VRONI SCHWEGLER

Mit Flügeln / With Wings

The concept of this new book (both austere and sensuous) was developed by artist and publisher together. Their first decision was that there should be no text, nothing describing, commenting on or even listing the images, reproductions of 24 intaglio prints (etching, dry-point, aquatint) taking birds, butterflies, moths, dragon-flies and even larvae and flies as their starting-point (hence the title). The prints, reproduced in their original format, speak for themselves. The book is an anthology of small dead individual creatures – still lifes, still lives?

Vroni Schwegler has provided etchings for the specials of BABEL books for ten years. Her work is well-known in Germany, where she exhibits frequently. (BABEL is working on another book with images of hers for 2020, but this time with two texts.)

The preliminaries and colophon of Mit Flügeln were set by hand in Typoart Garamond and printed (letterpress) by Thomas Siemon of carpe plumbum in Leipzig on 135gsm Munken Pure. 36pp.; format: 28 x 19 cm; the images were printed (in their original size) by Gotteswinter und Aumaier, Munich, the whole being hand-sewn by Katja Zwirnmann, Leipzig, in off-white Zaansch Bord wrappers, made (using only discarded clothes) in the last working paper windmill in the world, De Schoolmeester, in Westzaan, the Netherlands – without chemicals, dye or size.

500 copies, and 26 specials (numbered A-Z) with an original, signed and numbered etching bound in as a frontispiece. The four different prints were pulled from the plates by Sylvia Dunkes in Munich in editions of six to eight.

Vroni Schwegler     Mit Flügeln / With Wings    £ 32

Mit Flügeln / With Wings special: numbered (A-Z) and signed, with original etching   £ 170

cf.   Flieder,   Das zärtliche Sakrament der Sehnsucht,   The Cross,   Das Kreuz,   Sunlight in the Orchard / Sonnenlicht im Obstgarten,   Hope defined / Hoffnung klar umrissen,   Koditon ajatus / Ein obdachloser Gedanke,   The Sky-Rhyming Child / Das himmelreimende Kind,   Stone Twittering / Steinzwitschern,   With Claws of Fire / Mit Fängen aus Feuer   and   In Delicate Nooses / In zierlichen Schlingen