Courage to write your own text.

Let's be honest, everything has already been said. Why take the trouble to create your own texts?

Goethe, Schiller and, if you like, Brecht have all contributed their bit to art, and the old men sell well. So what?

And yet, Ernst Bloch got to the heart of the matter when he once wrote: "What is once said is probably not the same in another time.

It is true that we as book artists can rest in the safe waters of the old and fall back on the tried and tested.

But it is much more exciting to get involved in a work from a single source, from a single mould. Everybody has feelings, everybody lives his or her life, reason enough to reflect on life in one's own texts. A field of tension of extraordinary possibilities spreads out here. Here, development and growth are possible in every respect.

Love, suffering, longing and passion, how different in perception, how vast, how unique in particular. What an artistic expanse opens up here, what creative power can work here, can unfold. From the design of the text and the elaboration of the book-artistic work to the reader, a web of relationships develops.

Book art could take a completely new development with this idea of publishing one's own texts, which would underline the independence and acceptance of this art form.

Let us allow ourselves, the artist as well as the collector, this artistic freedom to publish our own texts according to our own taste and thus use the opportunity to create a total work of art in the form of the unity of text and image.

Artistic freedom must overcome thinking. The "it" that comes from within must be brought to the outside in text, writing, image, word or song. Book art is much more comprehensive than is generally assumed. We consciously leave the safe ground of the traditional, dare to travel to new shores and cross borders. This engagement with the new, this letting go of the old, enables us to enter new unknown areas within ourselves and our society.

Real artistic development takes place where we break away from the past or at least critically rethink it. What diversity we could achieve if we opened up to our unconscious. The unknown to us would show itself to us. Have courage to break through this artistic thinking:

"I am a painter, therefore I paint;

I am a writer, therefore I write;

I am a musician, therefore I make music;

I am a composer, therefore I compose;

I'm a dancer, so I dance."

Something in between would not be perfect. But art is beyond all perfection, art is the all-encompassing creative act, without specialisation in one field. Dare to have completely new experiences, it is extremely exciting, I invite you to do so.

If we as artists dare to take the first step, I am sure that the collector will honour our artistic commitment.

Book art is exciting!

Gerd J. Wunderer