1001 STEIDL BOOKS at DECK

Down the road from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the Lasalle College of the Arts (a partner university of Goldsmiths, University of London, and one of the most important art academies in the Asian region) lie the exhibition modules of DECK, rough forty-feet sea freight containers stacked on top of one another in a vacant lot on Prinsep Street. Founded in 2014, DECK is an independent platform for photography and art exhibitions, and forms a link between the local art colleges, galleries and theaters in this cultural hotspot of Singapore.

From 8 April to 22 May and in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and Steidl Publishers, DECK is to be transformed into a library, or more precisely a book exhibition with over a thousand exhibits. Gerhard Steidl, the passionate bookmaker from Göttingen, Germany, has donated a thousand photobooks from the many years of his publishing program to the project, including books by Joel Sternfeld, Bruce Davidson, Robert Frank, Robert Adams, Ed Ruscha, Juergen Teller, Karl Lagerfeld, Lewis Baltz, David Goldblatt, Susan Meiselas and Roni Horn—among them many sold-out titles. “1001 Steidl Books” invites artists, photographers, students, tourists and all booklovers to explore the craft of making books and closely engage with their design, typography, paper and binding materials. Five containers in all will be transformed into reading rooms, equipped with bookshelves and reading desks, alongside paper samples and photos documenting bookmaking at Steidl.

At the end of the Singapore exhibition, DECK’s containers will ironically fulfill their original purpose: loaded onto a ship they will sail away to the next exhibition locations, first to Bangkok, and finally to Taiwan and Seoul.
A rich program of lectures (including a talk by Gerhard Steidl), film screenings and portfolio reviews will accompany “1001 Steidl Books”. Further information can be found at: http://deck.sg/event/steidl-deck-1001-steidl-books/