011 Adam Caruso has been Professor of Architecture and Construction at the ETH Zurich.
Dexter Dalwood
Dexter Dalwood lives and works in London. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010 for his first major solo survey exhibition at Tate St Ives, which travelled to FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France and CAC Malaga, Spain. Recent solo exhibitions include: Propaganda Painting, Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong 2016; London Paintings, Simon Lee Gallery, London 2015 and Kunsthaus Centre d’art Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland (2013). His work was recently featured in The Painting Show, presented by British Council Touring CAC Vilnius Lithuania; Fighting History, Tate Britain, London, UK (2015); The Venice Syndrome – The Grandeur and Fall in the Art of Venice, Gammel Holtegaard, Denmark (2014) and Not Being Attentive I Notice Everything: Robert Walser and the Visual Arts, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland (2014). He is currently also a research Professor in contemporary art at Bath Spa University. In February 2019 he will have a solo show at Simon Lee Gallery titled What is Really Happening.
Maja Fowkes
Maja Fowkes is an art historian, curator and co-director of the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art (an independent research centre focussing on the art history of Central Europe and contemporary ecological practices) and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies UCL. Her curatorial projects include the Anthropocene Experimental Reading Room, the Danube River School, the conference on Vegetal Mediations, as well as the exhibition Walking without Footprints. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Green Bloc: Neo-Avant-Garde and Ecology under Socialism, a book on Central and Eastern European Art Since 1950, as well as numerous chapters and journal articles on topics such as performative re-enactments, de-schooling the art curriculum and the ecological entanglements of deviant democracy. She is a regular contributor to magazines and artist publications, has given numerous guest lectures and conference papers and is a founding member of the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Central European University. She is the joint head of the Getty Foundation funded collective research project Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History
Emily King
Emily King is a London-based design historian who concentrates on writing and curating. Her recent projects include co-conceiving the conference Design and Empire (working title) with Prem Krishnamurthy, which took place in Liverpool in November 2017, and chairing Bauhaus – 100 years on, an event exploring the legacy of the Bauhaus hosted by Frieze Academy in June this year. Her books include Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography (2005) and M to M to M/M Paris (2012), a monograph of the French graphic design team, which she is currently updating to coincide with their major retrospective next year. Alongside her more substantial writing and curating projects, Emily contributes to an eclectic selection of international magazines including Frieze, Apartamento and the Harvard Design Review.
The Authors’ Club
Founded in 1891 to provide a place where writers could meet and talk, the Authors’ Club is one of Britain’s oldest literary institutions, and at the same time one of its most modern, inclusive and welcoming. Within the magnificent premises of the National Liberal Club in Whitehall, we provide a home from home for writers, editors, agents and all those professionally engaged with literature and the publishing industry. The Club is a space where members can gather for informal drinks, dinner, and to socialise, work or study.
About Whitechapel Gallery
For over a century the Whitechapel Gallery has premiered world class artists from modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Frida Kahlo to contemporaries such as Sophie Calle, Lucian Freud, Gilbert & George and Mark Wallinger. With beautiful galleries, exhibitions, artist commissions, collection displays, historic archives, education resources, inspiring art courses, dining room and bookshop, the Gallery is open all year round, so there is always something free to see. It is a touchstone for contemporary art internationally, plays a central role in London’s cultural landscape and is pivotal to the continued growth of the world’s most vibrant contemporary art quarter.
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