Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Benedikt Taschen

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Benedikt Taschen is a publisher, contemporary art collector, and founder of TASCHEN, one of the world’s most successful international publishing houses. Starting from a comic book store in Cologne, Germany at age 18, he built a global brand by making visually striking, high-quality books accessible to a wider audience. Under Taschen’s leadership, the illustrated publications celebrate a wide range of themes, spanning art, architecture, design, film, photography, pop culture, and lifestyle. Benedikt Taschen has published works ranging from affordable art books to ambitious collector’s editions, including Helmut Newton’s SUMO and the monumental Muhammad Ali tribute GOAT – Greatest of All Time. Today, TASCHEN has twelve stores worldwide, including Beverly Hills, New York, Brussels, and Paris. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Athletic Nicotine https://www.athleticnicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Athenaeum is a new podcast on the Tetragrammaton Network. you knew about the Manson murders was wrong. Join Ayesha Akambi for a once-in-a-lifetime, in-depth conversation with Tom O'Neill, author of the runaway bestseller Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the 60s. In this limited deep dive series, Tom O'Neill unpacks his 20-year investigation into the CIA's mind control program, linking it to Charles Manson and the disturbing secrets buried in America's history. From missing FBI files to Hollywood cover-ups,

government surveillance, LSD, and the dark collapse of the 60s hippie dream, this is the story behind the story. It's not true crime, it's true chaos. Hear it on Atheneum, the new podcast on the Tetragrammaton Podcast Network, available wherever you get your podcasts. Truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's far more dangerous. Coming soon on the Atheneum podcast

Tetragrammaton When I was starting to collect comic books, I went two or three times a day to thrift stores in Cologne looking for new arrivals of old books. But I thought I would be the only boy in Germany doing this. Later I found out that there was already a small market of others. Comic book collectors. Comic book collectors and they were all like 10, 20 years older than me. You know, they were buying, looking for the lost dreams of their childhood, so to say. And when I understood that they paid real money for this, real money was at that time,

let's say five marks or 10 or 20 or so. But it was good if you paid 20 cents and you sold it for 20 marks, nothing wrong with that. So I became a dealer in comic books. And I typed, was a typewriter, I was in an alphabetical order writing down all these comic book series and which numbers I had and the condition. And I sent it out, let's say, twice a year or so.

It started in the 70s as there were comic book conventions. And I went there and I was always the youngest and people kind of thought that all these comic book collectors were kind of nerdy. Let's put it this way, not that I didn't like them, but I felt I was different in a way, because these people were only interested in this and this, totally focused on one detail. I appreciated it very much,

but I thought there is a world beside of this. So I loved it, but I thought I can love as well other things. But I understood how the collector's mind or heart is ticking. First of all, you have to feel serious, because especially with the comic books, adult people thought, okay, this is something for children or whatever, young adults. And that is not the case. Of course, that was predominant in the group, but they have to feel safe in what they're doing. And that was later for me important, publishing,

because I always tried to make it as appealing and serious and attractive as I could, that people could be careless and happy with their hobby, you know, that they did not have to hide it underneath, I don't know where, the carpet. What did the mailing list grow into? The mailing list, it was a basis for me to open this little store. It was like 25 square meters or 30, like 300 square feet.

And I had all the old comic books and as well new ones from, a lot from America, by the way, from the West Coast, like underground comics. Zap. Zap, yes, and the Freak Brothers. Yes. And later as well came Raw Magazine by Art Spiegelman and many others.

And I always thought there are some guys, because it was very male dominant, like 99% of this whole comic book scene at that time at least. I thought there are quite a number of outstanding artists and narrators, storytellers. And so I loved to get these publications, which were mainly done by small publishers from all over the world, and sell them in this little store.

That was a novelty, and people loved it. They thought on top of this, I was a young boy, I was still 18 when I opened the store. The next day I turned 19, but I thought it sounds much better biographically, that I opened with 18. And they kind of loved to support me. That was nice as well to see. Were there any other comic book stores in Cologne? No, but there was nothing really in Germany as well. I think there was one in Berlin.

I had to get all the suppliers from Holland. I had to drive there all the time to Paris, to Belgium. But it was doing really well. Then I had the fortune as well, I met a guy, Ludwig, who was his name, and we kind of hit it off and he became responsible for selling all this stuff, as well as not to our bookstore we had, but as well to retailers in Germany and Europe and in America.

So you became like a wholesaler. to retailers in Germany and in Europe and in America. She became like a wholesaler. Became a wholesaler and then we became wholesalers for illustrated books and art books. And the big thing at that time was where remainders. So remainder is by definition, an overstock a publisher can't get rid of. And that was something we started and bought all the failures of other publishers for a dollar or a few dollars. And at one moment, that was a changing point for at least my life, we could buy an overstock of a book on René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter, and they had a big number.

It was 40,000 copies. And I remember it cost $1. But it was still $40,000. I mean, anyhow. And it was a book that it seemed like maybe nobody wanted because they had all these books that nobody wanted. The main reason is people thought you cannot sell art books in a bigger edition of, I don't know,

let's say like 2,000 copies or so. And they have to be sold through specialty art book stores. And I thought, well, why should that be the case? Because when I started, I always disliked the threshold of a certain store when you have books only covered behind glasses. So we thought if we can get rid of the threshold and as well if we can change the price so that people who are interested can easily buy it.

We had the price end at 9.95 German marks, which was at that time let's say like six, seven dollars. Once we did this, they flew out of the, not just the shelf, but out of the stack. And they did really super well. And that was the beginning. And it was still a foreign English language book. So we thought if this book is available in German, it might do even better in Germany. But to lower printing prices, we had to combine different languages together, I mean, in different versions, an English one, a German one, French and so on.

So we had to translate all this stuff. We had no idea how to do this as well. Basically, we had no idea about anything. And then when you translate it, would you do the same book in multiple editions, or would you put all the translations in one book? No, what we did is we had different editions. That makes it more complicated also in terms of stocking and how many to press. Yes, it definitely doesn't make it easier. But on the other hand, at that time there was such a thirst for pictures.

And it was a real novelty at the dead price. It was unbeatable. And people just started to buy our books like crazy. What's the first book you published? The first book was a book on Dali. And that was a book we bought the rights from an English company. But then later other book publishers, they didn't want to sell any licenses to us, because they thought these are crazy punks, or I don't know, they change the entire market.

So they didn't really want to cooperate with us, so we had to do it on our own. But we never did this, of course, and had no idea how to do it. But lucky we had some editors who were wonderful from day one onwards, and we were able to do books, our own books, in our own style. At least that's how we thought, how it should be. And this went very well. So we did small books and medium, small ones, big ones and much bigger ones.

Were all of the first books art books? Well, they were all illustrated. Yes, they were all artists the first books art books? Well, they were all illustrated. Yes, they were all artists monographs. We did Dali, Picasso, van Gogh, Monet, but let's say all the first household names. But very early on as well, we did some more specialties, we thought, which are interesting, at least we thought so. And so we might be the case with others as well that they like that.

