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The book art magazine "Buchkunstwelten" is a free magazine published at irregular intervals in pdf format. The download is free. Further use requires the consent of the author.
The magazine "Buchkunstwelten" reports on books shown on the homepages www.gerd-j-wunderer.de, www.contemporary-bookart.de and www.buchkunstwelten.de. It is a magazine for book collectors and other people with an affinity for books.
Gerd J. Wunderer
Issue 04/2024 "Funfair"
The funfair is always a place of longing for children. My new artist's book is called "Kirmes".
This time, the book presentation of my artist's book "Kirmes" took place in Hamburg at the Museum der Arbeit. It was a great pleasure for me to watch how a slight rotation of the carousel enchanted the people at my stand and a smile appeared on their faces. Many thanks to all the visitors for the many conversations, to the organizers of BuchDruckKunst 2024 at the Museum der Arbeit for the smooth running of the fair, and to NDR for filming my stand for Hamburg Journal at the beginning of the fair.
As always, you can read more about the new artist's book in the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten" (free download).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Link: To the mail address
Issue 05/2023 "The dance".
"The dance".
Once again I was able to complete a new work. I have been interested in dance ever since I learned to dance. Translating musical poetry into movement is the fascinating thing about dance. Anyone who dances has to be completely in the now. This is the only way to merge with and surrender to the music.
Dance makes it possible to reproduce every human experience, i.e. to transform it into movement.
Gerd J. Wunderer
As always, you can read more about the new artist's book in the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten" (free download).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Link: To the mail address
Issue 04/2023 " TO BE".
"TO BE"
This time my new artist's book "TO BE" came about through an outside suggestion. It is closely related to my participation in the 2nd INTERNATIONAL ARTIST'S BOOK TRIENNIAL in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2000. Kestutis Vasiliunas asked me if I would like to apply for the 10th International Artist's Book Triennial Vilnius 2024. An international jury will select the works. Kestutis Vasiliunas is professor of graphic arts at the Vilnius Academy of Art and director of "Bokartas", independent curator of the "International Artist's Book Triennial Vilnius". The theme of the exhibition was "To Be", an exciting title for an artist's book.
As always, you can read more about and about the new artist's book in the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten" (free download).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten".
link: To the mail address
Issue 03/2023 " The Barque of Life ".
„The Barque of Life“.
It was a visit to the harbour city of Genoa that gave me the idea of creating an artist's book with the title "The Barque of Life".
The brilliant idea came to me in a café in Via Garibaldi. There, in an adjoining room, hung a small barque made of brass. This work gave me the inspiration for the new book title. Life in all ist its ups and downs was repeatedly defined as a defined as a journey, in my case as a sea voyage.
As always, you can read more about and about the new artist's book in the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten" (free download).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten".
link: To the mail address
Issue 02/2023 "Longing for spring".
"Longing for Spring".
It's that time again, a new artist's book has been created in my studio.
It has become a symbol for the coming spring. It contains the longing waiting for the first messengers of spring. These are the first flowers making their way through the snow cover, the first insects flying through the air, the migratory birds flying north again, for they all sense the change much earlier than we do. They sense that things are looking up again. What hope for us humans and for all of nature.
As always, you can read more about and about the new artist's book in the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten" (free download).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten".
Issue 01/2023 "Lebenslinien * Franziska de Paly * 1879 - 1964"
"Lifelines - Franziska de Paly - 1879-1964"
Once again an extensive artistic work has come to its final conclusion. In mid-June 2022, I had the idea to deal with the exciting life of my grandmother. This examination led me to look at her life year by year and to place it in the respective political environment, or rather, which inventions and discoveries were made during this time.
During the artistic work, in addition to the artist's book and the film for the book, a completely different, completely new, special idea crystallised. I wanted to take up a completely different artistic dimension. Paper sculptures were to become the basis for a film in the form of a concertante, digital opera, arranged in a modern paper theatre. The basis for the plot and the stage design is the artist's book Lebenslinien that was created. Which can also be experienced three-dimensionally through its transformation into paper sculptures.
The title of my new artist's book is: "Lifelines - Franziska de Paly - 1879-1964".
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Issue 03/2022 "Menschengesang"
"Menschengesang", is my new artist book.
Why do humans sing? This is the initial question for my new artist's book "Menschengesang".
