CRITICAL SPACIAL PRACTICE 1

What Is Critical Spatial Practice?

Nikolaus Hirsch & Markus Miessen (Eds.)

What, today, can be understood as a critical modality of spatial practice? This question, and others, were posed to protagonists from the fields of architecture, art, philosophy, and literature by architectural theorists and curators Nikolaus Hirsch and Markus Miessen in September, 2011. The resulting 64 contributions in this inaugural volume of the Critical Spatial Practice series co-presented by the Städelschule, were composed concurrently with the evictions of Occupy movements, sustained turmoil of the Arab Spring, and continued spasms in the global financial system. All point to the question of whether architecture can still be understood as a res publica. Each title in the series will include new work commissioned by invited artists—here, the photographer Armin Linke.

Add to your order

CRITICAL SPATIAL PRACTICE 2

The Space of Agonism

Markus Miessen & Chantal Mouffe

The political theory of agonism emphasizes potentially progressive outcomes for political conflict; thinking in terms of “demoicracy”—a union that acknowledges and makes room for deeply ingrained societal divisions—this book proposes new approaches to countering and responding to the globalizing thrust of neo-liberalism. The second volume in the Critical Spatial Practice series, it presents a selection of conversations between Markus Miessen and political philosopher Chantal Mouffe. These dialogues attempt to unpack current political dilemmas through consensus-driven formats of political decision-making, alternately driven by Miessen’s specific concerns regarding conflict-based forms of participation as an alternative (spatial) practice in democratic systems and Mouffe’s understanding and theory of a “conflictual consensus.” An artist project by Rabih Mroue accompanies the text.

Add to your order

CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS IN A LIMO

Melbourne + San Francisco

Holly Crawford (Ed.)

Following 2012’s riotous and insightful Outsourced Critics & Critical Conversations in a Limo, this neat paperback chronicles two more incarnations of the limo conversations series. Describing itself as a moment in art, a movable salon and an experimental space, the project invites strangers, artists, curators and critics to sip champagne, gossip and talk about contemporary art in a traveling “white box.” What unfolds is an astute and playful take on the art world. This informative new book transcribes the nervous laughter and unexpected conversations of the project’s Melbourne (2007) and San Francisco (2008) happenings. Participants include BAM and Pacific Film Archive Director Larry Rinder, SF Chronicle art critic Kenneth Baker, Sydney CCP director Naomi Cass, and Artspace director Alexie Glass plus many more.

Add to your order

ALEXANDRA CROITORU

Brancusi: An Afterlife

Cristian Nae & Alexandru Polgár (Eds.)

The dangers inherent in the appropriation and instrumentalization of an artist’s work by the state is the focus of visual artist Alexandra Croitoru’s smart, irreverent and ironic examination of the treatment of Brancusi’s life and work in post-Stalinist Romanian culture. Against the backdrop of left-wing movements opposing capitalism and globalisation, Brancusi: An Afterlife began as Croitoru’s doctoral research on Brancusi’s “nationalization” and grew into exhibitions she curated. The illustrated and well-designed softcover publication clearly dissects the role of retrospective influence and the mechanisms of re-contextualization and re-signification of an artist’s identity. In five sections—“From Appropriation to Nationalization,” “Brancusi and Romania,” “Brancusiology and Brancusiologists of National Renown,” “Popular Appropriation,” and “Brancusi as a Character, Between Reality and Fiction”—Croitoru demonstrates how an artist’s appropriation as cultural signifier evolves into both the banal and national myth: through decorative and vernacular appropriations, through kitsch legitimized by museums and the entertainment industry, and in discourses that convey the history of art from a national perspective to promote national branding.

