Monte Packham

Efter andra världskriget började Theodor Teto Ahrenberg (1912-1989) att skapa en av de mest ambitiösa och egensinniga privata samlingar av modern konst som funnits; en samling som alltjämt i stort sett är okänd. Den innehöll närmare tusen verk av etablerade mästare som Matisse, Picasso och Chagall, och av banbrytande yngre konstnärer som Kantor, Baertling och Tinguely. Ahrenbergs komplexa och personliga samling formades av hans övertygelse om att han inte bara var samlare utan även katalysator någon som underlättade för utställningar, samarbeten och uppdrag, och använde konsten för att motsätta sig konservatism och självbelåtenhet. Samlingen beslagtogs 1962 av de svenska myndigheterna, under omtvistade förhållanden, och skingrades sedan. Det fanns också långt gångna planer på att skapa ett nytt konstmuseum av världsklass, ritat av Le Corbusier, på vattnet utanför Norr Mälarstrand. Även dessa planer skingrades. Ahrenberg byggde sedan upp en ny och än mer progressiv samling som lyfte fram konstnärer ur 60-talets avantgarde, såsom Christo, Arman, Lucio Fontana och Niki de Saint Phalle. Med hjälp av ett rikt bildmaterial och korrespondens, varav mycket aldrig tidigare har publicerats, utforskar denna bok på ett uttömmande sätt Ahrenbergs fascinerande samlingar och liv.

An unconventional illustrated book for children and all those with a healthy relationship to their inner childImaginatively combining retro images with new rhymes, Rhyme Time brings visual nostalgia and the traditions of children's verse up to date. The illustrations are 1960s line drawings that Monte Packham (born 1981)--author of ABC Photography and Photo Adventures--carefully colored in as a child in 1988; now, more than 30 years later, he has rearranged these vibrant images into playful stories and captured them in rhyme. The unexpected results are both original tales, like that of Humphrey who chased a pesky elf from his garden with a cricket bat, and tongue-in-cheek reinterpretations of beloved fairy tales and nursery rhymes--if Snow White isn't actually the fairest in the land, then who is? And why did Jack and Jill really climb that steep and nasty hill?

Living with Matisse, Picasso, and the New Decade explores one of the most ambitious and idiosyncratic - yet largely unknown - private collections of 20th-century Western art, and its complex, charismatic creator Theodor `Teto' Ahrenberg (1912-89). Containing over 6,000 artworks acquired between the late 1940s and late 1980s, the collection featured, throughout its dramatic existence, key works by artists as distinguished and diverse as Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Le Corbusier, Olle Baertling, Sam Francis, OEyvind Fahlstroem, Tadeusz Kantor, Lucio Fontana, Christo, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. Ahrenberg's ever-renewing collection was shaped by his commitment to the changing notion of contemporary art, his dedication to young and marginalized artists, his intuition, and a self-declared conviction that he was not merely a collector but a `catalyst' - one who facilitated exhibitions, collaborations and commissions, and who employed art as an instrument against conservatism and complacency. Ahrenberg passionately believed in personally meeting those artists whose works he acquired, and he accordingly established rich, long-term friendships that transcended the conventional artist-collector dynamic. Living with Matisse, Picasso, and the New Decade, the first monograph on Ahrenberg's fascinating collection and life, draws on a wealth of personal correspondence between Ahrenberg and `his' artists, and presents much previously unpublished visual material including artworks, photographs and architectural plans

“Gerhard’s like a Communist. You have to go into the salt mines with him. If you’re willing to go there then you’re like brothers in arms and he’ll do what needs be.” Robert Polidori In August 2008 Monte Packham began taking notes of events unfolding around him during a typical working day as an editor at Steidl Publishers. Until January 2009 he made such daily jottings, candid observations of the organised chaos that is book-making at Steidl. These notes form the basis of Concentric Circles, the first book to depict the eclectic personalities and experiences that shape Steidl. Here the reader discovers the secret processes and comic facets of life at the publishing house: Günter Grass tapping tobacco into his pipe while refining the typography of his latest book, Gerhard Steidl at a Chanel fashion show or unsuccessfully trying to repair his fax machine, Paul Graham pondering binding materials, the sudden halt of the printing press… The book is enriched by interviews with and original texts by some of Steidl’s most important collaborators including Robert Frank, Karl Lagerfeld, Lewis Baltz, Jim Dine, Roni Horn, Tacita Dean, David Bailey and William Eggleston. Concentric Circles is both an unconventional portrait of Steidl Publishers and a compelling insight into the craft of book-making today. Monte Packham is a writer and editor living in Göttingen, Germany. Born in 1981 in Sydney, he has bachelor degrees with honours in art history and law from the University of Sydney. Packham’s writing has been published in Art & Australia, sleek and Another Magazine among others. Since 2007 he has worked as an editor at Steidl.