With my artistic work I have tried to approach this question. The answers are probably as different as there are people. Some are almost the same. Nevertheless, human song moves the hearts of the performers as well as those of the listeners.
Walk with me a little way down this path into the realm of music.
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Issue 03/2022 "La Danza".
La Danza
"La Danza", the dance, is the title of my new artist's book. "La Danza" reminds me of a bar in Baveno that used to be right on the shore of Lake Maggiore.
My wife and I danced there very passionately and enjoyed the play of lights on the waves of the lake.
Get involved in a book of dance.
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Issue 12/2021 "Der Landmann Lenz".
The Landman Lenz
Again I have completed another artist's book. This time a very special work in terms of the creation process. Especially because in this work the production and development was turned upside down. The title only came into being in the course of the work. This time there was no story at the beginning of the work, this artist's book originated from an artistic experiment and had time to develop and grow.
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Link: To the mail address
Issue 07/2021
"Out of the past, into the present and into the future".
Out of the past, into the present and into the future
Each page in this artist's book represents a moment in a person's life. Colourful, multi-layered and full of life. Flip through the book once at an exhibition and ask yourself what colour scheme the page three pages back had, or dare to predict what colour scheme will show up in the next page.
With this book, time and the impossibility of transcending time is visualised. As in all artists' books, here again a possibility has been created to make time tangible. Each turn of a page allows us to experience time and the passing of time and to experience its presence. Each piece of the present requires a new interpretation: where am I standing, where is the wind of life blowing me, where am I going. All of these are also mystical questions from the very beginning of thought.
Man is a mystical being, despite all rationality. With each turn of a book page, we can let our thoughts fly, endlessly or just for a brief moment. The images thus become signs of the time we perceive for the moment we turn the page. At the same time, with every turn of a page, more and more of the past becomes visible.
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Link: To the mail address
Issue 05/2021 "Over the Year"
Over the year
Every year in spring and autumn, starlings gather on an old telephone line after their outward flight and on their return flight.
It is a natural spectacle every time they come or go. When they come, the birds are for me the first harbingers of spring, bringing with them confidence in a new year, that soon nature will awaken to new life.
In autumn, when they fly back, melancholy prevails before the approaching winter.
This interplay of coming and going inspired me to write an artist's book about starlings.
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Issue 03/2021 "The Unicorn Book"
The Unicorn Book
The unicorn, a mythical creature that is always perceived as existing in our cultural circle. But does a unicorn still exist, or did one ever exist?
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Issue 03/2021 "Love
Too little love!
How long has it been?
Once I left.
These three artist's books from 2016 and 2020 presented in the latest issue of Buchkunstwelten were created through an artist collaboration between Eckhard Koenig (Berlin) and Gerd J. Wunderer (Augsburg).
Link: Download the free magazine "Buchkunstwelten"
Link: To the mail address
Issue 02/2020 Small Book Art Collection (SBAC)
"The Way * Zämmagchööra * Ligiom * Connected" and
"Alemannic Walser Epic"
"The Way * Zämmagchööra * Ligiom * Connected" and "Alemannen-Walser Epic".
The two laser-printed artist's books also have a unique character in terms of artistic design. The format is regulated to the size of half an A4 page, divided lengthwise. The book is designed as a loose-leaf sequence with different artistic sheets. The sheets are not bound, which is usually the case with my artist's books. Instead, the SBAC books, like my artist books, are held together with a ribbon. This binding technique is still used in the Asian region, in addition to the binding technique we are familiar with.
"The Way * Zämmagchööra * Ligiom * Connected"
It was 22.03.1784 when an avalanche went down on the Vanatsch. Five men from the village of Cavorgia were buried. One of the avalanche victims was my great-great-great-grandfather. This accident happened 238 years ago and was the basis for an artist's book about my family. The story I have written is, in its first part, a literary fiction that takes historical facts into account, but is not based on any evidence.
Alemannic Walser epic
This book is an epic poem about the two tribal peoples of my family, the Alemanni and the Walser. It is a contemplation that covers a period of almost 2000 years. In this epic, the historical development of both peoples is shown. An attempt is made here to revive the oral tradition, which was part of Alemannic historiography for a long time.
