Bernhard Cella has an interest in current forms of visual art, which shift modes of production and distribution. Temporary settings mirror real services. In 2007 he founded the “Salon für Buchkunst” in Vienna, “an enterprise as artwork.” According to Cella it functions as “a kind of model-space on a 1:1 scale, in which changing relationships among objects, people and artworks can unfold being entirely non-economical.”
„Have you recently published an art book without ISBN?“ For his Leipzig project Cella is going to show an idiosyncratic collection of NO-ISBN, books without an ISBN number, he got from various authors as a respond to his open call in Internet. Such books are difficult to come by, because their publishers don’t have recourse to the dominant distribution channels. For the first time it will be presented at the Leipzig book fair. During this fair the start of the manifold project will be marked by a six hours reading-performance of Leipzig based artists.
Supported by: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur
Exhibition “Bernhard Cella. Salon für Kunstbuch. An enterprise as artwork” is part of a Module “The Museum as Business?”, which is part of a years programme “A contract for art?”. This module is dedicated to the business activities of the museum such as the bookshop, hotel and café. Artists, including Bernhard Cella (bookshop), Jun Yang and Christine Hill (hotel space) and Apolonija Šušteršič (café) are each respectively faced with a set of functional, financial, social and aesthetic tasks, as well as with functions or functionality, existing forms of use and financial models and subsequently respond by developing alternative concepts for doing business.
