POST-BUTT

The power of the image

Melani de Luca

OH MY GOD, LOOK AT HER BUTT!

Post-Butt analyses the virality of images in our mediated society. More rounded, it is a case study around the image of female butts, bootys, and behinds, and their influence in media, society and art. The butt is the protagonist of mass-mediated cullture, it is the democratic sex organ par excellence. The phenomenon of bootyfication exists in many contexts, as varied as the exploitation of the body in colonialism to 90s hiphop culture. Post-Butt goes through different periods in time and place, to analyse the political meaning of the usage of the image of the female buttocks. Then, it discusses the role of the booty in varied cultural expressions such as film, Internet art, music videos, dance and plastic surgery. Deep inside, Post-butt aims to reflect on how our society is conditioned by viral images, that do not only exist in the digital context, but have deep consequences on our physical world as well.

With an introduction by Charlotte van Buylaere, curator and writer specialism in post-feminism and Internet art.

Featuring Eminem, Nicki Minaj, Guy Debord, Beyonce, Amy Schumer, Kara Walker, Josefine Baker, Kim K. Saartje Baartman, Amalia Ulman and many more bootyful others!

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CALL ME ISHMAEL

Doris Denekamp & Geert van Mil

For three months, visual artists Doris Denekamp and Geert van Mil lived on the grounds of a psychiatric institution where, together with the patients, they read fragments of Melville’s Moby-Dick. During the collective reading it quickly became clear that the fears, obsessions and sorrows of the whaling crew were pertinent, inspiring patients to share their personal stories. Based on these conversations, Denekamp and van Mil wrote Call Me Ishmael, a story in which transcript, fiction and delusion merge with one another. Infrared photographs taken by the artists of the partly concealed pavilions of the psychiatric institution add a tranquil backdrop to the ever-shifting story and make this book a fascinating record of this narrative intervention. Doris Denekamp and Geert van Mil have worked together since 2011 investigating the role of stories in society today through installations, publications, performances and collaborative exchanges, often in the location where the work evolved.

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CASCO ISSUES XII

Generous Structures

Binna Choi and Axel John Wieder

The latest issue of the biannual publication from the public “art think-tank” Casco, based in The Netherlands, explores the notion of playfulness itself as a method and value in cultural practice, positioning it to contrast with fashionable ideologies like “lifelong learning” and “work as play.” The publication addresses the impact of the notion of play and gaming methods in cultural work, [exploring connections between text and images and addressing the various research methods to question the historical shift in the concept of the game and playfulness.] Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, is devoted to studying art in the public realm, and the relation between art and the physical, social and political environment.

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CASCO ISSUES XI

An Ambiguous Case

Emily Pethick, Marina Vishmidt, and Tanja Widmann

Casco Issues is the eleventh issue of an annual magazine from Casco, the Dutch think-tank on art, design, and theory that was founded in 1990 as a platform for experimental art. Central to Casco’s approach has been openness and flexibility, which makes this issue – with its theme of exploring the concept of openness – highly appropriate. This inquiry led to a discussion of related terms (criticality, fractures, ambivalence, ambiguity, and conflict, among others), and a look at certain important distinctions, such as how to recognize openness, and what being “open” actually means. Includes two ‘Metalogues’ by British anthropologist-sociologist Gregory Bateson, and commentary from a number of artists and designers. Contributors include Gregg Bordowitz, Jutta Koether, Kobe Matthys, and The Otolith Group.

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CAVE 1

Territories

Els Silvrants-Barclay & Pieternel Vermoortel (Eds.)

