|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 The Passion of Benedikt Taschen Taschen, a publishing house with stores across the globe, is constantly creating the unpredictable and striving for the spectacular. Christopher Kanal meets its founder Benedikt Taschen, the legendary German publisher defined by his passion for the provocative. t’s a damp, muggy, cloudy day at the end of summer. The 47-year old pub-lisher is in London on business. He is staying at Claridges in Mayfair and we meet in the foyer for a drink. Tall and imposing, Benedikt Taschen is dressed in jeans, a light blue shirt and a navy jacket. With his sad eyes, Taschen has a sombre air but his persona remains gentle and friendly. ‘I am in a lucky situation where I can do what I love to do,’ Taschen explains enthusiastically, sipping a Guinness. ‘My interests develop in different directions all the time. I am naturally curious to explore new ideas.’ He is a private man but warms up considerably when talking about what he loves most. As a child of the sixties, Taschen is fascinated by space. Hence his latest project MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11. Co-authored by the late American author and man of letters Norman Mailer, it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Limited to 1,969 copies, 25 are Marc Newson-designed special editions that include fragments of the lunar rock. ‘The idea was to create the ultimate collector’s edition based on the amazing text by Norman Mailer, and to include a piece of lunar rock – one of the rar-est substances on earth,’ says Taschen. ‘We wanted to have Buzz Aldrin sign the most iconic portrait taken in the 20th century, and let Marc Newson, a genius of design and a space-junkie himself, create the most desirable object. The plan was to combine all these elements to create a book of historic significance.’ Equally famous for its books on sex and architecture, Taschen is one of the most successful and unique publishers in the world, producing an extraordinary variety of books on topics from Hieronymus Bosch to large breasts, and is dis-tributed worldwide in over 20 languages. Humble beginnings During his teens, he was introverted and obsessed with comics, and passed his time painting vampires and reading Donald Duck. Yet at the same time he developed an astute sense of business enterprise and, at the tender age of 12, started a comic book mail-order business. ‘Basically everything I ever needed to learn about capitalism I learnt from Carl Barks and his characters Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge,’ he says. At 15, he opened a 250-square foot comic bookshop he named Taschen Comics. ‘I was always in the great situation in that people supported me and believed in me,’ he says.‘Of course that is a kind of a mortgage so you really have to deliver eventually.’ It was at this time that Taschen developed the commercial savvy that perfectly matched the punk-inspired sense of creative freedom where everything is possible. It’s an ethos that has allowed his company to maintain its independent, progressive and adventurous streak – through retaining its original small publishing house attitude – while remaining financially successful. Comics were never going to be the most solid foundation for a publishing empire so he decided to branch out into art. In 1983, using money borrowed from his family, Taschen bought a stock of 40,000 remaindered books on the Dutch surrealist painter Rene Magritte and resold them for a fraction of their original price, making a huge profit. He soon switched to reprinting books under his own name for budget prices. The following year he published his first original title and the first book in the Basic Art series: Picasso. Before long, high-quality-yet-still-inexpensive hardcover books were added to the line-up. The evolution ‘We turn more books down than are offered to us,’ he says. ‘We do things only if we really love them.’ As the 80s progressed, Taschen built up his empire with books on design and architecture. With books such as the Basic Architecture range of monographs for £5.99, the architecture world was brought to an entirely new audience. Sex, art and design soon made Taschen famous and rich. As wider cultural awareness of art and architecture grew from the early 90s, Taschen responded by publishing books on Jeff Koons and Philippe Starck. These books were beautiful to look at and objects of desire for a new, intellectually curious generation. Coffee tables never looked so good. ‘When I started with comic books I understood quite quickly the specific importance of the fetish of what it means for a collector,’ says Taschen. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it is a comic book or an art book – it is the same. The fetish for what you are admiring has to be treated respectfully and not just in a ‘fan’ way.’ Taschen became a hip, highly sought-after name and Taschen developed an almost rock-star-like status in the staid world of publishing. ‘I had no problem with that,’ he says. ‘I had no objections to it at all.’ It has given Taschen access to some of the biggest cultural figures on the planet from Ingmar Bergman and Billy Wilder to Muhammad Ali and Jean Nouvel, leading to extraordinary publishing projects. ‘Billy Wilder was a perfect representative of Germany’s past at its best, the past which I am proud of: the sophisticated, cultured and witty, German-Jewish Bourgeoisie,’ says Taschen, whose favourite film is Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. ‘He was a wonderful man, most creative and always very generous to me. Working with Jean Nouvel was also an unusual but very pleasant experience. Knowing his design and aesthetic sensibilities, we followed his conceptual ideas and let him do the entire design on his own, including a choice of paper and materials.’
