Pierre von Kleist, 2016. First edition.
3 softcover volumes in slipcase, 240 pp. (80 pp. each volume), color and b/w illustrated throughout, 213 x 300 mm. Photographs by André Príncipe.
You´re Living for Nothing Now ( I hope you´re keeping some kind of record) is André Príncipe´s take on the I-novel, a personal account about how it felt to be alive between 2009 and 2013. With its Leonard Cohen line´s title, Príncipe´s most ambitious work to date is organised in three books designed to be autonomous but that read best when together. The classical music score format of his earlier books is revisited and this time the images center on his struggle with marriage, living in Lisboa, spending time in China, Turkey, Japan, Paris, London and other places. The new layout alternates spreads assembled in minimalist comic book style with full bleed spreads, emphasising the narrative, cinematic nature of the images and ultimately creates a strong musical feeling, with pauses, andantes, adagios and crescendos, reading like a visual symphony. Influenced by sufi and buddhist ideas, You´re living for nothing now Book 1, 2 and 3 is a compendium of gestures, a modern mandala, an elegy of the ephemeral in the tradition of Ed van der Elsken, Henry Miller, and Jonas Mekas.
