TURNING INWARD

Lou Cantor & Clemens Jahn (Eds.)

In the publication Turning Inward, a selection of texts by international artists, critics and curators consider the impact of the technologically internalized capitalist system of networked power structures upon the production, distribution and consumption of contemporary art. Divided into three parts, the volume addresses the effects of globalization and the Internet on art, its political agency and the changing role of artists, artworks and art institutions. The second section focuses on Berlin’s shift from a politically and physically divided capital into a landscape of art and project spaces. A critical look at art history, curating and alternative methodologies comprises the third section. In conclusion, pioneering Iranian philosopher and theorist Reza Negarestani reflects on the transforming relationship between mind and world. Contributions by John Beeson, Svetlana Boym, Marta Dziewanska, Philipp Ekardt, Felix Ensslin, Orit Gat, David Joselit, William Kherbek, John Miller, Matteo Pasquinelli and Dieter Roelstraete.

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THE UNCERTAIN STATES OF AMERICA READER

Noah Horowitz and Brian Sholis

What do artists read? What articles, books, reviews – and cartoons, cookbooks, memoirs and film scripts – influence their work? Here are some answers from the participating artists in the Uncertain States of America exhibition in Oslo and London in 2005. This book, a companion to the exhibition catalog, is an eclectic compilation of material that gives the reader a deeper insight into the influences that created the show. From Dora Apel’s Art Journal article on Torture Culture to Giorgio Agamben’s Le Monde piece on his refusal to visit the United States because he will not allow electronic archiving of his fingerprints, this is a thought-provoking reader for our times. Contributions by Julian Stallabrass, Johanna Burton, Isabelle Graw, Andrea Fraser, Pamela M. Lee, Miwon Kwon, Matthew Jesse Jackson, Jack Bankowsky, Chris Kraus, David Barringer, Bernadette Corporation, Seth Price, Kirk Varnedoe, Tim Griffin, Ralph Rugoff, Matt Wolf, Hamza Walker, Paul Chan, Giorgio Agamben, Critical Art Ensemble, Gregory Sholette, Alan Gilbert, Robert Morris, Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews, Michael Watts, Dora Apel, Kymberly N. Pinder, Molly Nesbit, Trisha Donnelly.

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UPCYCLE THIS BOOK

Gavin Wade

“Upcycle this book. Rewrite it as a manifesto. Steal and take and copy and change this book. Upcycle these twenty-three texts just as I have upcycled so many other texts and responded to many sets of existing conditions. Or unlike I have. Treat these words as existing conditions. Some of them are artworks. Some of them upcycle artworks by others. Some are barely texts at all… . Often the words are a script to be performed. It’s useful to read words out loud in public.” Gavin Wade is pragmatic utopian, an artist, artist-curator, artist-writer and one of the founding directors of Eastside Projects in Birmingham, UK. He has curated numerous exhibitions as well as written and published a number of books—such as Has Man a Function in Universe? (Book Works, 2008). Upcycle This Book was co-published by Book Works and Stroom den Haag in an edition of 1,000.

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MARCUS VERHAGEN

Flows and Counterflows
Globalisation in Contemporary Art

Over the past 25 years, artists have vigorously engaged the debate around globalization, examining cross-border exchange from mass migration to the dynamics of translation, and devising new conceptual categories and new formal and metaphorical resources along the way. Noted art critic Marcus Verhagen’s timely examination of artistic interventions, Flows and Counterflows tells the story of projects that draw out both the dangers and tangible benefits of global exchange. In seven thought-provoking illustrated essays Verhagen maps the global art world’s shifting terrain and offers an incisive and original account of contemporary art’s relationship to the processes of globalisation. The softcover survey covers how art addresses global markers such as tourism and border control; how the art system itself has been reshaped; and how artists resist by building informal networks. Packed with clearly explained and illustrated contemporary artworks, it is an indispensable history of art for our current times. Verhagen teaches in the United States and Europe and has published extensively in LeftReview, Art Monthly, Frieze along with many other publications.

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VILLA LITUANIA

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas

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THE VIOLENCE OF PARTICIPATION

Markus Miessen

What exactly is Europe? Is it an actual place or just a temporary community based on shared political and economic interests? Edited by London-based architect and writer Markus Miessen, this compilation of essays, cartoons and other writings presents the world’s most densely populated continent as a conflicted political space whose identity must be continuously negotiated. As the European Union maintains its eastward march to countries like Turkey, bleeding beyond its classically understood political boundaries, the questions continue. Produced to expound on Miessen’s work from the Lyon Biennial in 2007, this dense paperback accumulates diverse opinions exploring what it means to live in Europe today.

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VISUAL CULTURES AS OBJECTS AND AFFECTS

Jorella Andrews & Simon O’Sullivan

Jorella Andrews (Ed.)

Largely due to the “linguistic turn” that has dominated the humanities since the mid-twentieth century, many contemporary scholars and artists habitually equate works of art with highly coded texts to be deciphered, deconstructed, or otherwise interpreted. Within this quest to consider art differently, Jorella Andrews and Simon O’Sullivan pay attention to the asignifying character of art, or simply its affective qualities.

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VISUAL CULTURES AS OPPORTUNITY

Helge Mooshammer & Peter Mörtenböck

Jorella Andrews (Ed.)

Assemblies, gathering places and agora-like situations have become popular sites for contemporary art. At the heart of these arenas is the search for new ways to counter the pervasive and alienating marketization of all aspects of our lives. In Visual Cultures as Opportunity, academic duo Helge Mooshammer and Peter Mörtenböck analyze the networked spaces of global informal markets, the cultural frontiers of speculative investments and recent urban protests, and discuss crucial shifts in the process of collective articulation within today’s “crowd economy.” Artists and cultural producers are at the forefront of testing the viability of co-working, crowdfunding and open-source provisions. A great deal of hope is being placed on the potential of social formations enabled by new technologies of connectivity and exchange. At the same time, global capitalism is expanding into multipolar constellations of top-down and bottom-up economic governance. A late 2015 presentation with the duo was held at The Store Front, NY.

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VISUAL CULTURES AS RECOLLECTION

Astrid Schmetterling & Lynn Turner

Jorella Andrews (Ed.)

Memory has become a major preoccupation in the humanities in recent decades, be it individual and collective memory, cultural and national memory, or traumatic memory and the ethics of its representation. Drawing on these complex concerns, Astrid Schmetterling and Lynn Turner focus on distinct films—a series of short meditations on the September 11, 2001, attacks commissioned by Alain Brigand and collectively titled 11’09”01 – September 11 (2002), and Richard Linklater’s Tape (2001).

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VISUAL CULTURES AS SERIOUSNESS

Gavin Butt & Irit Rogoff

Jorella Andrews (Ed.)

The contemporary art world has become more inhospitable to “serious” intellectual activity in recent years. Set against this context, Gavin Butt and Irit Rogoff raise the question of “seriousness” in art and culture. What is seriousness exactly, and where does it reside? Is it a desirable value in contemporary culture?

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