Cover: hard (box)
Number of original C-prints: 54
Dimensions: 20.2x28cm
Author: Andrzej Tobis
Publisher: Instytucja Kultury Ars Cameralis Silesiae Superioris
Year of publication: 2007
Bilingual edition: Polish-German
The publication is the result of the exhibition “AZ”, which took place as part of the ⅩⅥ Ars Cameralis Festival. The exhibition featured 150 educational display cases containing entries taken from a dictionary published in 1954 and illustrated by Andrzej Tobis with a photograph taken in contemporary Poland.
The “AZ” project was an attempt to reconstruct, on the basis of a re-make, the illustrated Polish-German dictionary published in Leipzig in 1954. Tobis’s dictionary photos are not staged, but found. They conceal various anecdotes, details, and rebus puzzles.
The project is based on research into the connections between letters and images, especially their use for propaganda and political purposes. It is part of a series of "atlases" and "libraries" created by artists, which were significant for art at the turn of the century. Andrzej Tobis's project had its premiere in the American "Transition Magazine", published by Harvard University.
Andrzej Tobis → was born in Wieluń in 1970, currently lives in Katowice. He graduated from the Katowice branch of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 2006 he defended his doctorate at his alma mater. The theoretical part of the defense was titled "Neo Rauch meets Polish scouts in the GDR forest". His works have been shown in many individual and collective exhibitions in Polish and foreign galleries and museums.