“Art exists because simply living is not enough. Taschen books are a display of the expansion of what is generally considered to be art. Art can be much more than simply a painting or a sculpture. Art is in food, and illustration, in tattoo and interior design, in architecture, and so on and so forth".
Image: Julius Wiedemann, Senior Editor for Design and Pop Culture at Taschen Publishing House
Julius Wiedemann was born in Brazil, where he studied marketing and design, and has lived and worked in Japan, Germany and in the United Kingdom. He is a senior editor for design and pop culture at Taschen publishing house. He has edited over 80 books in over 17 years at the publishing house, lectures for and contributes to magazines, and has been on the jury panel for several awards around the world. Wiedemann’s publications have sold over 2 million copies worldwide. Among his most popular titles are History of Graphic Design, Jamie Hewlett, Information Graphics, Understanding the World, and other books about record-covers and web design. His main interests reside in the intersection between culture, communication and technology. He lives and works in between the United Kingdom, Brazil, and wherever he has wifi. He is a happy traveller.
ArtDependence magazine was keen to interview Julius Wiedemann to uncover the secret path to creating high-quality art books.
Julius Wiedemann, Senior Editor for Design and Pop Culture at Taschen Publishing House
ArtDependence (AD): How would you describe a Taschen art book to someone, who is not familiar with art?
Julius Wiedemann (JW): There is a Brazilian writer named Ferreira Gullar who said the following, “Art exists because simply living is not enough”. Taschen books are a display of the expansion of what is generally considered to be art. Art can be much more than simply a painting or a sculpture. Art is in food, and illustration, in tattoo and interior design, in architecture, and so on and so forth. If you go to a biennale today you will see how prolific art is, but you will also see how diverse it is. I personally believe that art has to be considered as the ultimate vehicle for freedom of expression.
AD: What is the recipe for an art book's quality?
JW: In my point of view, quality has three main aspects. The first one is innovation, which means looking at something completely newly, or having a totally new idea, or simply looking at something from another viewpoint. The second is about the quality of execution. We know how many great ideas have been lost just because they were poorly executed. It begins with quality-control from the beginning selections for what we share in our books, the quality of the texts that go along with them, through to the prepress and to the quality of the final printing. The third contributing factor to quality concerns its longevity; meaning that it is important for us to produce something that if we look at this product in 10, 20 or 30 years, it will still uphold the values that we hold dear. Having a product that lasts is the only way to convey why investing in the library is still valueable.
"The History of Graphic Design. Vol. 2, 1960–Today", Taschen
"The History of Graphic Design. Vol. 2, 1960–Today", Taschen
AD: How do you choose future books' subjects? Must it be a trend, kitsch, or something very special?
JW: We look at trends sometimes, but not very often. We have to consider that book takes from one to three years to be produced, and therefore following trends is risky business. We look much more at peoples' appreciation for general culture and the amount of content that exists in that universe to justify the existence of a larger audience. That is the reason why we make no distinction between a book about tattoos and a book about Van Gogh. We also invest in having personal experiences and attempt to translate those experiences into books and democratise them.
AD: What part of researching the topic for new book do you find personally most interesting?
JW: The part I like the most is really the one about creating the story, which is like framing a subject. I could pick any subject, from illustration to fine arts, from cities to architecture, from erotica to photography, and I would still have no story. My work as an editor is, to a great extent, finding a frame for those subjects and to create a story around them. After that I can focus on the research, but I will already have it framed, which helps to shape the narrative.
"The History of Graphic Design. Vol. 1, 1890–1959", Taschen
AD: Besides your personal library, do you have any beloved collections of Taschen?
JW: There are books and collections at Taschen that are my favourite publications. One of them is the book of murals of Diego Riviera. It is a book that no publisher would have dared to tackle, with a high level of detail that took us many years and a larege investment to complete. It is a masterpiece. Another one for example, is the series we have released on the cities of New York, Rome, Paris, Los Angeles, Berlin. They are an account of the social and spatial development of the inhabitants of the cities. These books are much more than just photography books. They are books on anthropology and sociology at their best.
AD: What are the ethics of writing about art figures?
JW: More often than not, the lives of artists themselves, their personal and professional experiences, shape what they offer through their art to the world. Artists are complicated beings, as they are human beings, like all of us. It is sometimes important to distinguish their creation from who they are as people, despite it not always being easy to ignore that their personal ventures have definitely influenced their work. In that sense, it is absolutely fundamental that the context in which these artists have worked is well explained. The behaviour, the moral issues, the actors, and the varying environments that define an artist, are worlds in themselves. In short, it is important to consider all aspects of an artist’s production and the importance of his or her production in a certain context.
"Art Record Covers", Taschen
"Art Record Covers", Taschen
AD: Who inspired you to be an editor?
JW: I always cared about stories and I cared about the use of language, and how we should seek to explain things so that we can understand both the past and present better, and try to envision a future which is not a slave to past actions. I like the idea that we, as human beings, are gigantic, visual libraries. I have a relatively good visual memory and I think it can help us to make sense of what we do and what we ought to do.
"Art Record Covers", Taschen
AD: What will be your next book about?
JW: I am doing a few very exciting books for 2019, one of them being related to the history of science. I am a believer that science is the best tool we have for dialogue and we have been creating that for over 500 years. What we are not often aware of is that history has been thoroughly illustrated. This book will be a groundbreaking publication, not only for specialists but also for the public in general.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
ArtDependence Magazine is an international magazine covering all spheres of contemporary art, as well as modern and classical art.
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