Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, Netherlands)
‘Jan Fabre: Hortus / Corpus’

2011
Exhibition catalogue, poster and invitation

The Kröller-Müller Museum’s 2011 exhibition ‘Jan Fabre: Hortus / Corpus’ presented a selection from Belgian artist Jan Fabre’s extensive oeuvre, complemented by new works that he made especially for the occasion. The artist’s new and existing works – sculptures, drawings, films – were positioned throughout the museum as well as in its sculpture garden, creating intriguing confrontations between Fabre’s work and other art works from the museum’s collection. Fabre’s famous bronze sculpture ‘The man who measures the clouds’ (1998) was installed temporarily on the roof of the Kröller-Müller Museum to mark this major retrospective.

In connection with this exhibition, the Kröller-Müller Museum commissioned us to design an exhibition catalogue, a poster and an invitation. With its full-colour hardcover binding and Curious Metallics end leaves, the 244-page ‘Jan Fabre: Hortus / Corpus’ catalogue offers a complete overview of the works displayed. As each item was only photographed once the exhibition was already in place, we had a very narrow window for the production of the book, including its design and printing. Photographic overviews of the exhibition spaces but also photos of single works and detail shots tell the story of the exhibition. The catalogue is divided into five thematic chapters, each one containing text accompanying the photographic material.

To distinguish the images from the accompanying texts, we used different types of paper. The photographs are printed in full colour on coated paper (Ideal matt 180 GSM), while the texts are printed in a thin tone of greyish green (full colour) and black on uncoated paper (Munken Print White 150 GSM). Smoky, semi-transparent sheets (Curious Translucents Silver Paper 100 GSM) form the divisions between the chapters.

Publisher: NAi Publishers
Text: Evert van Straaten, Stefan Hertmans
Photography: Attilio Maranzano