Project Room 1 / Project Room 2

Self-Shelf: private (artists’) book collections made public.

“The formation of a library is a creative and cultural act, and collections of books—whether read or not—are conduits for self-definition.”


S P I N O R A M A and Quotes about Books from Books about Books are part of the ongoing exhibition series Self-Shelf: private (artists’) book collections made public, curated by Jae Kyung Kim (einBuch.haus).

Many people have their own criteria for collecting books—especially artists, curators, and designers from the artist book scene. Self-Shelf is a longterm, irregular but continuous curatorial program that explores private book collections through evolving thematic lenses. The series continues to expand over time, encompassing topics such as books as curated archives, print-on-demand publications, wooden book covers, artworks in newspaper format, blank books, and more. Each theme proposes a new way of engaging with books—not merely as vessels of knowledge, but as conceptual, material, and artistic objects. To present these private bookshelves as a temporary library, einBuch.haus thoughtfully employs its exhibition architecture to frame each collection in dialogue with its specific theme. This approach enables an in-depth exploration of individual collections and offers insight into how books operate both as carriers of meaning and as artworks within their respective thematic contexts.

einBuch.haus is a project gallery based in Berlin. The central exhibition ethos is to showcase a book in the form of an exhibition (in German: “Ein Buch in Form einer Ausstellung”) thereby transferring the form of a book into three-dimensional spaces. The exhibition programme features international artists and designers whose work responds to the medium of artists’ books. Starting from the content and material production of a book, einBuch.haus collaborates with the artists to develop the exhibition into various media and presentations. With an interdisciplinary approach, the programme highlights and enhances both the visual and tactile aspects of the reading experience. Since 2022, einBuch.haus has also been operating as a publishing house and publishing exhibitions in book format.

einbuch.haus
@einbuch.haus

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S P I N O R A M A

Project Room 1

S P I N O R A M A is the first exhibition dedicated to the book spine, a crucial yet often overlooked element of book design. With over 100 spines on display from various genres, this exhibition highlights the spine’s role as more than just a structural feature. While most books spend their lives on a shelf with only their spines visible, their design and creative potential are rarely explored. Historically, spines have been undervalued in both design and production, treated as utilitarian spaces for basic information— author, title, and publisher. Designers like Jost Hochuli and Jan Tschichold, however, argued that the spine is a reader’s first encounter with the book and carries subtle signals about its content and form. This exhibition challenges the traditional view of the spine as purely functional. Examples include book series where multiple spines create a single image, or spines that present unexpected information, turning a utilitarian space into a site for creativity.


S P I N O R A M A invites viewers to see the spine as the backbone not only of the book’s structure but also its narrative and artistic identity. The exhibition is curated by Aslak Gurholt and Fraser Muggeridge. The project has previously been exhibited at London Centre for Book Arts (5 July–17 August 2024), Gent Art Book Fair (3-4 May 2025) and einBuch.haus (16 June-5 July 2025). The exhibition was not seen as an end of a project, but the beginning of further investigation of the book spine. Since then new findings and contributions have been added to an expanding spine archive.


Aslak Gurholt is a graphic designer, artist, author, and curator based in Oslo, Norway. His practice primarily focuses on books and printed matter, exhibitions, and collaborations with cultural institutions. Collecting, referencing, and remixing are important aspects of much of his work.

@aslakgurholt

Fraser Muggeridge is a typographic designer based in London. Throughout a wide range of formats, from artists’ books and exhibition catalogues to posters, marketing material, exhibitions, websites, film titles and music, his work prioritises artists’ and writers’ content over the imposition of a signature style. By allowing images and texts to sustain their own intent and impact, each project is approached with typographic form and letterform playing a key role in arriving at a sympathetic yet subtly alluring object.

pleasedonotbend.co.uk
@frasermuggeridgestudio

Credit: S P I N O R A M A, © Aslak Gurholt, Fraser Muggerdige

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Quotes about Books from Books about Books

Project Room 2

Quotes about Books from Books about Books is an artist’s book, an exhibition, and a library of books about books, including periodicals, journals, exhibition catalogues, zines, monographs, and artists’ books spanning 1974–2025. Edited and compiled by Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson, the project presents 148 quotes, drawn from his archive of printed matter, that reflect on the book as medium, material, and metaphor. The accompanying exhibition makes each source publication physically accessible to visitors—creating a participatory experience that mirrors the democratic ethos of independent publishing.

Historically, publishing has allowed artists to reclaim control over their work and operate outside commercial or institutional frameworks—a tradition this project draws on. By compiling and sequencing excerpts from a broad spectrum of artistic and theoretical publications, it interrogates the formal and conceptual boundaries of print culture and bookmaking.

The selected quotes address themes such as the economic realities of production, freedom of the press, authorship, and the artist’s book as a political object. The project also considers the book as an exhibition space, an object that resists categorization, and a self-reflexive medium. Some quotes further reflect on the materiality of books in more abstract or experimental terms. At its core, the project engages with long-standing debates around what a book is—or might be—questions that continue to shape contemporary publishing practices.

Subtitled Revised, Reversed, Revisited Edition, the publication resists conventional ordering, unfolding according to its own internal logic. Through excerpting, recontextualizing, and cataloguing, it explores how books articulate their own conditions of production, distribution, and reception.


Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson is an artist and self-publisher. Through his imprint Multinational Enterprises (est. 2012), he produces printed matter that examines publishing as artistic practice. His work explores the book as object, archive, and conceptual medium, using systems of categorization and citation to play with the ideological frameworks embedded in print— often with a deadpan sense of humour.

multinationalenterprises.org
@herrjohannsson
@multinational_enterprises

Exhibition View: Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson, Quotes about Books from Books about Books, einBuch.haus, 2025 (© Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson).