BOOK: Artists’ Books-A Success Story (Exhibition)

The bookstore Walther König is a publishing bookstore for art and art history, architecture, applied arts, design, fashion, photography, film and art theory as well as for exhibition catalogs based in Cologne. After starting out in Cologne in 1963, with an apprenticeship as a bookseller in the bookstore at the cathedral and an attempt to gain a foothold in New York in 1968, Walther König founded the bookstore in Cologne in 1969 with little capital . Thanks to his good network in the Cologne art scene, which flourished at the end of the 1960s, his bookstore became a meeting point for artists

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Museum Angewandte Kunst Archive

In the 54 years of their existence, numerous bookstores have opened beyond the original store in Cologne at Ehrenstraße 4. Over 4,000 titles, including more than 1,000 artists’ books, have been published. The approach of the publisher and bookseller Walther König is characterized by the fact that many meanwhile famous artists were provided with a forum to present the book as art for the first time and later received ongoing support in their development. The Museum Angewandte Kunst and its Department of Book Art and Graphics are now dedicating the exhibition “Artists’ Books – A Success Story. Der Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König” to this special alliance of art, the book, and creative publishing for the first time: a publisher’s portrait along the lines of artists’ books. The question of Walther König’s publishing strategies, which since the 1960s have contributed decisively to the establishment of important art movements and have sensitized the public to the phenomenon of artists’ books, form an essential aspect of the exhibition. The exhibition allow two perspectives: One is the alphabetical listing of the more than 300 artists. Here it becomes clear that the publisher recognized the potential of many of today’s well-known artistic positions in advance and promoted them in book form. The other perspective focuses on the publishing chronology of the more than 1,000 exhibited artists’ books including their special editions, also taking into account the variations in names. Visitors encounter the art objects on the shelves and in glass cabinets of PHILIPP MAINZER OFFICE FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN. A reading table by Michael Riedel also invites visitors to browse through various publications.  The bookstore was founded in Cologne in 1969 by Walther König (born 1939) and developed into one of the world’s leading establishments for art-related literature and a place where artists can exchange ideas. In addition to its original location, the bookstore now has branches all over Germany, in Vienna, London, and Milan, most of which are located in museums or near cultural venues. Thus, places have been created where those who want to learn about art and those who produce art can meet.

In 1968 König and his brother Kasper also founded a publishing company: Verlag Gebrüder König Köln-New York. Over a long period, the publishing house was under the management of Walther König and Jutta Linthe as “Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König” or as “Oktagon”, extended by “Alberta Press” or “Koenig Books”, to the personal union “Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König” from 2019. Since its foundation, the publishing house has published a large number of artists, including Thomas Bayrle, Hanne Darboven, Hans Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Gilbert and George, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter or Michael Riedel. OBJEKTE, benutzen by Franz Erhard Walther and House of Dust by Alison Knowles are the first two artists’ books published by the publishing company. OBJEKTE, benutzen is also the first book in the exhibition and reflects the transatlantic operation of the publishing house and its international dimension during its origins: Franz Erhard Walther, for example, transmitted written instructions from New York to Cologne, where they were elaborately implemented. The artist’s book Findet mich das Glück by Peter Fischli and David Weiss from 2003, which became the best-selling artist’s book ever with a print run of more than 300,000 copies, is one of the publisher’s greatest successes. It is available for purchase at the museum’s box office in German, English, Italian, and Japanese. The emergence of artists’ books in the 1960s is a consequence of modernism and its replacement of art genres in favor of an expansion of art forms in the sense of an open concept of art. The U.S. art theorist and curator Lucy R. Lippard formulated the following definition of the artist’s book: „It’s an artist book, if an artist made it, or if an artist says it is”. For her, the artist’s book is a new, autonomous contribution to art history. The publishing company of the Walther König bookstore follows this understanding. It should be mentioned here that in the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s there were no publishing houses and publishing personalities, such as in France Tériade or Albert Skira. For this reason, Walther König had the desire to publish artists in series thus establishing lasting concepts of reception of their artistic work in the form of artists’ books. The foundation and location of his bookstores, which succeeded the publishing company, offered the artists’ books a combination of production, publication, trade and reception in the circle of well-stocked specialist literature on art and thus a corresponding positioning and establishment in the art world. And so it can be said that Walther König’s publishing strategy contributed significantly to promoting the medium of the book as an autonomous and mobile art space and to promoting the possibility of the book as an art object in all its facets of descriptive material, pictoriality or binding. Respect for artistic positions and their individual approaches is expressed not least – or perhaps above all and irrespective of the name under which the publisher operates – in the fact that the publishing house has always refrained from creating any logograms. Giving precedence to art in the form of books and, in return, renouncing the common practice of appropriating and imposing one’s own, ever-present hallmark on what is being published, must be regarded as the essential motivation for the economic anti-strategy of this publishing philosophy and its central figure, Walther König.

Photo: Artist books success program. The publisher of the bookstore Walther König, © Museum of Applied Arts, Courtesy Museum Angewandte Kunst

Info: Curator: Dr. Eva Linhart, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Schaumainkai 17, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Duration: 7/5-28/8/2022, Days & Hours: Tue, Thu-Fri 12:00-18:00, Wed 12:00-22:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.museumangewandtekunst.de/