Bekannte - Unbekannte [Known - Unknown]

Rheinsberg, Raffael

Berlin: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, 1980. First edition. Oblong 4to, 10 ½ x 6 ¼ in. [108] pp, tapebound into photographically illustrated wraps. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Text in German. With texts by Janos Frecot, Julie Schauer, Walter Aue, and Ulrich Bischoff.

Artist's book published in conjunction with the 1980 exhibition at NBK, which documents the bricks which the artist drew from the ruins of buildings in Berlin and installed in the gallery. The initial images are of the archeological sites themselves, but soon give way to a sustained passage of full bleed black and white photographs, one brick per page. The eroded shapes of the bricks, along with the symbols, marks, and maker's marks on the bricks, their original significance now lost in time, become an opaque index to the destruction of the buildings, a projection of a sort of ghostly afterlife of 20th century labor.

At the close of the exhibition, the bricks were returned to their original sites.

Very good with some rubbing and fading to wraps, some fading to spine, and a slight bump to upper tip.

An excellent and overlooked artists’ book documenting the destruction of the urban landscape, and the lost history of the built environment.