werkboek
An Onghena & Jivan van der Ende

“You are holding this publication in your hands. After opening its cover, you browse through the pages. Are you aware of its weight, the sturdiness of the paper, the different feel of the smooth riso? The publication is a landscape that the artists have created for you, and by becoming both a reader and a spectator, you are invited to go for a walk through the presented scenery. You are the traveler, the wanderer, the discoverer, moving through the pages out of which this landscape is built. (…)”

– Poot, Joyce, Hands Turning Pages (touching me, touching you), 2021. Text contribution by Joyce Poot in werkboek.

werkboek is a collaborative project between An Onghena and Jivan van der Ende that combines the playful, impulsive, and detail-oriented quality of both their practices. Starting from video registrations of the two artists working their way through books, the publication shows the hands of Onghena touching and folding the paper. In this way the publication shows the relation between the hands of the reader and the paper, and could even function as an instructive guide to its reader(s).

To emphasise the performative aspect and its collaborative nature, Onghena and Van der Ende created a metal tool which facilitates a collaborative performative reading. The publication is placed in the tool while the two readers take place on opposite sides from the publication. Only together they can flip through the publication, following the instructions of Onghena’s riso-printed hands. Do you dare to fold?

werkboek
An Onghena & Jivan van der Ende

Textual contribution: Joyce Poot
Publisher: kabinet.studio, Antwerpen, 2021.
48p, risoprinted in black ink
Edition of 50 + 10 artist / performance editions
Price: 25 euro
ISBN: 9789464447156

Paraphrase /ˈpærəfreɪz/
1.1. expresses the meaning of something written or spoken, using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.
1.2. is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words.

In her research about artist books, An Onghena explores the form and status of books in different contexts. For Onghena, books and paper are a working partner rather than a tool to use for drawing, writing, or painting. Onghena turns the concept of ‘a book’ inside out, to approach new directions and give different meanings to the book.

In the exhibition Paraphrase /ˈpærəfreIz/ Onghena introduces her research by a video of the work Performance for the book. This performance was developed in 2017 during her one-year artist residency at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Performance for the book shows the ability of an enlarged piece of paper that transits into a dance and ends up as a sculpture. It shows the love for paper and the ambiguity of this material. This performance functions as a visual experiment to give life and meaning to the paper, and to acknowledge its own important role.

Starting from Performance for the book the exhibition shows new sketches, drawings and works by the artist dating from 2018 until 2021. Following this, Onghena launches her new artist book werkboek in collaboration with Jivan van der Ende. This publication can be seen as a reading tool with a performative and collaborative element, between the two artists as well as the two readers.

An Onghena 

In an attempt to better understand the world and the unknown, An Onghena explores the boundaries between art and science. With a subtle sense of humour and flirting with the fictitious, she integrates her experience in the applied arts into an autonomous artistic practice. In line with this she focuses in some works on the status of the artist book and analogue technologies, as seen against the backdrop of increasing digitization. In all her works, Onghena endeavors to activate the viewer of her work.

An Onghena (b.1992, Belgium) received her MA Graphic Design and thereafter her MA of Research in Art & Design at Sint Lucas Antwerp. She was artist-in-residence at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, Maastricht and laureate of Toegepast20 in Z33. Recently her work was seen in Remodeling Graphic Habits, nr 86 at The Art Center, Sarasota, Florida; Figures and Routines at Sea Foundation, Tilburg. In 2019 Goldberg Galerie hosted the solo exhibiton Bring out into the open. The work Performance for the book has been performed in various fairs and exhibitions from Europe to the United States.

Stiftung Kunstfonds, das NEUSTART KULTUR-Programm

1 – 7 pm (Thursday, Friday)
12 – 5 pm (Saturday)

and by appointment

einBuch.haus / Florastraße 61, 13187 Berlin

The artist, An Onghena will be present at the exhibition opening.
An artist talk starts at 7 pm.

*Please have a negative test or complete vaccination for the event. Kindly wear a mask inside the space.

info@einbuch.haus