So since I had no formal education about anything, I remember I once asked an art historian professor, can you teach me how to navigate around here? And I thought, yes, he could. He said, no, no, you have to do it all on your own. And I said, oh, fuck. But on the other hand, it was, I liked the answer as well, because you have to do it on your own

and otherwise nobody can help you. I know later on that I always could ask people for this and that, but if you don't have your own initiative to do it, you cannot get a chip implemented in your brain that gives you knowledge on these and these unknown territories for you. So since I had no formal education and all the other punks working with me, neither with a few exceptions, we brought everything in we thought was interesting.

I remember when we did the first book on Tom of Finland in the 1980s, and I loved this stuff from the beginning on and I'm not gay. And I thought this guy is a very cultural, very significant person, artist, because he took the guilt away from being, of being homosexual. So you see, you saw people who had fun in who they are and what are they doing. And on the other hand, it was just artistically wonderful done. When we did the first book on Tom of Finland,

people thought we are really getting crazy here because it was maybe 1987. And I always thought, what's wrong? Why can't Tom of Finland not coexist next to Van Gogh and Monet and Gauguin and whomever, you know, who decides this. But like 40 years ago, the world was in this way for sure different. There was a much stricter hierarchy what is acceptable and what is in this artist's canon or not. And if you cannot just bring somebody in and say he or she is in this circle.

But since we had no idea about it and we thought differently, we easily could do it. And besides of this, I never cared about it as well. Have any of your books ever been banned? Very, very rarely. I know that Hefner from Playboy, he said once to me about our books, they can get away with murder and for us, they take us right away. Somehow, we were lucky all our, from the beginning onwards onwards that they let us live. But it sounds like you always presented everything within the context of, let's call it, fine art.

Yes. Yes. And so probably people were afraid, saying, look, okay, if I do this, then I get in trouble with Leonardo and Michelangelo and I look like a... I don't know, it doesn't make me look good. That's possible, yes. But besides this, maybe it was just luck as well. I always felt like a lucky guy. And when I turned 30, I remember, like months before, I thought somehow I had this fixated idea that when I'm 30, my luck will leave me. And then I turned 30 and nothing happened.

I mean, nothing bad happened. And then I thought, OK, maybe I just was fortunate to be born under a lucky star. Yes. That was important for me because of many reasons. Because first of all, people who are successful in my mind far too often think that they are the ones who made it all happen because they worked so hard or had these great ideas. I doubt this. Of course you have to work, and you have to work a lot. There was something you said earlier about the other comic collectors who were older than you,

that they were trying to capture lost dreams of childhood. Yes. Would you say the lost dreams of childhood might be a good way to describe Tashin books? Oh, interesting thought. might be a good way to describe Tashin books? Oh, interesting thought. Yes, but probably not childhood only, but maybe even dreams for grownups. For my side, I went with childhood is like this. It was formative for me to be brought up

in the 1960s and 70s. I would be no way a different person if it would have happened 10 years later or 50 years earlier or whatever. But the dreams and childhood are the ones which you will have all your life. And hopefully they materialize or come true, because nothing is sadder than you see a grown-up and none of the childhood dreams realized. I think a driving force for me myself was certainly growing

up at the fifth child of my parents, my older brother, he committed suicide when he was in his early twenties and I was a week before my 10th birthday. And that was of course a tragedy, you can't really deal with it, certainly not at a time like that, because people did not really talk about stuff like that. It happened and then they moved on. And later it broke for sure my father's heart. This and maybe the Second World War both together. So I grew up, I became an adult pretty fast,

or certainly faster than others with a different fate. I dearly loved my parents, both my father and my mother. My father had a more closer relationship towards, although not that because he did a lot with me, that was not the case, but I always felt supported and loved by him. I never questioned this, and I never ever questioned this with my mother. So a lot of what happened later, you know, I can see that the first moment, let's say the landing on the moon, we saw this together. And later we did a book signed by Buzz Aldrin or I don't know whether it was the Rolling Stones or Beatles, stuff which happened in the 60s. So maybe I was stuck, or still stuck in the early 1970s.

So my mental development only partially grew. So in a way then my lost childhood dreams, I translated them into books somehow. And at the same time, after my father died, he was unfortunately only like 60 years old. Maybe I was looking as well for father surrogates with all the people I had the luck to work with. People were a generation older than me, or my parents' generation. And that was probably as well how to connect in a way with my father who died early,

and as well to connect with my German heritage. Because as you know, what happened, one of the great tragedies, that all what made Germany sophisticated, interesting, was eroded, either people were killed or they emigrated. And somehow maybe I had to pick up the traces of the emigres all over the world and put a part of their story into books. I don't know whether that makes sense. Maybe that's the reason as well why I came to California. Maybe it was like a drive, like a, let's say like a, like a Selman has to go back in the circle of the

life to a place where they had no idea that they come from there. So I am a Californian German Selman. I love the idea of looking for the wise elders to guide you, it sounds like. Yes, you know what was wonderful growing up in my parents' house, we had always a big, wonderful, wide mix of characters there, including people, some artists and writers, but as well just my family, all traces, all walks of life in a way. And I was exposed to adults from being a little child. So we never had, see these are the children,

these are the adults, it was all mixed together. So I loved old people from the beginning on as much as I loved young ones, but the older ones had more interesting stuff to talk about. Because they had a life already and the others had maybe nothing or just a playground or a soccer ball or whatever. So I never cared. I'm happy that I was exposed to old people when I was super young.

Yeah. And the best reward was, I remember this with some artists as well, when they treated you not as a child, but treated you as an adult. Yes. Yeah. That was even cooler because then it meant you were taking serious, you know. In a world of artificial highs and harsh stimulants, there is something different, something clean, something precise.

Athletic nicotine, not the primitive products found behind convenience store counters. Not the aggressive buzz that leaves you jittery. But a careful calibration of clean energy and focused clarity. Athletic nicotine. The lowest dose tobacco-free nicotine available. Made entirely in the USA. No artificial sweetness. Just pure, purposeful elevation. Athletic nicotine is a performance nootropic.

Athletic nicotine is a tool for shifting mindsets. Athletic nicotine is a partner in pursuit of excellence. Slow release, low dose, gradual lift, sustained energy, soft landing, inspired results. Athletic nicotine, more focus, less static. Athletic nicotine, more clarity, less noise. Athletic nicotine, more accuracy, less anxiety. Athletic nicotine, from top athletes pushing their limits to artists pursuing their vision, Athletic Nicotine offers the lift you've been looking for.

Learn more at athleticnicotine.com slash tetra and experience next level performance with Athletic Nicotine. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Tell me about Cologne. Cologne, Ode Cologne, Cologne historically, most northern colony of the Roman Empire. That's where the name comes from. But it's important as well because Cologne was from the beginning on a mix of different people,

in this case the Romans, the Germans. And so it was always a much more open city. Later the French were there for a while and this kind of gave an imprint on the cologne DNA. So, you know, in Germany we have like 17 different states are in Germany and they are all quite different from each other. They speak as well, not a different language, but a different dialect. And when you hear the dialects, they are profoundly different When you hear the dialects, they are profoundly different from the East in Germany to the South in Bavaria. Growing up in Cologne for me was wonderful. It was a city with a little less than a million people.

