This Is Not a Commercial
A medium-format, relatively thick book by the Zurich artist duo Veli & Amos adeptly tackles the current production conditions of art in general and art books in particular. The first 60 or so high-gloss pages are filled with full-bleed advertisements for local small businesses from the creative industries and associated sectors. Selling the pages was part of the plan for funding the book, and it is a continuation of the artistic practice documented later on, in which Veli & Amos spent more than three years constructing a poster wall on the roof of the Zurich gallery building Perla-Mode and rented it out as advertising space (painted, if required). More than 100 ads that were displayed there are documented in a landscape photo each, rotated through 90 degrees and placed on a right-hand page of the book. The pages are cut from a firm poster paper with a special reverse side on which the dates and the artists executing the advertisement are detailed. At the end is a short ‘making of’ section, with an explanatory text and photos of the painting work. The Arial typeface used throughout, which was made popular by Microsoft but is regarded as deficient from a design perspective, references non-professional graphics such as small ads and business cards. This is a piece of local art history in an almost classical yet subtly adapted book form.
