The Answer to the Question

Pavel Büchler

Price £2.50+pp oop
ISBN 0953676560
Year 2004
Edition 1100
Pages 16
Binding softback; stapled
Illustration text only
Dimensions 105 x 74 mm

This small pocket-size volume contains some very big ideas – all of which were found, incidentally, in books on an ‘indicative reading list’ for art students.

From the highest degree of certainty to the least. From Marshall McLuhan to Friedrich Engels. A spread of answers are cited in this book, with an equalised ‘authority’, in response to the question. You know… ‘the’ Question. This book contains nothing more and nothing less. Manufactured to the artists’ exacting standards, using the best quality litho printing on the cheapest paperstock, it compiles those answers as an answer. You know… ‘the’ answer.

Ask questions, I really have no answers, and I am completely lost I can say, I’m more and more lost, really, I’m lost in life, I’m lost in work, I’m lost everywhere but the only thing we can do is question, as k questions, but there are no answers. And it is better not to have the answer, because the answers are always so dangerous, because there is no answer, there are always so many answers and if someone thinks they know the answer, they are very dangerous.”

— Christian Boltanski, 1997

The Answer to the Question was launched simultaneously in December 2004 in the following cities:

Athens, Auckland, Beach Lake, Bergen, Berlin, Bilbao, Brno, Catterick, Chicago, Clonmel, Edinburgh, Florence, Glasgow, Heemstede, Hannover, Helsinki, Istanbul, Kitakyushu, Lancaster, Leamington Spa, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Malmo, Manchester, New York, Oxford, Paris, Rome, Salt Lake City, Santa Monica, Sidney, Toronto, Vancouver, Vanice (CA), Vienna, Whitstable, and York.