We were lucky in Cologne that after the war it was very heavily destroyed. There was the WDR, that was Westdeutscher Rundfunk, and this radio station was quite influential as well for American music in general, because all the great, not only classical musicians, but as well all jazz musicians came to Cologne to record, and this from the 1950s onwards. Then there was some other, there was a Fotokina, which was a fair for photography starting in the early 1950s. And there were a couple of collectors, or big collectors for pop art in the 1960s. So there are a couple of cultural players coming together. And that probably created the ground

that Cologne was for about maybe 10, 15 years, not the epicenter of the ground, that Cologne was for about maybe 10, 15 years, not the epicenter of the world, but at least for Europe and contemporary art, it was one of the few important cities. Because it was kind of run down, the people were welcoming and the rents were cheap, so all what is necessary is a fertile ground. And as you know, there are some people coming or they attract others like a magnet, you know,

specifically artists, they usually, or some kind of artists, they're not alone. They have their own stellar system around them. And if you have one or two, then you have 20 or 30 or 50. And that creates this. And then later they are gone somewhere else. So it's nothing forever. But in the 70s and 80s, it is fair to say that probably all great visual artists in the world showed there at least once, twice, or several times. When I started the publishing house in 1980, all the great shows popped up just literally in front of our house there, whether that was Cindy Sherman or Mike Kelly, Jeff Koons, Christopher Wuhl, Albert Öhl, Kippenberger. So this generation definitely had this foundation for a while in Cologne and of course then in New York. Yeah, Cologne was wonderful to me because as a young boy there was a tram,

I could move around freely and I was not monitored. I mean at that time parents did not monitor their children anyhow I think. It was not only for me but they gave me the impression that they believed in me, and it was less work for them. My father always said, a good child educates itself. I took this, like many other things from my father, as well in my education skills, the limited ones. On the other hand, it's of course far less work, I have to say.

Would you say passion lives outside of the rest of the publishing industry in that if you look at the percentage of books that are selling and if the whole industry is going down, does that affect you the same way or different? We are outsiders, not because we want to be an outsider. We just are. It just happened. I only know a handful of colleagues and I was never in any organizations or spending my time on behalf of the whatever. We did what we thought was right or we thought would make sense, whether that worked out in the end as a second question, but we are not organized in whatever book trade categories.

Tell me about the first Sumo book. I can tell you about the first Sumo book, Helmut Newton. And I loved, since I was a young man, Helmut Newton. Helmut Newton was born in Berlin. Jewish family, his real name was Helmut Neustetter. He changed it when he emigrated to Australia in the 1930s from Berlin in 1936. So I loved Helmut Newton and I tried to get in contact with him for many years, starting already in the 1980s. In the 1980s, I met him and he was always very welcoming and friendly to me,

but looked at me like kind of skeptical. How much older was he than you? I can tell you he was born in 1921 and he's 40 years older. And of course he represented, I mean, it was an entire different world. But I met him in Berlin in the 1980s. And at that time I thought, Mr. Newton, could we do bed sheets with the big nudes?

That was what he just started. And he said, that's an interesting idea. Send me samples. And we made samples, but we had no idea how to do it. And it looked awful. It looked like I couldn't show it. I was too embarrassed. But you had to do bed sheets. Yes, but the reason why was, I know that he had a gallery for his prints, or different galleries, I had the publisher for his books, and somehow I thought, how can I get into this? And have to do something he likes as well. Anyhow, that didn't work at all, but we stayed in contact. So we were on speaking terms at least.

But then later I thought that his photos, when they are in a bigger size or in a big size, they get a life in a different way. And I made a sample in this sumo size, or we called it Sumo, had no other reference than the Sumo fighters, these big guys. It's about three feet by four feet, something like this? Well, it depends on the length of the feet.

Ah, feet, yes, American feet. It is 50 by 70 centimeters, which is a couple of feet high. And we had this sample, the dummy done, and he was in Los Angeles staying in the wintertime at the Chateau Marmont, and I asked him to come over to the Sunset Marquis Hotel because I didn't want to carry this big thing. He came over and he was in awe. We did it in a way, he bought his wife, June,

and I had to be smart on the second page, there's a beautiful portrait of June Newton by Helmut. When she opened it, they both laughed as well, they understood it. But the reason why I knew at that time that if there's, let's say, Helmhut and June Newton, if you really want to work with Helmhut, you have to work at the same time with June. And that was many artists, couples the same. You can't have a good relationship to one only, it will not work out well. But it was a pleasure to work with her anyhow and she was a great editor.

So they saw all of this and they said, Mr. Newton, I was always on terms with him, we can do this and this, we have 10,000 copies, if you can sign them all, I can offer you this amount of money. It had to have certain numbers of zeros that he makes him... Get his attention. Get his attention, because he was at that time the biggest name in the world, not only in photography, he was one of the big artists everyone knew worldwide.

And I definitely thought I had to get to work with his man because I admire him, number one, and second, it will do really well. So he trusted me. From there on, it was very difficult to get this produced in a way that... Because he was at that time 80 years old and I was, I don't know, 35, 40. And his risk was enormous, because if you do a big book, which is a big failure, and as well looks like a big piece of S-H-I-T,

that does not help you when you're at your height of the career. And for no reason you do this. So, anyhow, he trusted me and it worked for, it took a couple of years that we made it work. And then fortunately it, as well for him, a milestone in his artistic life. The book was a news story. Yes, no doubt.

And that's rare to create that much interest. I invented the big oversized books because they have a history going back 500 years, but somehow, at least, we tried to make it work. It was a state-of-the-art production at that time. And you even created a table for the book to live with. Yes, that was another difficult design issue. And I know at that time, Helmut Newton, Philip Stark did design.

He was not happy with the design, but to bring them together. In the end, we wanted to make it look lighter than it was, I mean, lighter, kind of floating. And I think Stark did a fantastic design on this. It worked out very well and it was a huge success for us. And through Helmut, who I became very close to in later years, he was kind enough to bring me together with all his friends. He had friends from all walks of life, everywhere in the world. that was wonderful for me and very helpful

for all other books we did later. Tell me the psychology of book sizes. So you have books that are, I'll call them coffee table book size. Then you have small books that are very thick. And then you have books like Sumo, giant books. Yeah, we always believed in formats. That means the ratio between length and width and thickness, and of course as well how the

paper is, what kind of paper you have, the color and the texture, how it's haptically in your hands. And that takes a long time to produce a perfect product. And once you have it, then better keep it and go ahead with it. Because it's not easy to have this reinvented. We have all kinds of sizes, very small ones, very big ones, but they all have to have an equilibrium that they look like they are designed to be like this.

