ARTIST-RUN EUROPE

Practice/Projects/Spaces

Gavin Murphy & Mark Cullen (Eds.)

Part how-to manual, part history, part sociopolitical critique, Artist-Run Europe looks at the conditions, the organizational models, and the role of artist-led practice within contemporary art and society. It shows how artist-run practice manifests itself; how artist-run spaces are a distinctive part of visual art culture; and how they present a complex, heterogeneous and necessary set of alternatives to larger or more commercial institutions. How are artist-run spaces organized? How is value ascribed to these often transitory practices, and is this value recognized within the field? What do artist-run spaces add to the ecology of the civil society? Questions such as these are addressed by contributors including Jason E. Bowman, AA Bronson, Noelle Collins, Valerie Connor, Joanna Laws, Freek Lomme, Megs Morley, Gavin Wade and Katherine Waugh. Edited by artists/curators Gavin Murphy and Mark Cullen, this softcover book contains an expansive and detailed index of artist-run spaces in Europe.

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BAD FEELINGS

Arts Against Cuts

New from the Common Objects Series, this well-designed, pocket-sized flash flood of politically driven essays was assembled by Arts Against Cuts, a student activist group formed at The Slade (London, 2010). Refusing the comfort of easily consumable printed publications, Bad Feelings is an anthology ordered without hierarchy, index, or page reference. Authors, whether collective, individual or transmutable identities, flow from start to finish in a sequence determined by emotion, subject and political impact. Committed to the abolition of property, the names attached to each piece in the collection stand only as placeholders. Over thirty provocative contributions from a wide range of contemporary writers including Chicago-based writer/teacher Lauren Berlant, English poet Sean Bonney, transsexual author Juliet Jacques, and feminist author Nina Power among many others sound the chorus, “Fuck Jobs. Fuck Growth. All I Want Is Revenge.”

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ASSIGN & ARRANGE

Methodologies of Presentation in Art and Dance

Maren Butte, Kirsten Maar, Fiona McGovern, Marie-France Rafael & Jörn Schafaff (Eds.)

Assign & Arrange is a challenging new publication examining the cross-pollination of visual arts and choreography. Since the 1960s, this melding can be observed in both the methods behind dance performances in art galleries and the work of visual artists who incorporate dramaturgy and choreography into their performances. The subject of a recent conference in Berlin, Assign & Arrange includes 12 essays by theoreticians, artists and choreographers on historical and current performance methodologies with perspectives from art history, dance studies and architecture. Mise-en-scène, situation, setting and installation are defined in relation to the aesthetic experience of different modes of presentation. The work of Simone Forti, Constantin Brancusi, Trisha Brown, Sophie Calle, and Janez Jansa among others is discussed by Ina Blom, Ramsay Burt, Maren Butte, Adrian Heathfield, Liz Kotz, Jörn Schafaff and Gregor Stemmrich, among others.

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THE ATLANTAS SEARCH ENGINE

Initiated by Israeli visual artist and writer Keren Cytter and co-edited with
independent publisher Fiona Bryson, The Atlantas Search Engine is the first
in the new Poetic Series. This experimental quarterly combines works of
poetry and literature with

Fiona Bryson, Keren Cytter & Roger Van Voorhees (Eds.)

Initiated by Israeli visual artist and writer Keren Cytter and co-edited with independent publisher Fiona Bryson, The Atlantas Search Engine is the first in the new Poetic Series. This experimental quarterly combines works of poetry and literature with visual art and introduces young as well as established writers who challenge the boundaries of traditional forms of narrative. Featured is a selection of poetry and prose by celebrated American poet Matthew Dickman, author Roman Bambaev and text-based artist Josef Strau. The accompanying drawings, produced by art critic, gallery director and recent Whitney Biennial exhibitor John Kelsey, are based on the much-discussed Lindsay Lohan comeback film, The Canyons.

