Bookstore Walther König

Headquarters of the bookstore Walther König
On the wall of the house is the sculpture Falling Books by Julian Opie , in February 2011

The bookstore Walther König is a publishing bookstore for art and art history , architecture , applied arts , design , fashion , photography , film and art theory as well as for exhibition catalogs based in Cologne .

history

The bookseller Walther König (born January 12, 1939) comes from Münster, where his father Walther ran a paint shop. His siblings included the entrepreneur Franz Wilhelm König , the architect Fritz König and the former director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Kasper König .

After starting out in Cologne in 1963, with an apprenticeship as a bookseller in the bookstore at the cathedral and an attempt to gain a foothold in New York in 1968, König founded the bookstore in Cologne in 1969 with little capital . Thanks to his good network in the Cologne art scene, which flourished at the end of the 1960s, his bookstore became a meeting point for artists; The distribution of the catalog for the exhibition The Art of the 60s in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum contributed to the success of the early years . The bookstore was visited almost daily in the 1980s by numerous artists ( Albert Oehlen and Werner Büttner ), gallery owners ( Max Hetzler ) and publishers ( Benedikt Taschen ). Today it is considered one of the most important addresses for literature on contemporary art.

At the same time, König and his younger brother Kasper founded the Gebrüder König publishing house with a branch in New York. Examples of particular publishing successes are the first artist book by Gilbert & George in 1971 and the 2003 artist book Findet mich das Glück by Peter Fischli and David Weiss , which became the best-selling artist book with a circulation of more than 300,000 copies.

Walther König 2019 in his bookstore in Cologne

Since 1983 Walther König has continued the publishing activities as a publishing house for the Walther König bookstore , whose editions follow the discourse of contemporary art , within the Walther König GmbH & Co. KG bookstore . In 2008, 70 employees at ten locations in Germany generated sales of 19 million euros; at the beginning of 2014, the company had branches in 15 cities in addition to the head office in Cologne. At the beginning of 2014, Walther König transferred his shares to his son and is concentrating on the bookstore's second-hand bookshop.

Bookstore

In Germany there are shops in addition to the headquarters in Cologne in Berlin, Bonn, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Münster, Nuremberg and Stuttgart. There are also two shops in London , one each in Vienna and Amsterdam . The bookstores are usually located in museums or in their vicinity. There are branches in the Museum Ludwig and in the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, on the Berlin Museum Island in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart , in the Munich House of Art and in the Westphalian State Museum .

In 2017 Walther König received the honorary award of the Cologne Culture Prize of the Cologne Culture Council.

publishing company

The publishing house of the bookstore Walther König maintains a network of dealers and representatives spread across Germany, Benelux , England, Austria, Switzerland, Southern Europe and the USA. Since 2009 there has been an imprint with August Verlag in Berlin.

Publications (selection)

• All publications of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein are published by Walther König.
  • Marius Babias (Ed.): Art and the public: 40 years of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein . König, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-86560-715-7 . (Catalog on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the NBK from March 28 to May 10, 2009.)
• The publisher's well-known catalogs include the editions for the opening of the Museum Ludwig and the documenta .
• Dieter Schwarz (Ed.): Lawrence Weiner : Books 1968–1989. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König / Le Nouveau Musée, Cologne / Villeurbanne 1989, ISBN 3-88375-111-1 .
• Volker Dahmen (ed.); Thomas Weber, Johannes Schilling, Tayfun Belgin: KF Dahmen - catalog raisonné. Volume I 1946–1964 and Volume II 1966–1981. Published by the Walther König bookstore, Cologne, supported by the Art Fund Foundation with funds from VG Bild-Kunst and the NRW Art Foundation, Cologne, ISBN 3-88375-750-0 .
• Manfred Speidel , Sebastian Legge: Heinz Bienefeld . Buildings and projects. Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-88375-131-6 .
• Dietrich W. Dreysse: May settlements . Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 1994 (architectural guide through eight settlements in the new Frankfurt 1926–1930)
• Werner Strodthoff: Peter Kulka . Buildings and projects 1990–1995 . Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-88375-240-1 .
• Kolumba (Museum) - An architecture competition in Cologne 1997. ISBN 3-88375-299-1 .
• Gerhard Richter - 128 photos from a picture 1978 , 1998, ISBN 3-88375-338-6
• Jasper Cepl: Oswald Mathias Ungers , An intellectual biography. Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-86560-158-2 .
• Harun Farocki , Susanne Koppensteiner (ed.): Harun Farocki, side by side. On the occasion of the exhibition Harun Farocki, Side by side at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (March 23, 2007 to June 10, 2007), König, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-86560-286-2 .
• Isa Genzken : Sesame, open up! Edited by Kasper König, Nina Gülicher, Andrea Tarsia. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-86560-583-2 . Catalog of the exhibition in the Museum Ludwig and in the Whitechapel Gallery .
• Catherine de Zegher , Angelika Littlefield: Angelika Hoerle  : the comet of Cologne Dada. Art Gallery of Ontario, König, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-1-894243-62-9 .
• Interior. Retrospective Andreas Schulze , Leopold Hoesch Museum , Duren 2010, ISBN 978-3-86560-879-6
• Books for or from the handle manufacturer FSB
• Otl Aicher , Robert Kuhn: Gripping and handles . 2nd Edition. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 1995.
• museum in progress (ed.): Artists Talking . DVD 1: Pop Art , ISBN 978-3-96098-243-2 , DVD 2: Art and Language , ISBN 978-3-96098-244-9 , DVD 3: Conceptual Art , ISBN 978-3-96098-245- 6 , DVD 4: Performance Art , ISBN 978-3-96098-246-3 . Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2017.

