Grand Assembly – An Encyclopedic Inventory by Jonas Liveröd

Project: Grand Assembly – An Encyclopedic Inventory
Author: Jonas Liveröd
Client: Jonas Liveröd & LL’Editions
Type: Book Design
Year: 2020–2023

This extensive book presents the eclectic universe of Swedish artist Jonas Liveröd as a subjective encyclopedia. Structured like a well-organized mind map, it offers a kaleidoscopic overview of hundreds of works, revealing connections within Liveröd’s personal mythology. Exploring recurring themes and motifs, the book balances complexity with clarity, inviting the reader into a richly layered world. Part visual inventory, part reference companion, it delves into the artist’s work in relation to subjects such as Fake, Roadside Memorials, Altered States, Piranesi, Animism, Folk Art, Narcotecture, Jorge Luis Borges, Chainsaws, Escapism, Code, Ambivalence, and Authenticity.

This generous volume is the first in-depth monograph on Liveröd’s prolific career. A mid-career survey of sorts, it features 207 plates alongside essays by folklorist, author, and Swedish Fluxus pioneer Bengt af Klintberg, curator Amila Puzić, and the artist himself.

Designed by Lundgren+Lindqvist, the monograph features a striking cover with an intricate, highly tactile 3D embossing of a mask. The embossing was created by carefully tracing a self-portrait of the artist in the form of a porcelain mask. Working closely with a cliché maker, significant time was dedicated to developing the final die for the cover. In keeping with Liveröd’s fascination with the uncanny and the notion of the fake, a faux half-leather binding was achieved by printing a segment of the spine onto the cover and embossing it. The texture is derived from a scan of the hide of one of Emperor Haile Selassie’s personal lions—one of the prized artifacts in Liveröd’s extensive collection. The spine title is hot-foiled in gold.

The colour pink is a recurring element in Liveröd’s work—a hue the artist initially disliked. Jonas Liveröd deliberately introduced pink as a disruptive force, a way of injecting tension into his work. Over time, this aversion transformed into a deep interest in colour, leading to a painterly approach to his practice. The use of pink in the artist’s monograph serves a similar purpose; a reflection of his state of mind, expressing both resistance and fascination.

This 352-page softcover book was published by LL’Editions in an edition of 600 copies, which quickly sold out upon release.

Lundgren+Lindqvist - Grand Assembly – An Encyclopedic Inventory by Jonas Liveröd

A detail of Jonas Liveröd's work Arrogant Abstraction, 2013.

Installation view at Lars Olsen Gallery in Copenhagen, 2013.

Liveröd carrying the work Damnatio Memoriae (Caligula), 2016.

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“Jonas Liveröd’s artistry is characterised by an unrestrained energy, a place where everything from ancient to contemporary myths and rites crashes and mixes in a violent discharge. His method is mainly focused on drawing, sculpture and installation, but embraces a number of expressions with a large mixture of materials and interdisciplinary excesses, where he also works with text, curatorial activities or what may cross his path.”
(Excerpt from The Swedish National Encyclopedia’s entry on Liveröd)

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