Empire

Founded by François Havegeer and Sacha Léopold, the Empire publishing house is an extension of the Syndicat studio's activities related to images, graphic design and relations with artists. The company does not wish to define an editorial line regarding types of publications but to make questions of reproduction, documentation, and the circulation of images central through catalogues, monographs, theoretical works, magazines, posters or re-editions.
Series:
 
Sonia de Puineuf - Télégraphes de l\'Utopie - L\'art des avant-gardes en Europe Centrale 1918-1939
2025
French edition
forthcoming
A wide-ranging discursive study of the cultural geography of the Central European avant-garde between the wars.
Faire – To look at things - Mechanical Translations
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
This double issue of the critical graphic design journal examines the origins of the automation and mechanization of translation and writing.
Faire – To look at things - A calculated approach: Norm\'s unreasonable reasonableness
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
The 46th issue of the critical graphic design journal is devoted to the Zurich-based graphic design studio Norm.
Éléonore False - Ensembles
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
First monograph.
Le chant des sirènes / Il canto delle sirene
2024
bilingual edition (French / Italian)
30 artists and 10 authors talk about water.
Martin Bethenod - Rien de Personnel
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
10 years of stolen iPhone photos of dogs. We follow the author's life and peregrinations, the constancy of a singular passion and the evolution of phones, all with images that are still modest, but constitute a substantial sum—1000 images in 384 flip book pages, with the Instragram scroll effect.
A history of images / Une histoire d\'images - Donation Antoine de Galbert au musée de Grenoble
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
Through more than 500 images by 95 photographers, the Musée de Grenoble's collection of photographs from Antoine de Galbert's collection and his foundation offers an impressive panorama of our times and the decisive role played by photography in shaping our perceptions and contemporary mythologies.
Aurélien Mole - 30 mn
2023
no text
A photo report in an photo lab (artist's book).
Poster Photo Magazine
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
The first issue of the biannual magazine offering an heterogeneous and multifaceted exploration of approaches to modern and contemporary photography through 12 large-format wall posters, folded and detachable, with Julia Andréone, Roman Cieslewicz, Marie Quéau, Stig De Block, Area Of Work, Aurélien Froment, Fabio Mauri, Thomas Demand, Marie Deteneuille, Simon Menner, Kuba Ryniewicz, and Deborah Turbeville.
Elika Hedayat -
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
First monograph of the Franco-Iranian artist.
Jennifer Caubet - Je gage, iels gagent, nous gageons
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
Retrospective monograph: a panorama of Jennifer Caubet's work over fifteen years.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 12 (#42-43-44-45)
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 42 to 45 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Ali Kazma - Sentimental / A House of Ink
2023
bilingual edition (English / French)
Recent video works by Turkish artist Ali Kazma.
Sky Hopinka - The sun comes in whenever it wants
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
First monograph of the artist, poet, and filmmaker Sky Hopinka whose work embraces Native American perspectivism and reverses the primacy of representation of non-Western identities.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 10 (#39, 40, 41)
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 39 to 41 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Faire – To look at things - Special Issue – A debate: Jan van Toorn, Wim Crouwel
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
A contemporary reading of the major divergences within the theory of graphic design from the encounter between the two Dutch graphic designers and typographers Wim Crouwel and Jan Van Toorn in the 1970s.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 10 (#35, 36, 37)
2022
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 35 to 37 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Simon Nicaise - Pain Liquide
2022
French edition
A sort of anti-monograph in several episodes proposed by the artist Simon Nicaise around his project of Tour de France of trades and practices.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 09 (#31, 32, 33, 34)
2021
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 31 to 34 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 08 (#27, 28, 29, 30)
2021
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 27 to 30 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Artists as Iconographers
2020
bilingual edition (English / French)
Catalogue dedicated to contemporary artists whose production concentrate on the reuse of existing images (new expanded edition). This publication investigates the various practices of these iconographer artists through documentation, illustrations, essays, and interviews (with Haris Epaminonda, Wade Guyton, Camille Henrot, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jonathan Monk, Linder Sterling…).
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré - Paris la Consciencieuse : Paris la Guideuse du monde
2020
French edition
The unpublished story, reproduced in facsimile, of the journey to Paris of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (1923-2014), Ivorian poet and artist, "prophet", creator and inventor of the Bété alphabet, who writes a "report" of his encounter with the Western world on his return from the opening of the mythical exhibition "Magiciens de la Terre".
