so wrong it’s right – karin sander: karin sander,, exhibition catalogue, exhibition poster and poster edition, kunst museum winterthur and reinhart am stadtgarten, 2018

it’s not just the exhibition title, “karin sander: karin sander” that gives you a double-take: is it meant to be funny? or is repetition perhaps state-of-the-art art? and that other expectation – of carting the art home with you in the shape of a hefty wad of printed paper (“chlorine-free”, natch) to be decoratively displayed on your coffee table – is short-circuited, too. here, the art world’s rituals are elegantly celebrated by subverting them and simultaneously offering something new and different. instead of presenting a catalogue packed with heavyweight (in every sense) texts at her exhibition opening, the artist commissioned two acclaimed authors to write crime stories in which two of her creations – the patina paintings and the mailed paintings on show in the show – play a role.the designers, meanwhile, were tasked with creating the physical books and their covers: the official exhibition publication. but how do you design detective stories without succumbing to all those old corpse/blood/weapon clichés? for serious, conscientious designers, the idea of deliberately making the books look like pulp fiction is like disavowing everything they believe: that way, surely, madness lies. but then the first shudder of horror gives way to (whisper it) a secret sigh of pleasure, and for once the designers get to do the kind of thing they normally wouldn’t allow themselves: composition carnage, gruesomely distorted type, cobbled-together images, crazily mixed-up font sizes. it’s kitschy, it’s tasteless, it’s trashy – and it works. gleefully trashing the design rules is like a guilty pleasure – a bucket of french fries and a tv soap – and everyone absolutely loves it. case closed.

karin sander: karin sander,
exhibition catalogue, exhibition poster and poster edition
kunst museum winterthur and reinhart am stadtgarten, 2018

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