• Im Hochhaus (In the High-Rise) / Heiko Michael Hartmann; Veronika Schapers
Im Hochhaus (In the High-Rise) / Heiko Michael Hartmann; Veronika Schapers Im Hochhaus (In the High-Rise) / Heiko Michael Hartmann; Veronika Schapers Im Hochhaus (In the High-Rise) / Heiko Michael Hartmann; Veronika Schapers

Im Hochhaus (In the High-Rise) / Heiko Michael Hartmann; Veronika Schapers

Books


FA.OSS3.1819
15 x 37 cm (6 x 14.5 in.) (closed); 103 x 37 cm (40.5 x 14.5 in) (open)
2011
Veronika Schapers
Veronika Schapers
Edition 17 of 40 (36 copies using Arabic numerals and 4 copies using Roman numerals); signed and numbered by the artist. Letterpress print from polymer plates and barrier tape on bicchu-ganpi paper. 5 gatefold sheets in a wrapped cover made from GA file, with silkscreened cases of pension fraud in Japan in 2010 and 2011. Case made of silkscreen-printed GA file. Banderole made from gecko tape, title printed in silkscreen. First edition of the German text.

"The idea for this book is based on a radio report on July 29, 2010, about finding the mummified corpse of Sogen Kato (111) - a bizarre case of pension fraud." --from the artist's website

"...Heiko Michael Hartmann, a German author with whom I spoke about these cases of pension fraud, wrote a short story about this topic. Taking the perspective of an officer who is told to examine these cases, Hartmann describes how this officer visits the house of an unemployed cultural scientist and finds the corps of her mummified mother. The daughter becomes more and more dependent on her mother and finally sees no other way out, but hiding the corps.

"I have printed Hartmann's story on four single pages of thin Ganpi paper, alluding to newspaper typography. These papers are fold into sheets of the same paper with black stripes of barrier tape printed on their back side. A fifth page contains the translation of the documented cases as well as the imprint. All five wrapped papers are placed next to each other in a big cardboard cover. On this cardboard, I have printed all 30 cases of pension fraud... The wrapped cover is placed into a stronger cardboard, on which I have printed two roughly pixelled photographs. These pictures show the house, in which Sogen Kato was found in 2010, and where his family is still living today. The case is held by a self-adherent so called Gecko tape, on which title of the book and name of the author are printed."--Veronika Schapers

CBA copy is accompanied by a file of translated text with the artist's handwritten letter.