Perhaps the greatest Taschen Spectacular was SUMO, a tribute to Helmut Newton, published in 1999, which was the biggest and most expensive book production of the 20th century. At 50cm by 70cm; the Vatican's own book binder helped design SUMO, which came with its own stand by Starck. Taschen sold 10,000 copies of SUMO at £6,000 each. One edition number signed by 80 celebrities later sold at auction for $304,000. Contemporary books become objects to invest in. ‘It is a very anachronistic and old-fashioned business,’ reflects Taschen. ‘To make the link between tradition and the 21st century, we create objects of desire whether it is for 10 dollars or for 100 dollars or 10,000 dollars.’ He followed SUMO with the personal project GOAT, or Greatest of All Time: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali, the Champ's Edition. At £7,500 it was the second most expensive retail price in publishing history and came with limited-edition artwork by Jeff Koons. Four years in the making, GOAT weighs in at 75lbs and is 20"x20" in size, with nearly 800 pages of archival and original photographs, graphic artwork, articles and essays. Current affairs
The most recent Taschen project was a limited-edition book of the photography of legendary Hollywood actor Dennis Hopper. The Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider actor was an avid photographer in the 60s and caught some of the most timeless images of the era reflecting both the lives of the Hollywood stars of the time as well as the social upheavels. The project has been in the works for more than a decade and lead to Taschen and Hopper becoming close friends. ‘Dennis is a great guy; multi-talented and just fun to work with, paired with fabulous professionalism,’ he explains. ‘He is certainly one of the most outstanding talents in Hollywood and has been for a long, long time. Fortunately he also had a great, terrific career as a photographer, which people don’t know about.’
Shock tactics The controversy is testament to how Taschen also gained a reputation for books on erotica. The diversity of Taschen is one of its most appealing characteristics. The Big Book of Breasts sits comfortably alongside a book on the designer Ron Arad. ‘Erotica is one part,’ he tells me. ‘It is a really small part. I really wish it was a bigger part but that is not the case.’ Having said that, Taschen maintains that he does not seek to shock people. ‘I don’t care,’ he insists. ‘Some people really love what we do. For those that don’t, we don’t force them to look at it. We are living in a democratic society and people can do what they like.’ Nevertheless, controversy has always followed Taschen and has proved more beneficial than any expensive advertising. In 2000 Taschen produced a photography book, Five Lifes, by Leni Riefenstahl, who was Hitler's favourite film-maker. There will always be an element of subversion to Taschen’s books, and audiences love them all the more for it. ‘We get offered thousands of projects each year. They often choose us because they know that Taschen doesn't care about the so called ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture branding,’ he explains. ‘Also, our wonderful editors and contributors dig out unknown or forgotten talent.’ A private life Taschen has been married three times. He married Angelika in 1996, who is chief editor at the company. In 2005, he married Lauren Weiner in 2005 at the Villa d'Este on Lake Como. Burlesque star Dita Von Teese, performed at their wedding reception, emerging from an oversized champagne glass. The main Taschen home is a fitting setting in LA In 1997, he bought the extraordinary Chemosphere, designed by Modernist architect John Lautner in 1960. The Chemosphere sits like a spaceship above Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Taschen shares the house with his wife and French bulldog Sans Souci. The eight-sided pod has been the setting for some of his famous parties. Taschen might be an enigmatic outsider but is a great networker. Many of the people he has worked with have become good friends, most notably legandary photographer Helmut Newton. He loves LA. ‘For me it is exciting in that you have combinations of so many different types of people,’ he says. ‘If you are here in London, it’s a fantastic city but you need a lot of energy to keep up. It is the same for me in New York. After two days I am totally tired. That’s just from the noise.’ Winning streak Taschen does not think it’s hard work alone that is the key to success. ‘Ahmet Ertegün from Atlantic Records was once asked what the secret of being commercially successful was,’ Taschen says. ‘He said ‘Walk very slowly and all of a sudden a genius will bump into you and make you very rich.’ I have a feeling that I have a whole bunch of geniuses bumping into me all the time.’ As if on cue, as our conversation comes to end, the MoonFire designer Marc Newson arrives to meet him. Does Taschen want his books to last forever? ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ he says, before finally adding: ‘Actually, maybe the Marc Newson edition. I am happy if at the very least, the books aren’t sitting in the warehouse forever.’ |
 Cultural
MeccaAbu Dhabi is creating a $27 billion arts complex on Saadiyat Island with a little help from some of the world’s most renowned architects and cultural consultants. read article
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
