<wrapping><die/Zeit>

Die Zeit

Between 2001 and 2004, Art&Idea’s director, Robert Punkenhofer, selected eight cutting-edge contemporary artists to develop Christmas wrapping paper for the leading German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. These sheets of wrapping paper were published in the paper’s printed edition, which had a circulation of five hundred thousand copies, and could also be downloaded from the paper’s website.

In the first joint curatorial project between Art&Idea and Die Zeit in 2001, the newspaper published Christmas wrapping paper designed by Austrian artist Uli Aigner, H. N. Semjon from Berlin, New York City-based Emiko Kasahara and Marko Lehanka from Frankfurt am Main. In 2002, the South Korean Do-Ho Suh and Jenny Marketou from Athens were invited; and in 2003 Kara Walker, one of the most recognized and controversial African American artists of our time was selected. The co-operation between Die Zeit and Art&Idea in 2004 led to the publication of wrapping paper by the American artist Karen Yasinsky.

Based on an idea by Die Zeit news editor Heike Faller, the project was partly a generous act by a commercial weekly, donating an entire double page spread of its regular newspaper at Christmas time. Those were pages which were usually reserved for paid advertisements during that peak advertising season. At the same time, it was intended to be a real service for real readers, as well as create an unexpected and uncompromising space for artistic expression. The challenge of this curatorial endeavor was crossing boundaries such as the one between commercial and artistic frameworks; the one between applied arts, such as design and graphic art; as well as the playful and sensitive analysis of an intimate and religious theme like Christmas by using conceptual art in the context of mass media.

Some quotes:

“I thought of old Santa ornaments I saw, which I thought seemed so beautiful; they seemed fragile and uncertain about themselves, which seemed appropriate. Then I thought of regular people and animals posing for ornaments and I included them in the design. Some of them are fragile and uncertain too” – Karen Yasinsky

“I thought about what exactly happens when one wraps presents, and I thought it interesting to exploit how one sticks the edges of the paper together. When you merge the edges of the paper, you will get an image that seems to be a complete ensemble, but actually it is a reflection” – Kara Walker

“Odors arouse, remind, warm, tempt, guide, inspire, inform and communicate, even more so at Christmas time. For Die Zeit I created a specific database of holiday smells that are graphically converted into colors. Each “smelly” color is drawn from an environmental repertoire that includes Christmas and Holiday smells” – Jenny Marketou

“Jesus came to this world for our humanity. He shocked everyone when he charged through cultural barriers, stereotypes and traditions. Jesus also honored those least respected in his community. Whenever I think of Jesus and Christmas, I think of the sea of people: all equal, free from any kind of discrimination and all in harmony” – Do-Ho Suh