Rookie Books at WAF Galerie

Book launch and one-night exhibition

It is our great pleasure to welcome Rookie Books as a guest for the joint book launch and an exclusive one-night exhibition by Michaela Eichwald and Toni Schmale at Schadekgasse 6, on Saturday, 19 October from 6 pm.

Rookie Books is an independent publishing house based in Basel, Switzerland. Founded in 2022, it specialises in children’s books created by visual artists. The two artists, both based in Vienna, have now each designed such a book.

The german painter Michaela Eichwald knows that playing by the book is only half the fun. Blithely ignoring traditional methods and conventions, she typically experiments with unexpected and often very unusual materials. Her Rookie Book masterfully illustrates means of challenging and transcending the constraints imposed on us from an early age.

Toni Schmale’s steel and concrete sculptures often evoke associations with machines and apparatuses that seem to have a purpose. However, her enigmatic creations only truly function through the viewer’s fertile imagination. The “buggies” she crafted for Rookie Books from steel remnants found in her studio vividly demonstrate the creative and inventive potential of seemingly worthless found materials.

Come and join us— the bar will be open!