If you just inflate something that is overly big, it just doesn't work. I mean, it works for a second, but not longer. And with the Sumo, that was in a way a novelty, and we kind of perfectly hit it off and it became one of the, certainly our most successful book we ever had, or at least our most popular, famous one. Yeah. I've seen that the first edition sold for over $400,000 at auction. Yes, what we did was the idea and we succeeded, thankfully.

The first copy was signed by about 100 people who were portrayed in the book. This was auctioned in the year 2000 in Berlin, and it became the most expensive book published in the 20th century. And yeah, from there on, we were the happy kids and could not believe our luck. But you know, you never know how stuff works till you did it, you know. You never know how stuff works until you did it. Does it sound very smart? No. Do you ever do multiple formats? Do you ever release a book big and then release it small?

Oh, all the time. That's definitely the concept of our publishing idea. Because we put a lot of time, money and passion into every big production. And we only can do it because we want to see the same book in print for the next 10, 20 or 50 years. So we have a lot of books which are now 40 years old in our program. And of course we update them and so. But if we would not make the smaller versions later, because the big versions have more or less an unlimited budget, so we spend or pay what we think is worth to do.

And we don't make a lot of calculations upfront, we just put in what we need. And to make it work, you have to have it for long, it needs a long, long shelf life. But besides this, once you did a book on, let's say, the complete paintings of Van Gogh, there is no change 10 years later or 20 years later unless there's another painting discovered or so,

but basically it is what it is. Therefore, we like to do it once, then it's done. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy, using one of Squarespace's best-in-class templates. With the built-in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins, and menus, so your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Discover unbreakable creativity with Fluid Engine,

a highly intuitive drag and drop editor. No coding or technical experiences required. Understand your site's performance with in-depth website analytics tools. Twerspace has everything you need to succeed online. Create a blog, monetize a newsletter, make a marketing portfolio, launch an online store. The Squarespace app helps you run your business from anywhere. Track inventory and connect with customers while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes

it easy to create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. You did a book, I believe it's called Apartment House Wrestling. Do you know what that is? Definitely. I didn't know before, but now I do know. There was a German photographer, his name was Theo Eret. He lived in Los Angeles. He was there for decades already. And he covered a niche market subject. It was apartment wrestling.

And a friend of mine, the artist, two artists from California, Mike Kelly and Jamie Cameron, they suggested me to look into his work. So I visited him in Silver Lake about 25 years ago, and he was surprised that somebody is seriously interested in this stuff. I said, no, I really would like to see this. And they had, you know, You can see a photographer, you see right away it's a composition, how can they deal with light and put it all together. This guy definitely knew what he was doing, although the subject was so less than marginal. I thought that is admirable.

How can somebody spend years of his life doing girls' apartment wrestling photos? And so we thought we have to make a big book with this guy. The title was Exquisite Mayhem. Was it well received? Well, let's put that as a relative. I know some friends, for instance, Bruce Weber told me, Was it well received? Well, let's put that as a relative. I know some friends, for instance, Bruce Weber told me, a guy who does a book like this, he has to be a respected man or whatever.

And I thought, Bruce, that is very kind of you that you said that, especially if it comes from you. But otherwise it was selling not at all. I think it was rarely sold for many years, but we loved each and every book we printed. And after a while we got rid of all of them as well. Yeah, maybe it was too early. Well, or maybe too late.

Who knows? Ah, I can tell you, Helmut Newton again. We did two years later, we started this big book on Muhammad Ali, called Goat, Greatest of All Time. And I met him through his manager, Bernie Youman from Las Vegas, wonderful man, and maybe the only manager I loved I met him through his manager, Bernie Youman from Las Vegas, wonderful man, and maybe the only manager I loved from the first day onwards, because usually he always deals only directly with talent. So Bernie, I told him,

okay, I have to send him one of these big Helmut Newton sumo books that he understands the scale of it and so. And I didn't think too much about it, so I had him send this copy and a Bernie who was never really short of words, but at that time he called me and said, Benedict, tell me what Ali just called me. And he said, why did this guy Tashin send me a book with a big naked white woman on the cover to me as a Muslim?

And Bernie said, what shall I tell him now? And I thought, okay, Bernie, well, tell him he just got it wrong. So these were just women have no money for clothes, you know, poor women. And that's how I did. OK, I do this. So I call he called him and Ali was laughing. And then he was happy. And because he had to sign 10000 books. Wow.

And that took him a while. Yeah. Did you get to meet him personally? Oh yes, often. How was that relationship? It was most amazing because for me being a child growing up in the 1960s, I used to watch with my family, with my father, mother and siblings. These were the first live cast sports events in the world. So in Germany, it was in the middle of the night

and we saw quite a number of the fights. And he was always one of my great inspirations and heroes. Yeah. And that was a big thing for me. The first time I met him and We really wanted to make it work in a way that he does not need me or he doesn't need a book because he is Muhammad Ali. But on the other hand, we put more probably into this book than into any other book. I have visited dozens of photographers all over the world and here in America.

And anyhow, with Ali, that was wonderful because the first time he saw the book, he said, I didn't know that I was so great. That was wonderful. He loved it and it was more than well received all over the world. It was definitely a labor of love. Do you print in one place and then ship books everywhere or do you print in different countries? It depends on the formats but there are bigger books, like this Ali book or the Newton. This is mainly done, printed in Italy, and we have our own bindery for oversized books in Italy, because it's such a specialty, you need certain equipment for this.

And more or less nobody can do this in the world. So we have our own book binding company. Yeah, so Ali, that was very rewarding for us as well because, you know, a guy who had everything in the world and all the unbelievable ups and downs and ups again and down and another up and he was happy like a little child. That was the most rewarding part of it, you know, to make him happy. And I think as well if you see the book today or in, I don't know, 50 years from now, people will say, wow, who was this guy? Man, what a life. What was the first cinema book that you put out? We did a couple, but the first important one, I thought,

which was really looking different from other movie books, was Billy Wilder on Some Like It Hot. Billy Wilder was one of the directors I really loved, because not only was he a missing link for me, generations, two generations ahead of me from Germany, who emigrated to America in the 30s and became one of the most successful and important directors ever.

I met him in the 1990s in Los Angeles and by the way through the introduction of Helmut Newton, kind enough like he always was, and somehow whenever I was in Los Angeles I saw him a couple of times a week. He was a wonderful man. He had eyes and ears to listen and see stuff others won't. How can I describe it? And he always had this very human touch in whatever he did, whether it was drama, comedy or film noir. But it always had this wilder touch. So when I suggested him to do this book on Sam Like It Hot,

he was very curious and said, yes, great. He was already in his early 90s at that time. Wow. But very helpful he was. We were able to talk with more or less everyone who was still alive who participated in the movie. Yeah, I would say the Samlight at Hotbook was the first. And then we did the first book on Stanley Kubrick.