Faire – To look at things - Volume 07 (#23, 24, 25, 26)
2020
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 23 to 26 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 06 (#19, 20, 21)
2020
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 19 to 21 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Faire – To look at things - Artists Posters
2020
bilingual edition (English / French)
François Havegeer and Sacha Léopold (Syndicat) invited Aurélien Mole, Jérôme Dupeyrat, Mathias Augustyniak (M/M Paris) and Thierry Chancogne to express their views on art posters, artist posters, posters made by artists, posters made with artists, posters made for artists, and the occasional participation of graphic designers (special issue of the critical review dedicated to graphic design).
Faire – To look at things - Volume 05 (#16, 17, 18)
2019
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 16 to 18 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design.
Aurélien Mole - Stud
2019
English edition
Stud compiles photographs that Aurélie Jacquet and Aurélien Mole shot while they were students at the French National School of Photography.
Jennifer Caubet - Un atelier à soi
2019
bilingual edition (English / French)
This book traces Jennifer Caubet's work during her residency at the Centre International de Recherche sur le Verre et les Arts plastiques (Cirva), from 2017 to 2019.
Co-Creation
2019
English edition
A collective reflection on cooperative and co-creation artistic practices engaged in the social field.
 Syndicat - Proof
2018
no text
A visual archive of the Islamic State's destruction of artifacts.
L\'Écart absolu
2018
French edition
This catalogue documents a collective exhibition program inspired by the writings of Charles Fourier. “L'Écart absolu” is a dialogue between architecture, artistic heritage and contemporary works, in which artists come together, interact and experiment on the edge of design, visual arts, decorative arts and applied arts.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 04 (#13, 14, 15)
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
currently out of stock
Issues 13 to 15 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design. Compilation includes studies on Peter Bil'ak's essay on the exhibition of graphic design; the posters produced by M/M (Paris) for CDDB-Théâtre de Lorient; and the collaboration between studio Spassky Fischer and Marseille's MUCEM.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 03 (#10, 11, 12)
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
Issues 10 to 12 of the critical review dedicated to graphic design, around Robert Brownjohn, Klaus Scherübel, Julia Born, Simon Starling et Poster of Girl, Revue Emmanuelle.
NASA - Graphic Design Guide
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
Facsimile reprinting of Danne & Blackburn's graphics standards manual for the redesign of NASA's visual identity in 1975.
IBM - Graphic Design Guide from 1969 to 1987
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
Facsimile reprinting of Paul Rand's graphics standards manuals for the redesign of the visual identity of the multinational technology company IBM from 1962 to 1987.
Disorders - Antoine de Galbert Collection at Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art
2024
bilingual edition (English / French)
sold out
Antoine de Galbert offers a glimpse into his collection, freed from the traditional norms of art history: an immersion into his artistic universe, through a selection of over two hundred works presented without hierarchy or classification.
Épopées Célestes / Epopee celesti - Art brut dans la collection Decharme
2024
bilingual edition (French / Italian)
sold out
A veritable panorama of Art Brut at an international level, through 180 works selected from Bruno Decharme's collection.
Lucien Pelen - Monte et descend
2022
French edition
sold out
The result of a remarkable editorial work whose graphic design is signed by Syndicat and Lucien Pelen, this first monograph brings together fifteen years of photographic and video production, unpublished contributions, texts and the making-of of the actions carried out by the artist.
Grand Bazar - Choix de Jean-Hubert Martin dans la collection Antoine de Galbert
2021
bilingual edition (English / French)
sold out
The exhibition catalogue for the Château d'Oiron presents more than 170 artworks from the collection of Antoine de Galbert, placed in such a way as to dialogue with the permanent collection of contemporary art Curios & Mirabilia, assembled by Jean-Hubert Martin in 1993.
Co-Création
2019
French edition
sold out
A collective reflection on cooperative and co-creation artistic practices engaged in the social field.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 02 (#5, 6, 7, 8)
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
sold out
Issues 5 to 8 of the critical review dedicated to Graphic design. Compilation includes studies on the following subjects: an Instagram post by studio Experimental Jetset for the Paradiso cultural centre in Amsterdam; a series of gestures, from Harun Farocki to L'Architecture Aujourd'hui; the publication Parallel Encyclopedia by Batia Suter; Charles Mazé & Coline Sunier's residency at the Villa Médicis.
Faire – To look at things - Volume 01 (#1, 2, 3, 4)
2018
bilingual edition (English / French)
sold out
The first four issues of the critical review dedicated to the analysis of Graphic design, published by Empire books (studio Syndicat). Each publication documents a specific object, addressed by a renowned author: the Rouge-gorge series at Éditions Cent pages by S.P. Millot; the database colorlibrary.ch by studio Maximage; the monograph Recollected Work by Mevis & Van Deursen; and the invitation cards by the artist Stanley Brouwn.
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