The Museum of the Unwanted. Olten (Volume 2)

Edited by: Kunstmuseum Olten, Dorothee Messmer, Katja Herlach, Clare Goodwin, 2015

Publication; 64 pages, 23.5 × 16.8 cm, hardcover with linen cover and embossing, thread stitching

Texts: Dorothee Messmer, Aoife Resenmeyer. With artistic contributions by Anna Barriball, Pascal Danz, Matthias Gabi, Clare Goodwin, Andy Holden, Charlie Jeffry, Brighid Lowe, Shana Lutker, Kris Martin, Zoë Mendelson, Sophie Michael & Andrew Munks, John Stezaker, Costa Vece

Languages: German, English / Design: Herrmann Germann

ISBN: 978-3-909090-75-4

The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name curated by the artist Clare Goodwin at the Kunstmuseum Olten in 2015.

Clare Goodwin’s Museum of the Unwanted is about things that have been left lying around – mostly worthless things that, although no longer used, are nevertheless preserves of past lives and in front of which we are, as Walter Benjamin puts it, “confronted with the rusty soul”. At the centre of her project is the practice of artists who use such objects for their creative work and incorporate them into their aesthetic work.

This book has been printed on the back of the waste paper of the publication Invent the Future with Elements of the Past, a book project by Cabaret Voltaire in co-operation with the STEO Foundation. The use of these multiple overprinted and different waste sheets makes each book unique.