Unfortunately, when the book came out, he passed away already. Kubrick, in the meantime, we did another four or five different other ones on individual movies like The Shining. We did 2001 and Napoleon, that was the most famous movie never made. It was never realized. Tell me about the Chemisphere House. The Chemisphere House. I didn't really know about the Chemisphere House. What I did know was a picture by Julius Schulman.

It's kind of a profile picture of the house in the hillside overlooking the valley. And I said, wow, I want to see it right away. So the next day I drove by and I was in awe because it's such an incredible sculpture, or let's say an expression of America, like an innocent America before the Vietnam War. So it is very flamboyant and you won't see anything like this in the rest of the world. So I definitely, I would say, I fall in love with the house on the side, and I said I'd buy it, and it was $995,000. Minor detail was only that I didn't have the money.

So I said, yes, I'd buy it anyhow. So I bought it. And later I had to buy two pieces of art from my collection to make it work. But from there on it started to become really costly because you had to renovate it and it needed really love and attention. And I had the great luck that I could work with a Swiss-Mexican architect, Frank Escher and his partner Ravi. And they were very knowledgeable about Lortner. So he worked with him for a while before he passed.

So, and we restored it for three, four years. And I was really fortunate because most people, architects who restore houses, have no clue what they're doing. Because especially in America, they love restorations which look very sleek. But if it's sleek, that in the end you ripped out the soul of the house.

And if it's gone, it's gone. The same with furniture or with cars or whatever you restore. But they were different. They wanted to preserve what they could preserve and only change, which had a reason for it already in the past. And then later they won the prize for the best restoration of a house in America from this year, 1997 or 1998. But the funny thing was, there was later Matt Groening. In the 90s he had a show, a Simpsons show, and it starts with a chemistry house and a crooked for sale sign. It hangs like halfway down and it's full of spider webs because nobody bought the house

over the years. Anyhow, I'm happy it was kind of getting married to the house. And over the years we could buy some adjacent pieces of land and to other houses. And so now we have around the chemistry house a whole hill of gardens. How's the experience of living in that house? It's a masterpiece. Whenever I'm there or sleep there or I'm just visiting, I can see that it's done in a unique moment of time. And it was a combination of the guy who built it, the builder, he was I think an airplane engineer, so he was very open to new ideas. And the reason why it is built like it is, you know, it sits on a massive concrete column which goes like 25 feet in the ground, is because it was such a steep hillside, otherwise it would have been not

buildable. You had to excavate the whole thing. No, it's wonderful. I mean, this house showed me what architecture can do, how it can change your life as well, in this case to the good. case to the Grinch. When you take on a topic to do a book on, let's say case study houses, do you feel an obligation to tell the whole story? Yes, once we are in it, we are in there. And the case study houses is a great example for me because I knew a little bit about some of these architects, the most famous ones like Neutra or Eames, but that was a whole range altogether, maybe a dozen of these architects. It started, there was a magazine in Los Angeles published called Arts and Architecture by a guy named Richard Intenza.

He started in 1945 after the war and there was a housing need in California, specifically in California, let's put it this way, from homecoming soldiers. And on top of this, all America was booming like never before. And one critical issue, of course, was homes for these people. And they started competition. It was basic, not a competition competition but something like this, with these case study houses. How to make industrial materials which can be produced at a much better price. How can you use it for contemporary architecture, homes building. So these case study houses, it was very influential,

but it did not lead to a kind of a mass market for these homes, because in the end they were kind of still expensive. But it was a wonderful idea. This modernist architecture at that time was highly influential in the way that it represented a future believing, optimistic America, at that time even before the Korean War. And this was the expression of modernism. And the Case Study House, I think all together, there were about 25. When we did our book, the only available publication over 40 years, backwards at that time, I was a little pampered with a few pages, but really nothing.

At the same time, a contemporary photographer illustrated, his name is Julius Schulman. And without Julius Schulman, he was kind of the memory of modernism, so to say. He photographed all these buildings and made them look even better than they ever were, in some cases. So we did this case study house book and we made with the museum, I think with the MoCA in Los Angeles an event maybe 20 years ago and we still at that time were like seven or eight living case study house architects there. So that was pretty amazing because they were in a way, most of them were forgotten as well. Yeah, it's a beautiful book. I love the wide format. Yeah, but without Julius Schulman, no way that we could have done it. That was that we could have done it. That was definitely one of the many highlights I had.

Thanks God, visiting and meeting with Julius Schulman. He was born on 10-10-10. I remember this because he said it repeatedly and it sounded easy to remember. And when I came to see his house in the Hollywood Hills, it was definitely like a time tunnel back in 1948 or whatever. He was a wonderful, warm and humorous guy. And when I asked him, do you have something we can do together? And he said, yes, I'm just finishing my memoirs. And I said, okay, well, I'm happy to do this with you. And that was the beginning of our collaboration and in this case as well, our

friendship. How many books did you do with him? We did maybe four or five, yeah. But we used his photos in many other architecture publications. Like all the great photographers, he created his own style. What made his photos different, besides dramatic lighting and composition. He was, it sounds funny, but that is the case, he was the first photographer in architecture who introduced the human being into the, humans into the picture. Nobody else did it. It's funny, but... When you have a human in the picture, you understand scale.

Not only scale, you understand the whole, it gives you... Architecture is made for humans, yeah? But the funny thing is that architects usually didn't like it. Somehow it was like this, that the pictures you see, you just saw them deserted, like no human ever put a foot on the ground there. And Julius not only had one, but as well groups interacting. And as you say, of course, that's the only way to understand proportion and the size of all of it. And it makes it more human.

And also the clothing stamps it with a date. And all his photos, his photography was classically elegant throughout. And without Julius, something would miss in this second part of the 20th century. L-M-N-T. Element Electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element Electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function.

Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element Electrolytes, drink it in the sauna. Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon, and chocolate salt. Formulated with the perfect balance of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day. These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform at your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra. And stay salty with Element Electrolyte. LMNT.

Tell me about your relationship to books from childhood. My parents had a lot of books in their house and I grew up reading since I was a young boy. One reason why was I was often alone because I was the youngest out of five and they let me be myself. And so my books were my friends early on. I read a lot of books as well, probably not appropriate for the age group like Henry Miller. Because I just took books out of the shelf and this and that. But others as well, where I started I read all Jules Verne books and later I read a lot of American writers like Abdel Sinclair or John Steinbeck or Raymond Chandler, Bukowski and so on. So I was definitely a bookworm. Not that I didn't go out or so, I did plenty full. But I loved to read early on.

And when did your level of comic books come? That came later, when I read already a ton of books, when I was maybe 12. And by coincidence it happened. I read the German Mickey Mouse magazine had as well, it was not just Mickey Mouse, it was the Duck Family. And I liked always the Duck Family. Actually that was the only thing I liked, the rest I was not interested in. And I found out Disney never allowed the artists to neither copyright nor sign, who made the drawings or the narration, the storytelling. But the one was profoundly different

from all the other ones. Later I found out his name was Carl Barks, and he is kind of the creator of the Duck family, with Uncle Scrooge, Donald, the nephews and everything. Donald Duck and his offspring. Yes. He was not only an amazing storyteller, but as well as an artist. I have never seen it anywhere else. And his stories, I loved them from the beginning on.