Why, what, how and for whom should public art institutions collect today? What is the role and responsibility of the contemporary art museum? The first issue of the new publications series from Contemporary Art Heritage, Flanders, Cave 1: Territories invites historians, curators, artists and other thinkers to contribute fiction, art theory, research reports, art-historical case studies, archive documents, conversations, anecdotes, visual essays or artworks. From Jef Geys on Le Corbusier’s 1964 plan to build the Museum of Unlimited Growth in Antwerp to Clementine Deliss’s manifesto on the multidisciplinary claim to collections, 16 contributors address the role of museums and collections for identity making and territorial representation, the increasing invisibility of the collection, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and the general distrust of history in contemporary art museums. Designed like a folder, with a fold-out of museum floor plans nested inside, this publication is a hefty little package of ideas. Contributions by Beirut, Clémentine Deliss, Kersten Geers, Jef Geys, Anders Kreuger, Maarten Liefooghe, Jens Maier-Rothe, Doris Maninger, Winke Noppen, Louise Osieka, Jasper Rigole, Marije Sennema, Els Silvrants-Barclay, 3Maarten Van Den Driessche, Richard Venlet and Pieternel Vermoortel.

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CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: Artists Talk About Teaching

Interviews by John Reardon

John Reardon and David Mollin

An indispensable guide for artists, teachers and students, this volume of newly commissioned interviews focuses on artists teaching in the UK and Europe. The interviews provide an intriguing insight into the challenges and anxieties that affect the artist-teacher, and bring to light their often heroic endeavors to survive within the world of art education. Selected from a variety of institutions including Central St. Martins, Glasgow School of Art, Städelschule Frankfurt, and Kunstakademie Münster, each representing a different approach to teaching. Artists interviewed include John Armleder, Guillaume Bijl, Phyllida Barlow, Pavel Buchler, Michael Craig-Martin, Liam Gillick, John Hillard, Tobias Rehberger, Karin Sander, Christoph Schlingensief, Jon Thompson, Erwin Wurm and more.

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Changing society: Lithuania

Lolita Jablonskiene and Nicolaus Schafhausen

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More from the White Pocketbook Series

CIRCULAR FACTS Mai

Abu ElDahab, Binna Choi and Emily Pethick

Circular Facts is a collaborative endeavor between three of Europe’s most progressive contemporary art organizations: Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht; Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp; and The Showroom, London, in partnership with Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and Electric Palm Tree. The project acted as an informal think tank to discuss the role of small contemporary art organizations in the cultural field and how they envision their future in today’s changing times while creating mutually supportive structures for the dissemination of artistic initiatives. Aiming to gather a spectrum of perspectives to explore the roles of specific projects, the multi-cultural group of contributors have produced essays that speak to their experiences within arts institutions, collaborative curatorial initiatives, and research networks. Contributions by Mai Abu ElDahab, Binna Choi, Emily Pethick, Heejin Kim, Anthony Huberman, Will Bradley, Miren Jaio and Leire Veraga, Anna Colin and Melanie Boutaloup, and Gabi Ngcobo; and an interview with Kim Einarsson.

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CLUSTER: DIALECTIONARY

Binna Choi, Maria Lind & E mily Pethick (Eds.)

The Dialectionary is a handy little compendium of ideas and projects by Cluster, a network of eight contemporary visual arts organizations located in the residential peripheries of European cities (and one in Israel) who are focused on commissioning, producing and presenting experimental process-driven contemporary art. The artists’ entries are organized alphabetically by keywords such as Alliances, Chaos, Empathy, Energy, Noise, Network, Stranger, Sustainability, Thing and Time, among many others. Compiled from a series of meetings over two years, Dialectionary positions the work of these visual arts organizations in relation to wider sociopolitical and cultural concerns. Cluster members include: CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge; Casco—Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht; CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid; The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon; Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris; P74 Center and Gallery, Ljubljana; The Showroom, London; and Tensta konsthall, Stockholm.

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THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JON THOMPSON

Jeremy Akerman and Eileen Daly

The collected writings of British artist, writer and curator Jon Thompson come together in this volume. As a teacher of artists at Goldsmiths, Thompson is credited as one of the most influential of his generation, a key promoter of the so-called Young British Artists of the 1990s, including Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. Leaving the minimalists behind by the late 1970s as he wrote about more politically and socially connected artists, Thompson’s careful research, historical knowledge and insight into an artist’s work was quickly recognized as fresh and exciting. This is a long-overdue anthology of Thompson’s commentary, which has been published in exhibition catalogues for the Hayward Gallery and Serpentine Gallery as well as numerous art magazines and journals.

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