This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. (September 2021) |
Benedikt Taschen | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | German |
Occupation | Publisher & Art Collector |
Spouses | Daniela Taschen (m. 1985;div. 1995)Angelika Taschen (m. 1996;div. 2004)Lauren Taschen (m. 2005) |
Children |
|
Website | taschen |
Benedikt Taschen (born 10 February 1961) is a German publisher and contemporary art collector. He is the founder and managing director of the publishing house Taschen, one of the most successful international publishers, with illustrated publications on a range of themes including art, architecture, design, film, photography, pop culture, and lifestyle. [1]
Benedikt Taschen is the youngest of five children; both of his parents were doctors. [2] From an early age he was an enthusiastic reader and comic book fan. At 12 years old, he began a successful mail order business selling used comic books from the United States. [3] In February 1980, the day before his 19th birthday, he opened a 250-square-foot (23 m2) comic book store, named TASCHEN COMICS, in his home town of Cologne, Germany, in which he put his extensive comic book collection up for sale. [4] Soon he began publishing comic books himself. In 1984, his venture into the art book business began with a coup: with borrowed money from an aunt, he purchased 40,000 remainder copies of English-language Magritte monograph for one dollar apiece at a trade show in the United States. [5] Within two months, he had resold all the books at an affordable retail price of 9.95 Deutsche Mark. [6] To Taschen, this demonstrated a gap in the art book market, until then dominated by expensive editions, and made it clear there was demand for well-designed, inexpensive, multilingual illustrated art books. [6] Emboldened by this success, he made his first publishing foray in art books with a monograph on photographer Annie Leibovitz. [7] By the end of the 1980s TASCHEN titles were available in over a dozen languages at prices that made art books affordable to students and collectors alike. [8] [9]
By the late 1990s, he had become known in publishing. [10] When Vanity Fair ’s Matt Tyrnauer deemed him, “one of the few people in business who has the courage to do exactly what he wants whenever he wants to”, Benedikt Taschen tested the theory with Helmut Newton’s SUMO, the largest bound book of the 20th century, [11] released in 1999 with its own stand designed by Philippe Starck, at what was then the astounding price of $1500. Critics called him crazy, and predicted a major loss for the company, but by the time of the book's release 7000 of the 10,000 signed and numbered copies had been pre-sold. The book made TASCHEN's name internationally, and led to the even more ambitious GOAT — Greatest of All Time, a tribute to Muhammad Ali, published in Spring 2004. Four years in the making, GOAT weighs 75 lbs and is 20" × 20" in size, with nearly 800 pages of archival and original photographs, graphic artwork and articles and essays – including those of Ali himself. [12] The SUMO line - oversized books with accompanying unique stands conceived by internationally acclaimed designers - is now a well established part of the company, including titles celebrating the works of Sebastiåo Salgado, David Hockney, David Bailey, Annie Liebovitz and the history of the Rolling Stones.
Today, TASCHEN has offices in Cologne, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Madrid and Paris and stores in Beverly Hills, Brussels, Cologne, Hollywood, Hong Kong, London, Miami, Milan, and Paris. In 2014, TASCHEN opened their first art gallery in Los Angeles. [13] The publishing house employs more than 250 staff members worldwide and many longtime freelance editors. [14]
In 1998, Taschen purchased the 1961 John Lautner–designed Chemosphere House in the Hollywood Hills, long considered the most modern house in the world, and restored it precisely to Lautner's original vision, including installation of laser-cut black slate floors impossible to produce at the time the house was conceived, establishing Taschen as a key cultural figure in Hollywood circles and the world. In 2000, Billy Wilder told magazine Vanity Fair that “Benedikt reminds me of an old-time Hollywood figure. A studio head, someone who is in firm command and has his hand in everything.” [15] In turn, Matt Weiner, creator and producer of the hit series Mad Men , described Taschen as “a miracle of taste in publishing ... He consistently maintains incredible quality in content and style ... He documents both the present and the past in an indispensable way.” [1]
Alongside his work in publishing, Taschen has also made a name for himself as a collector of contemporary art. Initially concentrating on German artists like Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, and Günther Förg, he has since the late ’80s acquired numerous works by American artists like Jeff Koons, Mike Kelley, and Christopher Wool. In 2004, the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated an extensive exhibition to his private collection. [16] Benedikt Taschen has continuously been listed in the ARTnews 'Top 200 collectors' since 2003, artnet ranks him and his wife Lauren first among the “10 Los Angeles Art Power Couples”. [17] [18] In 2013, Taschen gave 15 works from his private collection to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt to reinforce their collection’s focus on German painting of the 1980s. [19] In 2014, Taschen donated $500,000 to the Wende Museum in Culver City, California, to facilitate the founding of an international center for the exploration and preservation of the culture, art, design, and history of the Cold War. [20] Benedikt and his wife Lauren Taschen also donated an extensive collection of works by young American and European artists to MOCA in Los Angeles. [21]
Taschen is in his third marriage, to Lauren Taschen, and has five children; three from his first and two from his third marriage. [22] [23] [2] [24] His older daughter, Marlene, began work at the publishing house in 2011 and has risen to Managing Director of the company. [25] [26] Taschen lives and works between Berlin and Los Angeles. [27]
Basically, everything I ever needed to learn about capitalism I learnt from Carl Barks and his characters Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.