And I can say that I probably learned everything, at least I thought, at that time about America, California, Southern California, and capitalism. This is the cause of Karl Barg's, Donald Duck. I think he started in the mid 40s and did it for 25 years or whatever. And that was how I fall in love with comic books, so specifically with this guy. Later I found out that there were others in the world who did the same and he had already a much growing fan base, Carl Barks. But unfortunately, beside of this comic book fan club circle, where he was a big star already 40 years ago or so, 50 years ago,

he never became a household name, but he was inspirational for generations of children. And I mean, he is as great a writer as Mark Twain is, I would say, you know, or any other household great name. And without Karl Bach, my life would have gone in a different direction. I'm pretty sure about that. Let's say there's a subject that you're interested in. It could be a photographer for the past that you've come across or an architect whose work you liked. Tell me the process. You have the idea. This is a subject worthy of doing a book.

Yeah. What happens next? We usually work always with the idea is a subject worthy of doing a book, what happens next? We usually work always with the artist directly, whether the artist or photographer or designer. And if the artist has passed? Well, then it's more difficult to work with him. Ha ha ha! Directly.

So you have to, directly with his spirit. I see. Yeah, or in his spirit. Yeah. No, we kind of, what I want to say is we feel as if we take on this job to do this, it's a commitment and we just try to make the best out of it. And that's a close collaboration. We never do anything against someone, but only with someone. And we are respectful.

The goal is to get the best result. And the second goal is of course to sell as much as we can. Because I always liked to sell. If you don't sell, then you're out of business. Then nobody... And it also doesn't spread the art. It's the goal to turn people on to this great artist. For a few years I was kind of a vote...

I was still in school, but I was in a vote-will theatre for a few years. And why did I do it? I had fun doing it. But if you don't get applause, then you're kind of fucked. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's the same. If you don't, if you make a book and nobody buys it and that happens all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't matter if there was a few times, but if it happens all the time, constantly, then maybe you better do something else, you know. Are there any books that would be too dangerous to publish? I would say maybe one of the dangerous books we did is at least for certain parts of the world. Like in China, we worked with Public Enemy No number one and number two close. One is the Dalai Lama and the second one is Ai Weiwei.

They definitely did not like this at all. But what can we do? I'm an admirer of China and of whatever 4,000 years of history, but that doesn't say that we can't do what we want to do. For the Dalai Lama, when we did this book on the murals of Tibet, it was keeping a record of this world heritage people don't know about because it's hidden in the middle of the highest mountains in the world and a lot was destroyed by Chinese. Or if it was not destroyed, it was not supported anymore and then it fall apart.

So art or what we're doing, if people think it's dangerous, they might be right, because the artists, they do what they want, and otherwise they wouldn't be artists. Yeah. And our heart, our support is 100% behind the artists, nothing else. First comes the artist, and second comes the buyer. And everything else is only personal stuff you can't forget about. It's a direct communication between the artist

and the person interested in the artist. Everything else is noise. I fully agree with this. I have no doubt at all that this is, at least for us, the only way how to, what makes us work, or what should make us work. Do you think of Tashin as a counterculture publishing house? Look, we did a lot of counterculture over the years.

And I can say, yes, it's certainly the substantial part of what we did. I have to explain it in a way, this is always changing, how the reception is what is counterculture and what is mainstream. That is nothing new. I think it was always like this. It has to do with time, but as well with fashion. It happened to the greatest painter in the world. Let's say, Vermeer. Vermeer was entirely forgotten for many, many years.

And then, I don't know, when it started, in the late 19th century, people started to get interested in him, in his work, and he did only, I don't know, 35 paintings or so. But he was generally forgotten for decades or centuries, and he is not the only one who shared this fate. So counterculture and culture, this is always in limbo. You know, you cannot.

Yeah, it's counterculture until it gets popular enough to become mainstream. Yeah, so it definitely had as well an advantage, or there is an advantage if you have no prejudice because you have no knowledge, you know? Yeah, yeah, you don't know what you don't know. And you have eyes and ears to form your own opinion or something. And I was in a way forced to do this. And on the other hand, I really liked as well this counterculture always.

What was the first passion bookstore since you've been passionate books? The first real bookstore we did was in Paris, in Saint-Germain. We did it in the late 1990s. We worked together with a great French designer, Philippe Starck, and he loved our books, our program, because you know, the main part of our books is to democratize books in a way that they are easier accessible and at different price points available.

But he wanted to create a design around it, which looks kind of inviting, but on the other hand, it looks very precious as well. So we still have this store unaltered for 25 or more years now. And it's always a great pleasure to see it, how he did it a long time ago. And how many stores are there now around the world? Oh, we have maybe 15. What percentage of the books that you put out are part of a series versus standalone books? Well, they're in a way standalone books, but on the other hand, they are in a format, which

is a series where we have already, let's say with the basic art books, we have already 150 others or so. So they're all alone. They'd be like monographs. Yeah, monographs. They're on their own, standing alone, but there are many others in the same series. Do you do many books that are rooted in fashion? books that are really in fashion? We did a lot with fashion designers.

There was Issey Miyake or Valentino, Karl Lagerfeld we did, and a couple of others. Pucci is not the most substantial part of our program, but we have quite a number. Recently, of course, over the last years, more street young designers, like Virgil Abloh, it was one of the best selling titles we had over the last couple of years. How about posters? The posters, we're gonna do a couple of more poster books in the works.

Before photography came up, and that was maybe, let's say, in the 1950s, the poster was of course the art form not only to advertise, but as well to, let's say, if you have movie posters, it was genre, how you advertised your products. And since there was no photography, everything was painted. It was a much more artistic work involved. So these posters are pretty remarkable. And once you see them, I fall in love with them.

It started all more or less with the art nouveau and the end of the 19th century when these printing machines were invented. Yeah, I love this stuff. Are you ever surprised by which books sell or don't sell? Yes, because it is not predictable. We don't do marketing that we first check, is this something people are looking forward to, or what might people think about this and that.

We don't operate like this, not that we're not interested in it. I think it's simply not possible. How can we know what five billion people might think? I don't even know what your neighbor thinks, or me myself. Of course we ask people and just always a handful or a couple of people say, what do you think about this and that? But you can do this only very selected and as more people you ask, as more opinions you get, and as more people you ask, as more opinions you get, and as more work you have.

If you feel yourself good with it, then the likelihood that it works, at least from the product side here, or artistically or from design, then it's very likely that others think the same. Unless the subject is such a marginal one that no one, whatever you do and how beautiful you do it, and how much a standard it is, it can't be successful because it's just too small a potential audience. But what it is exactly, I have no idea. I

don't know. That's a mystery. And that's kind of fun as well that it stays like this. It's not that it's entirely unpredictable. I wouldn't go so far. But there are always titles which are doing so much better than others. And if you would have known before, then everybody else would do it anyhow. Can you think of a book that you had high hopes for, but for whatever reason didn't connect with the audience? Yes.

