Date

2010

Edition Size

1

Media

Silkscreen

Location

Berlin, Germany

Publisher

Bongoût

$ 10,100.00

Unavailable


View Collectors

University of Minnesota

Collected early prints and silkscreen book editions from the Berlin-based silkscreen powerhouse Bongoût (1995 – 2012; now imprint Re:Surgo!), helmed by Anna Hellsgård and Christian Gfeller.

Silkscreen editions from Bongoût were printed in limited editions once and only once. The distinctive collaborations between the master printers of the Bongoût studio and a number of graphic artists and illustrators (including Bazooka, Stéphane Blanquet, Michael Deforge, Laurent Impeduglia, Gregory Jacobsen, Arnaud Loumeau, and Michal Zori) featured raucous hand-drawn abstract and figurative drawings, often grotesquely comic illustrations, and always vivid coloring. These impeccable examples of multi-color printing (often 4 or more color pulls) were designed to be “uncharted territory” for readers — “too raw to be contemporary art and too arty to be underground.”

Excerpted from “L’histoire de Bongoût,” 2010:

Bongoût is Christian ‘Meeloo” Gfeller and Anna Hellsgård. They produce silkscreen artist books and prints, all of which are hand-made from start to finish. They are also commissioned to do graphic design work for everyone from underground record labels to skateboard brands, from illegal noise concerts to world music festivals, movie productions, corporate clothing companies, and tobacco companies.

Christian started Bongoût in 1995, in Strasbourg. The name was inspired by ‘The Cramps” song “You Got Good Taste”. Translating this into French, he came up with the combination ‘bon goût’. For the first five years, the Bongoût atelier was located in a warehouse in Kehl, the German sister city to Strasbourg, just across the Rhine. Along with several other people, the studio was used as a rehearsal space by bands and a place to hold concerts and parties.

Christian met Anna in Berlin, September 11, 2001. At that point, the atelier was relocated to Bordeaux for one and a half, high production years. In 2004, they moved to Berlin, spending 6 years in a former tanning shop in East Berlin’s Friedrichshain.

In 2008 they opened the doors to Bongoût shop and gallery, showcasing original artworks, as well as selling books, multiples, and prints. This space is considered a place where contemporary art meets graphic, underground art, as well as numerous forms of sound and visual cultures. At this point, Bongoût transcended into a public platform for dialogue between artists.

Item count: 110 estimated (101 silkscreen books and associated ephemera)