Apartamento Publishing SL, 2023. Die-cut softcover, 168pp., 9 x 11.5 inches

New

‘But here it is, much better than before…our proposal for a monumental structure to test the permanence of objects (so on some nights, the moon stays too)’.

148 Oblique Drawings by Serban Ionescu (and 1 large machine made of words) lures readers into Serban Ionescu’s sketchbook where the artist’s vibrant creations, with their playful, architectural spirit, live alongside a poem made with the help of friends and family of the Ionescu–Apartamento universes. The art book compiles a series of images made throughout Serban’s daily drawing practice from 2020–2023, which relied on ‘the same ruler, the same size paper…and the flow of watercolour’.

Fellow artists and creatives—including Katie Stout, Minjae Kim, Todd Selby, Dodie Bellamy, KAWS, Swizz Beatz, and Stefan Marx, among others—lent titles to each work which have been tamped together into what Serban calls ‘some kind of exquisite corpse/Frankenstein found poem’, the driving force of the book aka a large machine made of words. 148 Oblique Drawings is an exercise in imagination, drawing readers into the machinery of chance and innovation. It’s a natural evolution of the long-standing relationship between the Romanian-born, typically New York (although currently Brussels-based) artist and Apartamento, which started with a feature in issue #24 of the magazine and has been cemented with a number of collaborations, including the publication of A Thing on a Table in a House, Serban’s first book, in 2021.