Momentane Monumente

Kuehn Malvezzi & Michael Riedel & Aedes

When we’ve seen Michael Riedel’s work for the first time, it must have been around 1998 or 1999 with his work Oskar-von-Miller-Strasse, it was mind boggling how close his work, aesthetically, was to ours. Ever since we were following his career very closely, collecting every single poster and flyer he’d ‘designed’. It all looked like a total misunderstanding of graphic design, and yet, there was this underlying concept for every little piece he produced. It was no coincidence that our friend Wilfried Kuehn of KuehnMalvezzi was also very interested in Michael’s work. We shared somehow the same values on some level. When Michael Riedel then met with us for the first time in 2004 to create this extension, second print run of this book together for KuehnMalvezzi’s exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie ‘Momentane Monumente’ which was also an exhibition at Aedes Gallery on the production of this book, which was Michael’s part, it was as if we’d known each other for a very long time. It really is a difficult one... well ... So, there was this exhibition ‘Monetane Monumente’ by KuehnMalvezzi, with this little Publication, and there was the Michael Riedel exhibition at the Aedes, with almost the same book, but with an extended contend that was sticking out on the top of the book, which was Michael’s part on the production of the book, which was then also reflected and found its embodiment in the exhibition at Aedes. Michael rebuilt bits of the working environment of every single phase of the production of the book in white. Well, see parts of our studio back then here, next to the printer’s light table and Wilfried Kuehn’s desk.