Art book master highlights beauty of printed works

German book publisher Gerhard Steidl poses at a press preview of the exhibition “How to Make a Book with Steidl” at the Daelim Museum, central Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Daelim Museum

By Baek Byung-yeul

Despite the e-book boom, a German meister in publishing believes that “a renaissance of paper books” is yet to come.

Gerhard Steidl, owner of Steidl, an art book publishing company in Germany, visited Korea for the exhibition “How to Make a Book with Steidl,” underway at the Daelim Museum, central Seoul, through Oct. 6.

At the press conference on a windy and rainy Wednesday, Steidl, who has been devoted to publishing for 43 years, showed great commitment to books.

Steidl, who runs a company that deals with every process of producing books, such as text body type, paper selection, colors and covers, has 50 employees and a press, which runs 24 hours a day. He gets to the office by 5 a.m. and leaves after 8 p.m.

The company, which publishes about 400 titles a year, is an object of pride for the artist. “We receive three to five proposals every day from all over the world. And 99 percent of them are useless, which means the content has already been published or we are not that interested in them,” Steidl said.

Secrets to survival

To answer the question on how to survive in the tough world of publishing, he said the secret is “keeping high quality at reasonable price.” “I am not interested in limited edition selling for a higher price.”

While many publishing companies departmentalized their production of books, Steidl chose to unify every process excluding paper manufacturing and book binding rather than outsourcing it.

“We do everything in producing a book at Steidl,” he said. He added that another key for succeeding in the publishing business is “speed.” “It only takes about a week to publish one. Compare it to those of other publishing companies which take a few months, it is very fast.”

Born in the small city of Gottingen, located in the middle of Germany in 1950, Steidl skipped college and founded a publishing company right after taking his high school graduation exam in 1968 at age 18. Steidl became a registered craftsmen as a master of silkscreen printing through self-study in 1974. In the 1980s, he broadened his expertise to art, literature and photography, and has published 1999 Nobel Prize winning-author Gunter Grass’s books since 1986.

Entering the first floor of the Daelim Museum, visitors may be puzzled as to whether they are in a bookstore or an exhibition place, as here they can also buy books published by Stiedl.

On the second floor is a space allowing them to smell the scent of freshly-printed books. Stiedl devised a perfume called “Paper Passion” so that it can let the audience “smell” his passion for paper books. Also, the book covers of Gunter Grass’s works are on display, along with a photo book by renowned South African photographer Koto Bolofo, known for creating advertisement campaigns for Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Dom Perignon.

Collaborations with some of the world’s outstanding artists are on display on the third floor. Not only original sketches of Chanel’s prints and various kinds of typography with Karl Lagerfeld, head designer and artistic director for Chanel, but also, the Steidl edition of “The Americans,” a masterpiece photo book by photographer Robert Frank can be seen.

On the fourth floor, the last floor of the exhibition, are original works by American pop artist and engraver Jim Dine, as well as a demonstration of the process of engraving.

The venue is located near exit 3 of Gyeongbokgung Station, subway line 3. Tickets cost 5,000 won. For more information, call (02) 720-0667 or visit www.daelimmuseum.org (in both Korean and English).