“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 first discovered screen printing as both a practical tool and an artistic method. We started out making concert posters, graphzines, and record covers — mostly for garage bands and underground illustrators. These early works reflected our belief in independent publishing, graphic experimentation, and self-determined production.
Working under the name Bongoût, a self-run art collective founded by Christian Gfeller in 1995, we built a platform for unconventional voices and a space for creative autonomy. What began as DIY publishing soon evolved into a broader exploration of screen printing as a language — tactile, collaborative, and constantly shifting.
Over the past two decades, our work has expanded into a multidisciplinary practice involving printmaking, artist’s books, exhibitions, and site-specific projects. Though rooted in applied arts, our approach moves freely between design and fine art, embracing tension over definition — between function and expression, reproducibility and singularity.
In 2007, we opened the Bongoût Project Space in Berlin, a meeting place for independent publishing and experimental collaboration.
Our ongoing interest in material and process has led us to print on unconventional surfaces such as wood, glass, and aluminum. For us, screen printing is not a technique but a mode of thinking — a physical and reflective gesture shaped by chance, repetition, and time. Each print becomes a unique trace of movement and material.
Our ongoing interest in material and process has led us to print on unconventional surfaces such as wood, glass, and aluminum. For us, screen printing is not a technique but a mode of thinking — a physical and reflective gesture shaped by chance, repetition, and time. Each print becomes a unique trace of movement and material.
Over the years, our work has expanded into new media and contexts: public commissions, monumental installations, artist’s books, and prints on wood, glass, and aluminum. These experiments are never purely formal — they aim to redefine the notion of the printed image, its spatial presence, and its potential to become an object, an installation, a painting, or a sculpture.
Our visual language moves between abstraction and graphic precision, between controlled chaos and craft. The palette — often vivid, sometimes acidic — carries an energy that recalls punk, collage, and improvisation, yet also the discipline of Bauhaus, conceptual art, and minimalism.
Today, we continue to publish zines and curated artist editions under the Bongoût name, maintaining the spirit that first inspired us: urgency, independence, and a connection to underground culture. Our process remains intuitive and open — shifting between structure and spontaneity, authorship and collaboration.
We continue to work both collaboratively and independently while exhibiting internationally. For us, print is not merely a method of reproduction — it is a space of resistance, a tool for connection, and a living language that keeps evolving.
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