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Issue 01/2020
"The Way * Zämmagchööra * Ligiom * Connected"
"The Way * Zämmagchööra * Ligiom * Connected"
I begin our journey through time around 260 AD and illuminate the historical path of the Alemanni and how they became the Walsers. At the same time, I look at the family history of the Pali, Paly, de Paly family, how it might have evolved over the centuries.
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Issue 01/2018 Meditatio
Meditatio - Reflection
... "Where there is no real impulse, there is no art. If artistic form does not succeed in upsetting the mind of the observer, and if it does not force him to think differently, it is not up-to-date"... Antonie Tapies
This book was written after extensive reading of the book "Overcoming the Fear of Life" by Prof. Dr. Dr. Eugen Biser. In his examination of theological questions, Eugen Biser knows how to make the reader rethink his own faith. It was an enrichment for me to deal with his work.
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Issue 09/2017 Memento mori
Death is everywhere. We will not escape it. This theme has once again become a vanitas project for me, which I have approached on a completely different level than before.
Memento Mori, the confrontation with death, one's own death, is not only artistically a very exciting question that one can ask oneself, must ask oneself. I have tried to write down my thoughts and feelings in a poem and represent them artistically in monotypes.
Do we, just because we are mortal, now have to go in sackcloth and ashes, moping about this prospect? Must we be depressed because, despite all our efforts, we will not succeed in prolonging our lives even by a minute?
No, for me, just the opposite is the case. Because we are mortal, the time we have left is all the more precious, far too precious to waste.
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Issue 02/2016 Christian Koans
At the beginning of March 2015, I attended a lecture that touched me deeply. Suddenly the direction was clear. The lecture was given by Father Anselm Grün. The theme of the evening was "Therapeutic Religion". In the course of his lecture, he mentioned the Christian koan, which needs to be moved in the heart and examined from all sides.
So this time it was to be sacred book art. This form of book art is hardly to be found any more. In the past, it was the basis for the transmission of faith. The theme of my new book was now clear. Koans, doctrines, with at first glance contradictory statements.
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Issue 05/2015 Contemplation
Different sized cloths were to form the basis for the book. The carpet fragment book is a quite extraordinary book-artistic work. Fragments, parts of a former whole are either worthless because the other part has been broken, burnt, disintegrated or destroyed. Or the fragment becomes even more valuable because only this one fragment remains. So it gains in importance, it shows what a loss it would be to bear if this last part were also destroyed. Fragments have begun to dematerialise and this should sharpen our act of seeing. The fragments are supposed to cause a reflection of our own perception. The nothingness, the emptiness is meant to foster in the viewer the desire to engage with oneself and fill the viewer's emptiness with one's own inner imagined images.
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Issue 12/2013 The circus comes, the circus goes.
The circus has always had a special charisma for me. There is the flair of an unknown, special way of life. Circus is a transnational model of life, a world model, if you will. The danger that the artists expose themselves to, having the courage to tackle seemingly impossible things, to transcend the boundaries of the everyday, all this is part of the fascination of the circus.
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Issue 01/2013 Comedy in Art
Comedy in art
Comedy in book art
The turn!
The turning point?
From the serious to the cheerful? A fundamental change in my mode of expression, my direction of work?
No, but only a conscious expansion of my artistic spectrum.
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Issue 11/2011 Dance of Death
Even if we reject death socially as far as we can. Inevitably it will strike us, even though in our culture we have placed a taboo on death. Death does not count, only life. But death, the last secret we will experience, but which is gladly repressed, is part of our lives.
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Issue 03/2011 Vanitas, transience, carpet of life or a carpet book.
In the carpet, in this book, in every living being, transience is invisibly woven, interwoven, despite all its beauty. In its conception, this book was designed to be quite ephemeral. It will disintegrate in 50, 100 or 200 years and this is part of the artistic concept.
Transience has always been a theme in art. Perhaps it is this piece of melancholy, this combination of "heaviness" and precisely the "courage" to bear this heaviness, to endure it.
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Issue 05/2010 Lacrima
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Issue 12/2009 Everyone is king, everyone is fool
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Issue 01/2009 Battaglia di Adua 1896
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Issue 11/2008
The little king with the black hat (or "Changing encounters").
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Issue 10/2008 Requiescat in pace
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Issue 08/2007 Il mare (An ode to the sea)
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Issue 10/2007 Lioba
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