— Benedikt Taschen, The Wealth Collection, Winter 2009. [31]
Benedikt Taschen is a miracle of taste in publishing … He consistently maintains incredible quality in content and style … He documents both the present and the past in an indispensable way.
Benedikt reminds me of an old-time Hollywood figure—a studio head, someone who is in firm command and has his hand in everything.
I have done a lot of books, and I can tell you — without mentioning names — that publishers are not all like him. There are very few like him. Or there are none like him. He is also, I might add, a madman.
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
Wolfgang Tillmans is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations.
Michael Steven Ovitz is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was a talent agent who co-founded Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1975 and served as its chairman until 1995. Ovitz later served as president of The Walt Disney Company for only 16 months, from October 1995 to January 1997.
Elmer Albert Batters was a pioneer fetish photographer who specialized in capturing artful images of women with an emphasis on stockings, legs, and feet, placing him ahead of his time in popularizing foot fetishism imagery as erotic entertainment.
Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He is also noted for creating several artist's books. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California.
Events from the year 1980 in art.
Mario Eduardo Testino Silva OBE HonFRPS is a Peruvian fashion and portrait photographer.
Matthew Russell Rolston is an American artist, photographer, director and creative director, known for his lighting techniques and detailed approach to art direction and design. Rolston has been identified throughout his career with the revival and modern expression of Hollywood glamour.
Paul Outerbridge, Jr. was an American photographer prominent for his early use and experiments in color photography.
Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the New Objectivity.
Greg Allen Theakston was an American comics artist and illustrator who worked for numerous publishers. He is known for his independent publications as a comics historian under his Pure Imagination imprint, as well as for developing the Theakstonizing process used in comics restoration. He used the pseudonym Earl P. Wooten.
Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery.
David Hickey was an American art critic who wrote for many American publications including Rolling Stone, ARTnews, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He was nicknamed "The Bad Boy of Art Criticism" and "The Enfant Terrible of Art Criticism". He had been professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and distinguished professor of criticism for the MFA program in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of New Mexico.
Juergen Nogai is a German architecture, art and documentary photographer.
Matt Tyrnauer is an American film director. He directed the documentary feature Valentino: The Last Emperor (2009), which was short listed for an Oscar nomination in 2010, Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016), the Emmy nominated, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (2017), the 2018 documentary Studio 54 detailing New York's famed Studio 54 nightclub, Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019), and the Showtime four-part series, The Reagans (2020). Tyrnauer also developed, and executive produced, with producing partner Corey Reeser, the docuseries Home, directing its Hong Kong episode, about the Gary Chang's Domestic Transformer home. The nine-part series premiered on Apple TV Plus in April 2020. Currently, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood is being adapted as a narrative film, with Tyrnauer and Reeser producing, Luca Guadagnino directing and Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg writing the script. Tyrnauer has been Editor-At-Large and Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he has contributed many feature articles.
The Wende Museum is an art museum, historical archive of the Cold War, and center for creative community engagement in Culver City, California.
Suzanne Muchnic is an art writer who was a staff art reporter and art critic at the Los Angeles Times for 31 years. She has also written books on artists, collectors, and museums.
Ten Dollar Bill is a 1956 proto-pop art lithographic drawing by Roy Lichtenstein. Considered to be a combination of Americana art and cubism, the work is referred to as the beginning of Lichtenstein's work on pop art. Twenty-five editions of the lithograph were made by Lichtenstein, which were exhibited at several galleries. The piece is based on the design for the ten-dollar bill and has influenced several of Lichtenstein's later works. The picture has received generally favorable reception from critics, and is considered to be one of the best artistic portrayals of currency.
Robert Nippoldt is a German illustrator, graphic designer and book artist. He studied graphic design and illustration at the University of Applied Sciences in Münster. The book “Gangster. Die Bosse von Chicago” was his thesis project. Two years later in 2007, his second book “Jazz. New York in the Roaring Twenties” was published. It was translated into several languages and won numerous awards. In 2010 “Hollywood in the 1930s”, his third book on 1920s and 30s America, came out. In 2017 his fourth book “Night falls on the Berlin of the Roaring Twenties” was published. His books are accompanied by games and limited edition silkscreen prints. In addition to his book projects, he illustrates for international magazines and clients including The New Yorker, Le Monde, Die ZEIT, Mercedes-Benz, Reader’s Digest, Taschen and TIME Magazine. For commissions of this nature he collaborates with his sister Astrid Nippoldt and his wife, Christine Nippoldt, as part of their own label, Studio Nippoldt.
Justinian (Justin) Jampol is the founder and current executive director of The Wende Museum of the Cold War, an art museum, historical archive, and educational institution in Culver City, California. His work focuses on visual cultural studies and the connection between contemporary art and Cold War iconography. He is also the host and consulting producer of the Travel Channel series Lost Secrets.