Summary of Bildbook by Nikola Rikanović

Bildbook (full title: Bildbook: Lynch der Fabelwelt), published in 2012 by Wagner Verlag (ISBN: 978-3-86279-420-1), is a compact 26-page hardcover art book (20 x 20 cm format, priced at €29.90) featuring 700 four-color photographs. It serves as a visual and conceptual reinterpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, blending classical text-image composition with modern interactive artistry. The work transforms the philosophical narrative into a "total artwork" (Gesamtkunstwerk) that can be "read" like a book, where individual images interact and fuse to evoke a singular, expansive "image in the spirit" (Das Bild im Geist).

Core Structure and Themes

Author Context

Nikola Rikanović, a Serbian graphic designer, art educator, and professor of artistic design at the Economic School in Pančevo, studied at the Academies of Applied and Fine Arts in Belgrade. As founder of the design agency "d///R," his work spans 1999–2019, focusing on conceptual art that merges visuals with profound ideas. Bildbook debuted at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair via an interactive installation titled "Nietzsche's Church" at Galerie Westkunst Nied, highlighting its performative, exhibition-ready nature.

Connections to Broader Work

This book ties into Rikanović's ongoing explorations, such as Serbook (a Serbian-language counterpart) and the "A=B-PULS" system, which quantifies chaos-handling capacity. Videos and installations (e.g., YouTube presentations from 2012–2019) often showcase page-flipping sequences, reinforcing its role as a meditative tool for philosophical resilience.Overall, Bildbook is less a conventional read than a visual meditation on Nietzschean fables, designed to instill enduring adaptability through image-driven epiphany. For full immersion, previews are limited (no extensive Google Books excerpts available), but exhibition footage captures its dynamic essence.

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