Grunts Rare Books is honored to present a special presentation by Royal Book Lodge organized collaboratively with Emma Nilsson: CONDUITS, INTRODUCTION.

“There is a publishing house that turned publishing into a collaborative process that transcends the physical reality of the book, and generates constellations of meaning that combine video, performance, photography, painting, drawing and other media.

There are several exhibitions, there’s an archive, a collection.

There is a beginning – a kind of HQ in Montreuil, just outside of Paris. There are the two artists Juli Susin and Véronique Bourgoin and their artist friends from Berlin, Marseille, Prague, Iceland, Eastern Europe, Los Angeles, Paraguay…

There is also a history – and John Welchman's book, capturing, for the first time the results of this gurgling exchange – the universe of Royal Book Lodge.”

The exhibition takes as its starting point Andy Hope 1930’s sculpture, edition and drawing cycle ‘Summoning’.

The exhibition features drawings and ceramics by Juli Susin; drawings, photographs, ceramics by Véronique Bourgoin; a film by Mirron Mitzkewich & Juli Susin; and artists books by: Andy Hope 1930, Jonathan Messe, André Butzer, Daniel Johnston, Jason Rhoades, Dorota Jurczak & Armin Krämer & Abel Auer & Kai Althoff, Gudny Gudmundsdottir, Ralph Rumney, Sara Glaxia, Popline Fichot, and Véronique Bourgoin and Juli Susin

CONDUITS, INTRODUCTION opens Friday, March 14th and closes on Saturday, May 4th 2025.

Celebrating thirty years of collaboration and collectivity from the European artist’s book network, renowned art historian John C. Welchman provides the first ever monograph on the Royal Book Lodge (RBL), an international network of artists that emerged in the late 1980s in Berlin, Paris and Marseille, initially spearheaded by the artists Juli Susin and Véronique Bourgoin. Specializing in artists’ books, the Lodge is famous for the vast scope of its activities: its numerous collaborators over the years have included Raisa Aid, Kai Althoff, Abel Auer, Linda Bilda, André Butzer, matali crasset, Dorota Jurczak, Bruce Kalberg, Jochen Lempert, Jonathan Meese, Roberto Ohrt, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades and Gianfranco Sanguinetti, among others. This substantial monograph, researched over a three-year period, explores the central themes of the Royal Book Lodge, such as biographical construction, fiction, migration and political violence, and also examines its Situationist antecedents.

Juli Susin, Untitled (2007), gelatin silver print, photograph of ‘Summoning’ by Andy Hope 1930.

‘Summoning’ (2007), created by Andy Hope 1930, is composed of a grandfather clock with tentacles placed in a silver room. On one of the walls hangs a painting by the artist, portraying a sea monster swallowing a boat. The swinging pendulum and the kinetic lighting mechanism of the clock are synchronized with a recorded voice that repeats: “Time is a one way street…”. The entrance of the room has a curtain featuring a sign designed by Andy Hope 1930.

The sculpture was presented at the exhibition ‘Time Banners’, part of the installation of the Galerie Nomadenoase organized by Juli Susin/Silverbridge in Paris, 3 rue de Trois Portes, in 2004-2005, and produced by Yasha Gofman.

In 2009 the ‘Summoning’ installation was used again by Andy Hope 1930 and Juli Susin in the form of an artist’s book with the same title. The book, produced by Royal Book Lodge (formerly Silverbridge) contains a miniature replica of the clock, an original drawing by Andy Hope 1930 and a comic with preliminary sketches, also by the artist.

Jason Rhoades & Paul McCarthy, Mémoires (Silverbridge, 2005), special edition produced by Royal Book Lodge, formerly Silverbridge.

‘Mémories’ is a limited edition of eight using McCarthy and Rhoades’ artist book, ‘Shit Plug’ (an extended facsimile of 'Mémoire' by Guy Debord, in the form of a wine menu), produced by Hauser & Wirth in 2002.

While mounting ‘Propposition’ (2002) at the Sammlung Falckenberg in Hamburg, Rhoades received a gift from Kassel artist pair Jan Northoff and Benne Ender: all the feces deposited in the public toilets by visitors, curators, general public, and VIPs over the opening weekend of documenta XI.Later the same year, McCarthy and Rhoades filled dozens of 28-inch-high glass bottles with this excrement for an exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in Zürich. The resulting ‘shit plugs’ are reminiscent of the oversized Christmas tree–shaped buttplugs McCarthy fabricated for his 1978 sculpture ‘Plug Chair’ and reused in his Santa series from 2001.

In 2005, McCarthy and Rhoades’ installation ‘Sheep Plug’ was included in the group exhibition ‘Dionysiac’ at Centre Pompidou. (‘Sheep plugs’ take the same shape as the ‘shit plugs’ but are cast instead out of lye and sheep’s fat). Rhoades and other Royal Book Club artists, dressed in white monkey masks, covered eight copies of the edition with aluminum foil. The resulting edition was then augmented with photographs documenting the performance.

Both exhibition and performance were accompanied by the artist book, a pile of which can be seen in slide 8.

With Rhoades unfortunate passing the next year, ‘Sheep Plug’ has not been installed or reimagined since 2005.

Sara Glaxia, Serpentine Illusions (Royal Book Lodge, 2015)

Kai Althoff, Abel Auer, Armin Krämer, and Dorota Jurczak, Salut Balas * Ciao Cacao (Royal Book Lodge, 2004).


Central to the exhibition is Mirron Mitzkewich & Juli Susin’s film ‘Summoning’ (2024) which features a glamorous woman articulating a miniature replica of Berlin artist Andy Hope 1930’s sculpture of the same name, published as part of an artist's book edition by Hope.

The edition contains a meticulously rendered, reduced-scale model of the “Summoning” (2007) sculpture by Andy Hope 1930 in mahagony, with electric mechanism of clock swing and lighting, a framed ink drawing on gold paper (from the series of 22 original drawings by Andy Hope 1930 made for this edition), and a booklet of 16 pages of preparatory sketches for the sculpture, kept in a canvas folder with gold-foil stamped title.

All are placed in a special case designed by Réné Boré, canvas-bound with large French flaps, interior mounted with handmade vintage paper from 1930, gold-stamped title.Signed, numbered, and accompanied by certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and the publisher, the Royal Book Lodge (Silverbridge).