Patrick Rössler receives 28th Antiquaria Prize for Book Culture

In addition to his work in empirical communication research, the enthusiastic collector combines an intensive, almost detective-like collecting practice with the scientific-historical penetration of his found objects and reflections on them in exhibitions and publications, according to the jury's statement. "In this way, Rössler succeeds in giving graphic design a new face in typography and visual language in his diverse works (for example, on the Bauhaus, typography, "Journalism and Visual Culture in the Weimar Republic", the paperback of the 1950s and "German Cinema Journalism 1917-1937"). The jury also finds the unusual breadth of Patrick Rössler's academic work and its foundation in a correspondingly passionate collecting activity admirable and worthy of an award.

Patrick Rössler, born in Baden-Baden in 1964, is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt. His academic work has been devoted to the printed media of the 20th century for more than 30 years. After initial studies on the history of the paperback in Germany with numerous exhibitions since 1988, which were integrated into the two-volume compendium "Reihenweise. Die Taschenbücher der 1950er-Jahre und ihre Gestalter" (with R. Klimmt, 2016), and the reappraisal of the programme history of Karl Anders' Nest Verlag (anders denken. Krähen-Krimis und Zeitprobleme, 2007), he has devoted himself specifically to the visual avant-garde in the 20th century for almost two decades. One focus of his triad of exhibition, academic conference and publication is the history of the illustrated press - with monographs on individual magazines (e.g. die neue linie; Gebrauchsgraphik), important designers (e.g. Irmgard Sörensen-Popitz; Otto Neurath/Fritz Kahn; Jan Tschichold), on segments of the popular press such as film journalism (Filmfieber; Werben für Metropolis) and on the media genre as a whole (Illustrierten-Ikonen; Deutsche illustrierte Presse).

A second field of research is the Bauhaus and its members (most recently e.g. Bauhausmädels; Frauen am Bauhaus, with E. Otto), especially in the intersection of the functional book and advertising design of the epoch (bauhaus.typography; Neue Typographien. Bauhaus & more; Bildermagazin der Zeit) and with a view to Herbert Bayer as a central, complex figure of design modernism. Patrick Rössler attaches great importance to contemporary media processing, for example through digitisation (www.illustrierte-presse.de), the provision of databases (bauhaus.community) or, most recently, virtual reality environments (Deutsche Bau-Ausstellung 1931). All of his works are characterised by the bridging between book culture as printed historical material in the broader sense and its scientific reflection, prepared in many different ways for an international, worldwide audience with exhibitions in France, Switzerland, the USA and Japan, among other places, which he often presents from his own collection of around 80,000 objects on visual modernism of the 20th century.