Just as for countless others, 2020 was a dark and very lean year for me, the pandemic delaying or scuttling projects and decimating clients’ budgets. One bright spot, however, was translating art historian Antoon Melissen’s elucidating essay on the context of the famed Unterwasserbuch (Underwater Book), a 1971-1972 collaboration between artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and photographer Lothar Wolleh (1930-1979), which has now been reissued as a 2-box cassette (containing a reprint of the original publication, the new essay and other text material, as well as prints unearthed in archival research), just in time for the Beuys centenary in 2021. A year in which we can all hope to come back up to the surface…
PIERRE BOUVIER 