With Paris, artist Justin Winz is presenting his second book, following the sold out debut „American Detail</em<“, from 2008. The self-published artist book will have its international launch at the „Paris Photo“ art fair in the Grand Palais in Paris this november, in collaboration with the internationally renown bookseller and publisher SCHADEN.com.
Justin Winz was born in 1976 in northern Germany as son to sculptor and Joseph Beuys-student Paul Winz.
Already in his young formative years, he worked impassionate with photo-realistic painting and drawing, trying to express his „inner world“ and images from his dreams through it. Later he tried to extend this spectrum of expressions by using photography as an additional „tool“. Soon after it became his only medium of artistic expression. By assisting photographers in Germany and France from the age of 23y on he gained the necessary knowledge about photography and it´s technical side to be able to invent a procedure to get back to a more painterly result by the use of a combination of old Polaroid chemicals and the help of a computer.
About the work:
-2001-2007 various participations in books edited i.e. by „Gestalten Verlag“ und „Steidl publishers“.
-2008 “American Detail”, the first publication of Justin Winz, selfpublished as an artist book in a limited, numbered and signed edition of 100 of which the first 10 where a special “Collectors Edition”. In 2009 one of those has already been auctioned in a photo book auction by „Pierre Bergé“ in Paris.
-2011 “PARIS” is published as his second book, following the footsteps of “American Detail”
-2012-13 “Hair” (working titel), in progress
-2012-13 “Morphology” (working titel), in progress
The intention
On his search for a painterly result without the actual use of a brush, Justin Winz developed his unique signature look, the Chemical-Scan-Technic, over the past years. The style of the works resulting from this process is mysterious and unreal and at the same time very precise. The conscious inclusion of uncontrollable chemical processes, as well as an intentionally intuitive selection of the subjects and frames are important aspects of this way of working. Like this, pictures appear that never reveal everything, that always seem to include a secret code, a sort of sublayer.
Justin Winz wants to create „open spaces“ with his images which the viewer can enter like an unknown city he visits for the first time, whose surfaces and facades one immediately recognizes for what they are but still feels a certain secret behind them, as places never only just contain the moment, they contain much more, their history full of dramas, construction, destruction, suffer, joy all of what one can not see but sense.
About the edition
The artist book is self published in a numbered and signed edition limited to 250 copies, with 32 images on 68 pages in a size of 19cm x 25cm
-The numbers 1-25 as „Premium collectors edition“, (hardcover, stitched binding, title with embossed printing, in a handmade box including 2 signed finart-prints on Hahnemühle PhotoRag)
Price: 185,–€
-the numbers 26-250 are the normal edition, softcover, numbered and signed,Price: 34,–€
All images where all taken with a 50 years old Polaroid Landcamera 190 and where then worked on, based on the polaroid chemicals and digital tools
Special Thanks to:
-Inga Wilde, www.sehr-berlin.de, the very talented book designer and project manager without whom this book would not be what it became.
-The team of Schaden.com, for their support with the international distribution and the presentation on „Paris Photo“ in the Grand Palais Nov. 2011 .