Filmography

Walther König and the staff at the König bookstore played supporting roles in two productions by Saarland Radio :

• Day and Night , FRG 1986; Director, book: Jürgen Heiter; Camera: Klaus P. Weber; Music: Arto Lindsay; with: Ralf Küpper, Jakob Risch, Britta Nickel, Hans-Heinz Schwarz, Thino Grünwald, Giumaa Abukhdeer, Marcel Heiter, Walther König; 16 mm (Beta-SP transfer), 43 min.
• Name equals address , FRG 1995; Director, book: Jürgen Heiter; Camera: Bert Stoewesand; with: Walther König, Jutta Linthe, Kasper König, Reiner Speck, Olaf Möller, Benjamin Katz, Helmut W. Banz, Antonio Quarta, and employees of the König bookstore in Cologne; 16 mm (Beta-Sp transfer), 44 min

Press

• One of the most respected art book and book publishers is Walther König and especially the associated bookstore in Cologne.
• Cologne: The Cologne branch on Ehrenstrasse claims to be the largest art bookshop in the world .

Web links

• Homepage
• Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger Kultur from May 30, 2017: Everyone is turning circles around his book table , by Michael Kohler

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Michael Kohler: In the book room of the art world. Walther König, Cologne art bookseller and institution of cultural life, will be 75 years old this Sunday . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . January 11, 2014, p. 27 (print edition).
2. ↑ Ulrich Clewig: When books make you happy . In: Cicero . December 1, 2014 ( cicero.de [accessed December 1, 2014]). cicero.de ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Benedikt Taschen: Nomen est omen: Walther König, uncrowned king of art booksellers (=  The last mohicans - The last of the Mohicans ). ( taschen.com ).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Lutz Years: New Media - a first “media” graphic for the art sector . In: AKMB-News . No. 2/96 ( uni-heidelberg.de [accessed on May 6, 2016]).
5. ↑ Personal Taste and Knowledge . In: Ethan Westreich, Thea Westreich Wagner (eds.): Collecting Art for Love, Money and More . Phaidon Press, London 2013, pp. 36-37 .
6. ↑ Eveline Suter: Wolfgang Hahn Prize for Fischli / Weiss. Found by luck. Peter Fischli and David Weiss have been working on their own survey of the world for over 20 years . In: monopol-magazin.de . April 19, 2010 ( monopol-magazin.de [accessed on May 4, 2016]).
7. ↑ Walther König Buchhandlung company profile. In: Werzu-wem.de. Retrieved May 4, 2016 . 
8. ↑ You can buy art books from Walther König. In: immowelt.de. stadtinfos.immowelt.de, accessed on May 4, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Walther König - Berlin: On "take off 350 square meters properly. (No longer available online.) In: art-magazin.de. Art, archived from the original on 23 September 2015 ; accessed on May 4, 2016 . Info: The Archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ rethfeldundrinke.de ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF). 
11. ↑ Homepage and agencies (PDF).
12. ↑ August Verlag Berlin. In: augustbuch.de. Retrieved May 4, 2016 . 
13. ↑ FSB: Doorknobs - Workshop in Brakel ( Memento from April 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
14. ^ Walther Konig Verlag. In: artbook.com. Retrieved May 4, 2016 . 
15. ↑ Bookstore Walther König. (No longer available online.) In: max.de. Formerly in the original ; accessed on May 4, 2016 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.