Artist book: a visual and poetic investigation of the enigmatic figure of the "Middleman", combining short punchlines and full-page illustrations, which are wryly reminiscent of Kafka's fictional world. The publication comes with a cardboard puppet, to be screwed and assembled.
Who is the Middleman? A viewer? An author who mediates between the world of ideas and the material world by creating drawings, sculptures, and texts? A simplified and symbolic puppet that can be moved by various forces?
In his latest book, artist Honza Zamojski makes an illustrative and poetic attempt to describe the Middlemen, their everyday life, and the realities that surround them. The book's short punchlines mark the rhythm of the Middelmen's life and their movements in the illustrations, which are wryly reminiscent of Kafka's fictional world.
Produced by the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC) in Ljubljana and realized on the occasion of the exhibition Middleman in 2023, the publication comes with a Middleman cardboard puppet, literally the "hero taken from the book and put aside," a playful object to be screwed together, assembled, and dealt with, sometimes feeling a bit guilty.
Honza Zamojski (born 1981 in Poznań, Poland) is an artist, designer, book publisher and curator who draws upon a broad range of media and artistic practice, from drawings and sculptures to infographics inspired by corporate communications and poetic word games. His minimalist forms are loaded with meaningful symbols, abstract compositions and figurative representations that make up a visual language governed by its own grammatical rules and formal structure. Elements that may appear disparate at first are united through their simplicity of form, punctuated by a sense of humour and irony.
Honza Zamojski has authored more than a dozen books (including Love Letter, onestar press, 2017; Four Eggs Theory, self-published, 2015; Fishing with John, NERO, 2013).
He has also presented his original lecture series on "How It's Made" at the Centre Pompidou, MoMA Library and Printed Matter New York. His work has been seen in Ljubljana in the main exhibition of the 33rd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts Crack Up – Crack Down in 2019, as part of which he presented his installation The Gathering and The Meeting at DUM Project Space. He received the Audience Award for his installation.
