About the AAP

About the Collection Hubert Kretschmer 

Sin­ce 1980 Hu­bert Kret­schmer has coll­ec­ted, ar­chi­ved and do­cu­men­ted ar­tist pu­bli­ca­ti­ons for his AAP Ar­chi­ve Ar­tist Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons: ar­tist books, ma­ga­zi­nes, fly­ers, zi­nes, mul­ti­ples, pos­ters, eph­emera and ma­ny mo­re. This In­de­pen­dent Ar­chi­ve Pro­ject was foun­ded in Mu­nich by the pu­blisher, ar­tist and art edu­ca­tor Hu­bert Kretschmer.
It all be­gan wi­th th­ree ex­hi­bits on ar­tist books in the Pro­du­zen­ten­ga­le­rie Adel­gun­den­stra­ße (Mu­nich) in 1979. It was the trig­ger for the foun­ding of Ver­lag & Dis­tri­bu­ti­on Hu­bert Kret­schmer [Pu­blisher & Dis­tri­bu­ti­on Hu­bert Kret­schmer]. His aim was to make it pos­si­ble for ar­tist-pro­du­ced me­dia to have a pre­sence on an in­ter­na­tio­nal platform.
Whe­ther at the Frank­fur­ter Buch­mes­se, the Mi­ni­pres­sen­mes­se in Mainz, the Ge­gen­Buch­mes­se in Frank­furt, the Art Ba­sel, Art Co­lo­gne, Art Frank­furt, Art Mul­ti­ple in Düs­sel­dorf or the Ger­man Book Fair in New York – for ma­ny ye­ars the pu­blisher was re­pre­sen­ted the world over, which led to the phe­no­me­na Kunst­ler­Pu­bli­ka­tio­nen= Ar­tists Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons be­co­ming so well known.
A net­work de­ve­lo­ped from the per­so­nal re­la­ti­onships wi­th ar­tists, in­ter­na­tio­nal pri­va­te coll­ec­tors, book and art dea­lers as well as li­bra­ri­es, en­ab­ling Hu­bert Kret­schmer to fur­ther en­lar­ge his com­pre­hen­si­ve ar­chi­ve. To­day it com­pri­ses cir­ca 100,000 items of va­ry­ing me­dia, its main em­pha­sis on the 1980s. Of the­se about 75,000 are pu­blicly ac­ces­si­ble in the on­line ca­ta­lo­gue.

In con­trast to clas­sic book art coll­ec­tions, this pri­va­te coll­ec­tion is not ge­ared toward va­lu­ab­ly ador­ned bi­blio­phi­le ob­jects, but ra­ther towards pu­bli­ca­ti­ons that we­re pro­du­ced wi­th the simp­lest ma­te­ri­als, li­ke fly­ers, co­pied or sten­ci­led ma­ga­zi­nes, edi­ti­ons in small num­bers and si­mi­lar items. As so-cal­led “grey li­te­ra­tu­re”, such pu­bli­ca­ti­ons are usual­ly not coll­ec­ted by pu­blic li­bra­ri­es, de­spi­te pos­ses­sing a high do­cu­men­ta­tio­nal va­lue. Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons by ar­tists wi­th a li­mi­t­ed au­di­ence and tho­se which are not ar­chi­ved per­ma­nent­ly or in any cen­tral ar­chi­ve are the most com­mon. The ar­chi­ve ar­tist pu­bli­ca­ti­ons would li­ke to con­tri­bu­te to ma­king this si­gni­fi­cant field of ar­tis­tic pro­duc­tion per­ma­nent­ly and pu­blicly accessible.
The coll­ec­tion en­com­pas­ses mul­ti­ples, pos­ters, in­vi­ta­ti­ons, va­rious re­cor­dings, pho­to­co­pies, stamps, vi­de­os, zi­nes, CDs, ca­ta­lo­gues, news­pa­pers, web­sites, se­con­da­ry li­te­ra­tu­re and ex­hi­bit ca­ta­lo­gues, which re­flect the art trends of the past 35 ye­ars up to to­day: the off­shoots of Flu­xus, of hap­pe­nings and per­for­mance art, mail art, stamp art, the Neue Wil­de, con­cre­te and vi­su­al poet­ry, Con­cep­tu­al art, ap­pro­pria­ti­on art and co­py art. To a li­mi­t­ed ext­ent, the coll­ec­tion al­so in­ten­tio­nal­ly in­cludes ever­y­day pu­bli­ca­ti­ons, li­ke mail-or­der ca­ta­lo­gues and fa­shion or life­style ma­ga­zi­nes, in or­der to cap­tu­re the zeitgeist.
The AAP Ar­chi­ve Ar­tist Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons is con­ve­ni­ent­ly lo­ca­ted in the Mu­nich Kunst­are­al [art dis­trict], 250 me­ters north of the Brand­horst Mu­se­um. The coll­ec­tion can be view­ed any­ti­me by ap­point­ment. We are plea­sed to pro­vi­de ex­hi­bit items for events and exhibits.

May 2020