Research Catalog

Title

Winkelbuch : Bestandskatalog, 2011-2014 / Ulrich Wagner.

Author

Wagner, Ulrich, 1959-

Publication

[Germany] : [publisher not identified], [2014?]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Geil, Joachim, 1970-

Description

90 pages : color illustrations; 28 cm

Uniform Title

Winkelbücher

Alternative Title

• Winkelbücher
• Bestandskatalog, 2011-2014

Subjects

• Wagner, Ulrich, 1959-
• Artists' books
• Concentration camp inmates
• National socialism in art
• Wagner, Ulrich, 1959- > Catalogs
• Triangle in art
• Field guides
• Catalogs
• Artists' books > Catalogs
• Symbolism of colors in art
• Concentration camp inmates > Identification

Genre/Form

• Catalogs.
• Field guides.

Note

• Cover title.
• "The triangle has had a secure place in Ulrich Wagner's system of symbols since the 1990s. Now it has taken on a whole new dimension: in his new book project, the triangle has become the shape of his image carrier. This is unusual -- particularly when the format is a book. As a result of linking shape and contents, medium and signs, one arrives at a surprising means of perception. Books, since antiquity the medium of knowledge and language, are usually experienced by turning pages and reading. Here what is important is not a progression of letters, but the progression of geometric shapes, although the complete image is concealed while the pages are being turned. Only parts of the individual forms, which as always, Wagner has assembled as grids, are visible. These overlapping forms run through the book as part of an overall grid, an imaginary blueprint, a blueprint that can only be seen when the book is completely open and unfolded. Wagner's using the triangle, with its simple geometric beauty, as the new basis for his works has to do with an old theme: the question of how a shape becomes a symbol, how a visual form, in extreme cases one that is even considered beautiful, can suddenly, in a specific context or when used in a particular way, jerk one out of pleasurable, quiet contemplation and cause an intense association. For Ulrich Wagner, this association has to do with the industrial killing machine of the Nazis: their concentration death camps. While earlier works had to do with the floorplans of prisoner barracks, or sensitive individual buildings such as the disinfection barracks, gas chambers or the crematorium in Auschwitz-Birkenau, now the hidden association has to do with the identity badges of camp inmates. These only emerge as the basic color and shape of the book, they do not become the focal point, something that would make the work politically motivated memory art ... The systematic murder is expressed as blue, green, purple, yellow, pink, brown and black angles. The familiar symbolism of color has been replaced by the tragic one of Nazi terror. Even white triangles, not used in the camps, turn out to have been used by the Gestapo in Cologne, in the prison in Cologne-Deutz, to distinguish its own prisoners from those of the camps. All of these angles are encountered Ulrich Wagner's book in the pure form of equilateral triangles. The triangle becomes an identity marker and yet remains a definite shape. No clarifications are made, but the shape, outwardly unchanged, has become charged with meaning."-- From the introductory text by Joachim Geil.

Language (note)

• Text in German and English.

Call Number

MDG (Wagner) 20-898

OCLC

1112352865

Author

Wagner, Ulrich, 1959-

Title

Winkelbuch : Bestandskatalog, 2011-2014 / Ulrich Wagner.

Publisher

[Germany] : [publisher not identified], [2014?]

Type of Content

still image

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Language

Text in German and English.

Added Author

Geil, Joachim, 1970-

Research Call Number

MDG (Wagner) 20-898