Opening & Talk with Birte Kreft (Stiftung Buchkunst), Katharina Müller (Austrian Film Museum), Anne König (Spector Books), and Malin Gewinner, designer of the award-winning book How to Do Things with VALIE EXPORT (Spector Books)
Every year, the Stiftung Buchkunst selects the best-designed books—and has been doing so for 60 years. The 25 publications chosen are exemplary in their design, concept, and craftsmanship. They showcase a wide range of creative and production possibilities, as well as important trends and movements in German book production.
For the second time, the Stiftung Buchkunst presents the award-winning books at the GfZK.
The award-winning book How to Do Things with VALIE EXPORT (Spector Books) will be presented at the opening.
Statement of the jury:
This VALIE EXPORT retrospective is as expressive and striking as her work was radical and confrontational. Strident block lettering fills the typographical black-and-white cover; from there, we plunge headlong into the world of VALIE EXPORT’s film-making. In this genre as elsewhere, the artist, who rejected her father’s and husband’s names in an act of liberation, examined questions of identity from a feminist perspective. Emblazoned on the cover flap, in similarly outsized letters, is the statement: “The naked body is the message, transformation is the goal, an affront is what is on offer.” For this authoritative study, the editors invited various authors to reflect on the individual works, contextualise them and consider their political potential.
The book’s design is as punchy as its subject matter. The carefully chosen paper nods to the cinematic theme, as do the illustrations, which feature rounded corners suggestive of strips of film. Our judges praised the “bold and refreshing layout with its refined details”, noting, among other things, the unusual page-numbering concept. The densely set matter creates a close atmosphere that’s complemented by the unorthodox chapter openers.
All in black and white, this is a title with a very consistent and thoroughly compelling design concept. As the judges put it: “From the spectacular beginning to the intriguing grid to the delightful barcode integration on the back, it’s a book that’s just great fun to read.”
At that point, no one could know that it would be one of the last appraisals of the great VALIE EXPORT during her lifetime. She died in May 2026, just before her 86th birthday and a little less than a year after the book came out.
