Mixed Signals
across Design, Art and Music
Janus Hochgesand — Muy Mucho
Distanz Verlag
Concept and Design for Janus Hochgesand’s catalogue “Muy Mucho”. A multi-layered insight into Janus' practice, including studio close-ups, process images and reproductions of his "High Intensity Paintings". Several paper changes (MunkenPrintWhite, MagnoGloss and LuxoArtSamt) respond to the different states of aggregation: grainy, luminous, and almost geological.
"Muy Mucho, or “very much,” is published in conjunction with Hochgesand’s exhibition at the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz. Detailed studies of sixteen selected works illustrate the artist’s creative approach. With essays by Sebastian Baden and Jens Asthoff and an interview with the artist by Julia Voss, as well as a foreword by Beate Reifenscheid.
Janus Hochgesand (b. Dierdorf, 1981; lives and works in Hamburg) describes his works as “High Intensity Paintings”—pictures defined by the compression of form and content and an unusually concentrated layering of physical material. To make them, the artist uses a broom or vacuum cleaner to abrade pigments liberally poured out over the canvas and reworking the results in iterations of aggregation and ablation. Hochgesand came to this practice from sculpture. As a student with Andreas Slominski and later with Tobias Rehberger at the Städelschule, he gradually realized that the canvas, invariably laid flat on the studio floor, is his medium. In superimposing paint strata, the artist revisits the aesthetic of Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel, only to condense these influences in a distinctive performative-painterly practice in which music in the studio plays a key role."
Format: 23,5 × 29,5 cm
Features: 112 pages, 45 color images und 15 b/w-images, hardcover
Editor: Beate Reifenscheid / Ludwig Museum Koblenz, Sebastian Baden
Concept and Design: Paul Steinmann
Texts: Jens Asthoff, Sebastian Baden, Beate Reifenscheid, Julia Voss
Translation: Michael Turnbull
Copy Editing and Production Management: DISTANZ Verlag
Printing and Binding: optimal media GmbH, Röbel/Müritz
Photo Credits:
Thorsten Arendt, Helge Mundt, Matthias Ibeler
Exhibition views “Never stop exploring”, Westwerk, Hamburg 2020,
Exhibition views “High intensity painting”, Emsdettener Kunstverein 2019
© 2021 the artist, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; the photographers, the authors;
DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, Berlin
ISBN978-3-95476-391-7
Published by DISTANZ Verlag in May 2021
Buy here
Distanz Verlag
Concept and Design for Janus Hochgesand’s catalogue “Muy Mucho”. A multi-layered insight into Janus' practice, including studio close-ups, process images and reproductions of his "High Intensity Paintings". Several paper changes (MunkenPrintWhite, MagnoGloss and LuxoArtSamt) respond to the different states of aggregation: grainy, luminous, and almost geological.
"Muy Mucho, or “very much,” is published in conjunction with Hochgesand’s exhibition at the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz. Detailed studies of sixteen selected works illustrate the artist’s creative approach. With essays by Sebastian Baden and Jens Asthoff and an interview with the artist by Julia Voss, as well as a foreword by Beate Reifenscheid.
Janus Hochgesand (b. Dierdorf, 1981; lives and works in Hamburg) describes his works as “High Intensity Paintings”—pictures defined by the compression of form and content and an unusually concentrated layering of physical material. To make them, the artist uses a broom or vacuum cleaner to abrade pigments liberally poured out over the canvas and reworking the results in iterations of aggregation and ablation. Hochgesand came to this practice from sculpture. As a student with Andreas Slominski and later with Tobias Rehberger at the Städelschule, he gradually realized that the canvas, invariably laid flat on the studio floor, is his medium. In superimposing paint strata, the artist revisits the aesthetic of Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel, only to condense these influences in a distinctive performative-painterly practice in which music in the studio plays a key role."
Format: 23,5 × 29,5 cm
Features: 112 pages, 45 color images und 15 b/w-images, hardcover
Editor: Beate Reifenscheid / Ludwig Museum Koblenz, Sebastian Baden
Concept and Design: Paul Steinmann
Texts: Jens Asthoff, Sebastian Baden, Beate Reifenscheid, Julia Voss
Translation: Michael Turnbull
Copy Editing and Production Management: DISTANZ Verlag
Printing and Binding: optimal media GmbH, Röbel/Müritz
Photo Credits:
Thorsten Arendt, Helge Mundt, Matthias Ibeler
Exhibition views “Never stop exploring”, Westwerk, Hamburg 2020,
Exhibition views “High intensity painting”, Emsdettener Kunstverein 2019
© 2021 the artist, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; the photographers, the authors;
DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, Berlin
ISBN978-3-95476-391-7
Published by DISTANZ Verlag in May 2021
Buy here