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AUSCHWITZ-OSWIECIM

The Hidden City in the East

Hans Citroen and Barbara Starzynska

Artist Hans Citroen and architect Barbara Starzynska look anew at one of the planet’s most highly charged sites: the Auschwitz death camp and the Polish town of Oswiecim. In the process, the authors investigate how time re-writes and redefines the history of a place, exploring how we write history, and the meaning of collective memory. This striking, Japanese-style book mixes images and text, featuring Citroen’s contemporary views from front-to-back, and Starzynska’s blackand- white historical documentation when reversed. More than a million visitors a year come to see the wartime remains, creating a complicated engagement among pilgrims, tourists, survivors and residents. “A page-turner about the afterlife of a death camp?” asks Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan van Pelt. The authors “have made me see both wartime Auschwitz and today’s Oswiecim anew.”

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The Bagatelles from Passy

Benjamin Franklin

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BASEL-ROTTERDAM ROTTERDAM-BASEL

Ten Years of Cultural Exchange between iaab, Basel and Kaus Australis, Rotterdam

Dineke van Huizen, Ove Lucas & Alexandra Staheli (Eds.)

Artist-in-residence programs are well-known means for artists and curators to refresh, reset or deepen artistic ideas. This thoughtful publication takes a critical look back at ten years of cultural exchange between two noted artist-in-residence programs, iaab in Basel and the artists’ initiative Kaus Australis in Rotterdam. Included are three contemplative texts on fellowships, artistic exchange and the ingredients necessary for organizing artists’ residencies, as well as an overview of the exchange participants and their work. The entire package is wrapped up in 23 unique posters created by each participating artist and curator, all which can be taken apart and transformed into a mountable “readymade” exhibition.

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The Best American Book of the 20th Century

Societe Realiste

The Best American Book of the 20th Century consists of the first sentence of the first best-selling book of 1900, as listed*; then the second sentence of the second best-selling book of 1900, and so on up to the end of the century, to the thousandth sentence of the tenth best-selling book of 1999.

Each sentence is footnoted with its reference. Ten sentences form one paragraph, representing one year. Ten paragraphs form one chapter, representing one decade. The book represents a century: the American Century.

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THE BEST AMERICAN BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Sociètè Rèaliste

Niels van Tomme, Freek Lomme, Prem Krishnamurthy & Société Réaliste (Eds.)

Are Pearl S. Buck, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, Ayn Rand, John Steinbeck, Daphne du Maurier, J. D. Salinger, Stephen King and Toni Morrison telling a similar story? By constructing The Best American Book from the first ten sentences of the 100 best-selling books of American fiction written between 1900 and 1999, the artist cooperative Société Réaliste has created a compelling intertextual narrative in which a multitude of cultural shifts converse. In the process, this publication project—a collaboration among Société Réaliste, New York multidisciplinary design studio Project Projects, and Dutch project space Onomatopee 100—traverses formal standards of language and provokes questions regarding the dynamics of reader and writer, creating an opportunity to reflect upon modernity’s spell on our present collective imagination. Each sentence is footnoted with its reference. This little book is a hysterical and challenging reading experience for all!

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Gerry Bibby

The Drumhead

Natasha Soobramanien (Ed.)

Over the past 50 years artist Gerry Bibby has inserted narratives and instructional texts into his artworks as acts of tactical withdrawal. The Drumhead, Bibby’s first publication, includes a series of his “Language Costumes” or fragmentary texts which, like William Burroughs’s The Wild Boys or Robert Walser’s The Walk, attest to an offended intelligence. Moving across performance, sculpture and writing, Gerry Bibby’s artworks take form at the uncomfortable fissures between the three. His “Language Costumes” arrive at these junctions as self-styled instructional texts, photocopy machine manuals, drinks menus and poetic passages. His captivating passages brim with wit, wry observation and occasionally with disgust, offering viewers “ways out” even if only at the time of reading. Commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution, The Drumhead follows a two-year collaboration with KUB Arena of the Kunsthaus Bregenz, The Showroom London, CCA Glasgow, and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.

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