I mean, some of these books, it's not unexpected, because we knew it is a very limited audience. Let's say the Apartment Wrestling book, female, we had a similar case with a photographer. His name was Elmer Bettas and his love was foot and leg photography. Like fetish photography? Yeah, whatever. I mean, that was his what he photographed, feet and legs. Yes. So, and he lived in San Pedro and the language, your kind of talk, that was his.

Yeah, I visited his home and I knew all, a number of his photos in these different magazines. a number of his photos in his different magazines. But a lot of these photos he did in his home, on his terrace there. So I got very close to him. I really loved this guy. No matter what the subject is, I just love it. And people have an extraordinary drive or fun

to do something very specific. Yeah. And no matter what it is. It's interesting when someone is focused on something that no one else is focusing on. Yeah, or let's say at least very few others. Yes, yes. Yeah, so he was the king of leg photography, so to say.

The same with a guy like Eric Stanton. Eric Stanton, he was a comic book artist, but as well he was, his key main subject was dominant women. Eric Stanton of, I think, Russian origin, His key main subject was the dominant women. Eric Stanton of, I think, Russian origin, or the parents that came to New York in the 1930s or 20s. When I knew some of his comic books, they were all very kind of kinky, erotic ones. We made a big book out of this.

And he was touched in tears, so to say. And I know that he had tons of followers over the years, all over the world. But there was never a big manifest of his work. And for sure, nobody really took it serious. But it is serious. And you know, first of all, if you embrace your fantasies, this alone is the first step to make something special. And that you're not feeling guilty that you have this fetish or that or this. It doesn't matter. And he translated it in his works and his drawings in a way nobody else, at least to my knowledge, did. It requires some respect

if somebody is doing it. Let's say you go to a restaurant and somebody really puts a lot into the meal. You should be respectful. Don't ask, okay, can I have this with ketchup and this? That's not what you do, you know? I mean, you can do it, but you make a fool out of yourself. And I think if you see there's an extraordinary work in something, you have to be respectful and treat it like this.

Tell me about your relationship with National Geographic and how did it come about? We were asked, it was an anniversary coming up. It was the 125 years of National Geographic. And as you know, that was always the magazine, probably for quite some time as well, with the largest circulation in the world. They did a remarkable job always in spending more money into their assignments than anybody else. People, photographers and writers, were working for months or sometimes years on a story. And in the end it only, you know, in the magazine you had like 10 pages or five or 15 if it was.

So we thought, how can we make best use of this unique archive? And so we came up with a concept around the world with National Geographic in 125 years. To this point it is definitely one of my favorite books we did, because first of all we had this amazing archive and we had access to everything we wanted to have. At that time quite a number of these photographers were still alive as well. Once they saw the final book, they were, I remember at least three of them were in tears

because it was the first time that their work was seen in a different way, in a different scale as well on top of this because National Geographic, as you know, is pretty small. Based on that experience, are there other great libraries of information out there that are just waiting for you to... Oh, yeah. I mean, there's always something.

We've just finished a book on the archives of Life magazine. Fantastic. That was only on Hollywood. Yeah. And we were very happy with the final result on this, because the material to start with is so worst already. And then you have to go through the individual files. And I knew how these files looked like when we were working on the GOAT,

the greatest of all time, our lead book. I saw at least 20 different archives. One of the biggest ones was here with Life Magazine and Sports Illustrated. It was called the same company at that time, Time Life. The photographers were assigned to a job, let's say to photograph Humphrey Bogart on Africa Queen and wherever it's filmed in Africa. There was one file with all the contact sheets,

but then as well the photographers had to write captions to each of the frames as well. In the end, in the magazine, they used maybe one picture or two or none. And what was seen at that time as the best one or the most print-worthy is not necessary today, or we wouldn't probably agree with it, so we would choose something else. But that is a lot of work and you only can do it from time to time because it's really tiring to do it right. And that was the same with National Geographic and Life.

We are happy, very happy that we could do this together with them. And I think that the result was what we finally got, but it's very tiring, many years of work. Have you done any collections of magazines bound? Oh yeah, we did a couple of reprints. That's like on Dormos magazine, a lot of, we did a couple of interior and architecture ones. Yeah. Dormos magazine and arts lot of, we did a couple of interior and architecture ones. Yeah. Dormo's magazine and Arts and Architecture, this American magazine based

in Los Angeles and a few other ones. We did a six volume series on the history of men's magazines. It starts in the late 1900s and it stops maybe in the 1970s or so. It's funny that we did it. Have you done comic book compilations? Yes. I mean, we did a number of reprints now, big and large size. A new one is coming up now on Tarzan by two excellent artists, one is called Hell Foster and Bern Hogarth. And we did Little Nemo and Crazy Cat, and we are doing Marvel and EC Comics. And yeah, we're getting a very substantial comic book program.

So it's coming after 40 plus years back to the roots. Yeah. And what I like to do, I'm very excited about it, because we know by now how we can do it, that it looks as good as it would have looked if the technology and the money put into this at the time when it was published, yeah, if it could have been done this way. So it's even better than it was originally published.

I would say the artists, they would be proud and happy if they could have seen it in this way. I see. So, first of all, and that's the reason why we have it in a bigger scale, in a bigger size. The magazines, they downsized it to maybe half the size. The original drawings were 50 in centimeters, let's say 50 centimeters each for each page, and it was published in the size of 20, or whatever that means in inches. They did not spend a lot of money

to make the registers all fit and all of this, but in an ideal world, you could have done it. So what we do with, and the reason why I tell you this is we don't want to alter something. It's more like a restoration. We've done it. So what we do, and the reason why I tell you this, is we don't want to alter something. It's more like a restoration. It's a restoration process. That's how I would describe it.

And we put a lot of time and money into this to make that look as good as it gets. And I think that's what is regarded as well now. Is there another publishing house that you're a great fan of? Oh, you know what, since I read every day and I buy every day books from everywhere, old ones, new ones, there are a number of outstanding publishing houses. Let's say, yeah, Penguin no doubt has an amazing list and not only

and they have this for decades, it's for sure. One of these publishing houses or one of these brands where you know as well, okay, if this name is on it, if you're interested in the subject or not, doesn't matter, but at least you have a standard which is an excellent one. It's the same with the newspaper. Let's say if you read the New York Times or the Frankfurter Allgemeine or, I don't know, the Le Monde or the Financial Times, at least you have a standard there. And no matter which article you read, and if let's say you're on holidays and you have nothing else to read, you read the entire newspaper. But here, as an art publisher, the Thames & Hudson is a great publishing house, no doubt.

And they do it for 70, whatever, five years. And I admire stuff like that, yeah. Especially if you are in it for a long time and still independent, you know. How is it different publishing something new versus publishing something that's out of print but has been printed in the past? If you make a reprint of a famous book, let's say the Luther Bible from the 1600s, 500 years old. What you have to do is find, if possible, the very best example.

