Elmgreen & Dragset: READ - limited edition

A limited book edition created for Kunsthalle Praha consists of thirty multiples. Each item is signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. The exhibition catalog is housed within a box resembling a hollowed-out book, with a leather spine and an original marbled cover design. It has a magnetic closure and is fitted with a red silk ribbon so that the catalog can be removed easily. Each of the books in the limited edition has the title of the publication handwritten on the spine by the artists and also bears their signatures on the inside.

This catalog accompanies the exhibition READ at Kunsthalle Praha (2023–24), the first major presentation of works by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset in the Czech Republic. Designed as a minimalist version of a modern public library, the exhibition reflects on the relationship between books and art and questions our relationship with physical books and knowledge in the age of digital media. Between and upon the custom-made stacks in the galleries, Elmgreen & Dragset present new and recent sculptures alongside artworks by a number of their contemporary artist colleagues as well as key works from the Kunsthalle Praha Collection. READ encompasses a broad range of media, including performance, video, collage, painting, sculpture, and installation. The extensive catalog includes a curatorial text by Elmgreen & Dragset themselves as well as contributions by renowned scholars on themes ranging from the history of Czech samizdat publishing to the current challenges faced by books, libraries, and freedom of speech in the digital era. The exhibition project and its focus on the dynamic relationship between language, books, and art are documented through this richly illustrated publication.

Product information

Artists’ name: Elmgreen & Dragset
Edition number: 30 + 3 A. P.
Place and year of completion: Prague, 2024
Medium: Book signed and numbered with artists’ handwritten inscription, custom-made book box (cardboard, paper, white leather)
Rozměry: 190 × 265 mm (kniha), 250 × 360 mm (pouzdro na knihu)
Počet stran: 288
Grafická úprava: Anežka Minaříková, Marek Nedelka
Nakladatel: Kunsthalle Praha

Elmgreen & Dragset

Michael Elmgreen, b. 1961, Copenhagen, Denmark Ingar Dragset, b. 1969, Trondheim, Norway

Elmgreen & Dragset are based in Berlin and have worked together as an artist duo since 1995. They pursue questions of identity and belonging and investigate social, cultural, and political structures in their artistic practice. They are interested in the new narratives that can arise when objects are re-contextualized and conventional modes for the presentation of art are altered. In their large-scale installations, they blur the lines between art, architecture, and design to create spaces that are familiar yet unexpected in a gallery context. They have held solo shows worldwide at institutions including Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Serpentine Galleries and the Whitechapel Gallery in London, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, the SMK National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen and most recently Fondazione Prada in Milan and Centre Pompidou-Metz. In 2009, they received a special mention for their exhibition The Collectors in the Danish and the Nordic Pavilions at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Their most well-known works are Prada Marfa, a permanent installation of a closed luxury goods store in the middle of the Texas desert, and the large-scale outdoor sculpture Van Gogh’s Ear that depicts an upright swimming pool, first shown at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York.