Design: Ariane Spanier

The new issue is a celebration of words and their presence in the medium of drawing. In a time of fake news and populism, the word seems to have lost some ground and anti-intellectualism appears to be taking over. It’s more important than ever therefore to praise the written expression in all its forms – whether it’s been rearranged, cut, scribbled or even if it just looks like writing, all of which you can find here. In this issue we show some of Ed Ruscha’s word drawings, which earned him the status of one of the most influential post-war artists. Language similarly became a crucial tool for Sol LeWitt, who wrote out instructions to enable others to execute his drawings. For LeWitt, the idea of the artwork as expressed in words and functions is the essence of a conceptual work. You can read and, if you like, follow the instructions from LeWitt inside this issue of Fukt. 

You can also enjoy the mystery of the undecipherable Voynich Manuscript, get lost in Paula Scher’s sensible typographic maps or Mark Lombardi’s political diagrams and immerse yourself in the Prinzhorn Collection’s remarkable artworks – a collection produced by psychiatric patients. Read interviews with our featured artists such as Stefan Marx, Annie Vought and Suzanne Treister to learn why Marx hates Sundays so much, how Vought makes use of social media in her work, where the idea for Treister’s time travelling avatar came from and much more.

Artists: Ed Ruscha, Paula Scher, Simon Evans TM, Sketchbook Project, Irma Blank, Nina Papaconstantinou, Mirtha Dermisache, Ariane Spanier, Suzanne Treister, Karl Holmqvist, Pavel Pepperstein, Ingwill Gjelsvik, Marco Raparelli, Nadine Fecht, Shantell Martin, Katrin Ströbel, Xu Bing, Paula Troxler, Mark Lombardi, Stefan Brüggemann, Sol LeWitt, Pae White, Malgorzata Zurada, Philip Loersch, Stefan Marx, Prinzhorn Collection, Roni Horn, Peter Phobia, Annie Vought, Henri Chopin, Petra Schulze-Wollgast, Thomas Broomé, Meg Hitchcock, The Voynich Manuscript