Because they are all slightly different, it's not that they are all the same. It was just hundreds of years ago and some were colourised, others not. Some are in a poor condition by now. Anyhow, you have to make the research to get the best famous edition. Then you have to work on the reproduction of this. But basically the book itself, to reproduce it, besides the scans and as well how it's printed, the paper and all this. The work has been done by others many years ago.

What you can do kind of as a gatekeeper to make it look as good as it gets 500 years later, 250 or whatever. So there is definitely some work involved, but the first, the real work was done. That's why it's a famous edition. Of course, you have to write the commentary and put it all into kind of historic context, but it is far less work than to do a new book and whatever the subject is, because then you start from scratch and you have to fill 500 empty pages. Yeah. Typically, how long is the process from

when you have an idea for a book until it's ready to be printed? Look, the books we do, they have, let's say, from 100 to, let's say, a thousand pages. And it usually takes at least 12 months, but on average, I would say 24 months to do something. Then, of course, the production takes another six months, maybe three months. And do you tend to work with the same people over and over again? Yes, I love that.

I mean, if it was a good experience, I love it. Have you ever published a Bible? Yes, we did even two versions, the Gutenberg Bible and the Luther Bible. And the Gutenberg Bible was the very first printed book and it's something, of course, of incredible historic value, but it's not overwhelmingly illustrated or so. I mean, it's more ornamental, all of it, and the Luther Bible, which was always regarded as the Bible for all the people. And it was the first, which was as well not in Latin, but in this case in German, that is wonderfully richly illustrated, you know, when we talked about Frank Frazetta. This

is all in between Bosch and Frazetta and I don't know the wildest stories you can't even imagine or EC comics. It's artistically very beautifully done and as well they're colored which are just amazing works of art. Yeah. Are all of your books image-based? Yes, but that's the beginning and from there on we have to contextualize it, to bring it in and explain what it is, what you see and where it comes from. Then start look at the pictures and from there on you might get hooked and want to understand where it comes from and what it is what you see.

I mean to say it basically. But I would say maybe our books are visually driven no doubt at all. And the visuals we try to make as close to the original as we can and keep the integrity of the picture, whether it's a photo or painting, not cut it and make it as good as it is. And that requires very often that you have to re-photograph everything in museums and wherever it is. Because otherwise you cannot have the best possible reproduction. We just finished a book on Dali, which is an oversize,

and it's kind of an anniversary edition, because we did our first Dali book 40 years ago. And this year we have now a new book on Dali, a two-volume book on Dali coming out. And I remember we had to re-photograph at least 150 paintings. And once you do this, you often even have to take them out of the frames. And it's for curators, I wouldn't say it's a nightmare, but it's definitely something they don't want to do too often. But without it, you can't really make it work. How has the technology changed from the first Dolly book 40 years ago to now, in terms of printing, in terms of getting renderings of the images?

I think it changed dramatically. It doesn't say that you would not have had a great result, depending on what you did. Years ago, the black and white photography books often looked better than they do today because some printing machines are just not in existence anymore. So not everything that is new is better necessarily. It's about the grain and the overall look, maybe comparable in music if you have an analog record compared to whatever is digital.

And some people prefer definitely this version. Color photography is different. I would say we have more possibilities and you can do better than years ago. How do the books get written? Are you pitched or do you commission them? We're pitched very often, but rarely do we have the pitch go into the next stage.

So the vast majority of our books, we have our idea how to go into the next stage. So the vast majority of our books we do, we have our idea how to make it work in these different formats and series, and we commission the authors and the designers and the team to make this happen. So that's different than most publishers, I would say. For sure, yeah.

I don't know anybody who does it like this. The writers and photographers that you work with are in the service of the vision, which is starting with Tashen. And that's unusual. I think most publishers, they acquire things that come from the outside. Not that we have a formula, but we have our ideas how it should work and how it should look like. Whether it's good or not, different question that is. But we want to have it in

a certain way, in a certain style. And for some artists, or quite a number, that works well and for others, probably not, I don't know. But the name of the company, of the brand, was for me always more important than anything else. We tried to keep this in our hands, let's put it this way. Do you think of the books as reference books? Yes, for sure. A majority of our books I would say it's a reference book. And once we work on a subject, we try to make it as Comprehensive or as good as we can doesn't say that it works like this all the time But at least we try it's the intention the intention is there

Yeah, but even after thousands of books you still feel that it's great. Definitely because I'm really Grateful and happy that I Can be in this, for me, the most exciting job. I did not lose any... Probably I have more, I'm more into it than I was even like 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Because right now I can focus more on it because I'm in the wonderful situation that my oldest daughter Marlene runs for the last 10 years, all the operations. And so I can focus even better than I did before and I have more as a sparring partner at the same time.

Fantastic. And that enables me as well to focus more on what I love to do in the first hand, and that is producing books. Yeah, how do you decide if a book is gonna be a limited edition collector's item, expensive book versus a mass market book? Well, the subject defines it. If you work, let's say, with a photographer, you only can do it with people who have a worldwide recognition and an earthwork behind it that supports this.

We often don't know how it will end up because we have to dive into it and look into it. And so there was a story I heard about MGM, the film studio. They said, these people, they started to edit the film when it was cut already. But I like this idea, although it makes not too much economic sense. At least at that point, stage, you understand what you're into. And before, at least from my perspective, I often do not know what I'm into. Yes. Because it requires to go and to work on a new subject, and only by doing so you understand and you see it may be different or want to add stuff

or take out. So yeah we often edit our books very late while they're done already. After the first edit we make a complete different second one. Do you get as excited about an idea today as you would have 30 years ago? I would say so, no doubt. I am excited about everything which is exciting, what is exciting for me, like a young boy, maybe I never kept my whatever being 10 years old. I love it, I love when the books arrive. Every book is always sent to our office in Los Angeles daily. And I love to keep it in my...to feel it, to smell it, to look at whatever you can check in the moment.

And I see them like... Well, I wouldn't say children, because I love the children more than anything else in my life, my wife, my children, or French bulldogs. But then the books come. Tetragrammaton is a podcast. Tetragrammaton is a podcast. Tetragrammaton is a website. Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammaton?

Counterculture? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammaton. The avant-garde? Tetragrammaton. Generative art? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry? Tetragrammaton. The Avant-Garde? Tetragrammaton. Generative art? Tetragrammaton. The Tarot? Tetragrammaton. Out of print music? Tetragrammaton. Biodynamics? Tetragrammaton. Graphic design? Tetragrammaton.

Mythology and magic? Tetragrammaton. Obscure film? Tetragrammaton. Beach culture? Tetragrammaton. Esoteric lectures. Tetragrammaton. Off-the-grid living. Tetragrammaton. Alt. Spirituality. Tetragrammaton. The canon of fine objects. Tetragrammaton. Muscle cars. Tetragrammaton. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.