“The science and study of color have many ramifications, but no aspect is more fascinating than the art of printing.” - Preface of Color by Overprinting, Donald E. Cooke, 1955
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Gfeller + Hellsgård – Printing as a Living Language
Our collaboration began in 2001 in an abandoned factory in Kehl, Germany, where we discovered screen printing as both a practical tool and an artistic medium. We started by making concert posters, graphzines, and record covers, mostly for garage bands and underground illustrators. From the beginning, we were interested in independent publishing, graphic experimentation, and producing our own work.
We worked under the name Bongoût, the independent art collective founded by Christian Gfeller in 1995. Over the years, Bongoût became one of the key underground publishers of the French graphzine scene. It was a platform for publishing, collaborations, and projects that existed outside conventional art and design channels. What started with DIY printmaking gradually developed into a broader exploration of screen printing—not just as a technique, but as a way of making.
Over the past two decades, our work has expanded to include artist's books, exhibitions, site-specific installations, and public commissions. Rooted in graphic design and printmaking, our practice moves between applied and contemporary art without drawing a clear line between the two.
In 2008, we opened the Bongoût Project Space in Berlin as a place for exhibitions, independent publishing, and collaborative projects. During this period, we published under the name Re:Surgo for several years.
Printing has gradually moved beyond paper. We work on wood, glass, aluminum, and other materials, always interested in how the surface changes the image. Screen printing remains central to our practice because it leaves room for accident, repetition, and variation. No two prints are ever exactly alike.
This has led us towards installations, sculptural works, and large-format projects where print becomes part of the object itself rather than simply an image placed on a surface.
Our work shifts between abstraction and graphic clarity. Strong colour, collage, and improvisation are balanced by a careful attention to composition and craft. The influences are diverse—from punk graphics and self-publishing to modernist design—but they are absorbed rather than quoted.
Alongside exhibitions, we continue to publish zines and artist editions through Bongoût, keeping a close connection to the independent publishing culture where our collaboration began. We still approach each project with the same openness, allowing process, material, and collaboration to shape the outcome.
Today we continue to work together while also developing our individual practices and exhibiting internationally. For us, print is not simply a method of reproduction. It is a material practice, a way of thinking, and a language that continues to change with every project.
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