Add to your order

The Crossdresser’s Secret

Brian O'Doherty

Sometimes truth is both stranger and more delightfully entertaining than fiction. The 18th century was an era of violent contrasts and radical change, intellectual brilliance and war, spies and diplomatic intrigue, elegance and cruelty. One of the century’s most mysterious figures was the Chevalier d’Eon, one of history’s first known transvestites who lived as both man and woman. The noble-born d’Eon served as a spy for the French government, infiltrating the Russian court as a maid of honor to the empress. He became so well known for his activities that he lived the last 30 years of his life openly as a woman (and a European celebrity). Written from the perspective of this historical figure, this ambitious novel from much-loved conceptual artist Brian O’Doherty reveals d’Eon’s radical modernity, certified by his attitudes to gender and his examination of his own nature.

Add to your order

CULTURES OF THE CURATORIAL 3

Hospitality: Hosting Relations in Exhibitions

Beatrice von Bismarck, Benjamin Meyer-Krahmer & Thomas Wesk (Eds.)

Every curated encounter involves hospitality, with curators in the role of host and the invited—artists, audiences and even exhibits—as guests. The economy of this hospitality—the space, time and money as well as attention, power and recognition involved in inviting, offering, welcoming, attending, reciprocating and its opposite, the refusal, exclusion and control that exhibitions can generate— is the subject of the third volume in this highly respected and collected series from the Academy of Visual Arts Liepzig. Fifteen contributors including curator- critics Maja Ciric, Lorenzo Fusi, Wiebke Gronemeyer, Anthony Huberman and theorist-performative researcher Erik Hagoort discuss how the asymmetries and dependencies of these roles continuously change in relation to one another, ponder how the aesthetic, social, political and economic ramifications are paradigmatic of generosity within the cultural field, and consider ambivalent or problematic interdependencies of hosts and guests that can be caused by conditions of globalization.

Add to your order

CULTURES OF THE CURATORIAL 2

Timing: On the Temporal Dimension of Exhibiting

Beatrice von Bismarck, Rike Frank, Benjamin Meyer-Krahmer, Jörn Schafaff & Thomas Weski (Eds.)

Curators and artists went wild for the first publication Cultures of the Curatorial out of the Leipzig School postgraduate study program. The second volume, Timing, follows the same research practices and format but focuses on the terms processuality, performativity and, more recently dramaturgy (the theory of dramatic composition) and choreography, terms used to analyze how exhibitions and curatorial practice have evolved over the past twenty years in the wider context of cultural and economic globalization. Nearly 20 contributors, including Bassam El Baroni, Claire Bishop, Maeve Connolly, Philippe Parreno and Bennett Simpson, weigh in on the wider cultural and economic concepts that have conditioned us to think about something as seemingly static as an art exhibition as sites of acceleration, action, orientation and mobility. Examined in this light, the exhibition emerges as a transdisciplinary and transcultural set of spatiotemporal relations—time-based by its very nature.

Pre-order this item

THE CURATOR’S EGG

The Evolution of the Museum Concept from the
French Revolution to the Present

Karsten Schubert

Art dealer, publisher, and writer Karsten Schubert traces the concept of the museum from the opening of the Louvre, through to the mid-20th century shift from heralding ancient work to supporting living artists, to the current popularity of buildings by “starchitects.” This landmark third edition adds a provocative essay, “Democracy of Spectacle,” discussing the recent trend of museums adopting a populist and income-based business model. Schubert includes an engrossing history of the Metropolitan Museum and MoMA from 1930-1950, and of the unprecedented success of museums in the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States. This unique volume will completely change the way you look at museums.

Add to your order

KEREN CYTTER

A–Z Life Coaching

New York–based Israeli artist, writer and filmmaker Keren Cytter (b. 1977) is one of the most innovative and multifaceted contemporary artists working today. Cytter captures and explores human relationships, particularly the behaviors and interactions of everyday life. Working with narrative in both her art and novels, she plays with humorous, absurd, and subtle dialogues mixing fictitious situations with real life. A–Z, Life Coaching (an incomplete guide for life), accompanies her solo exhibition of new video works at the Künstlerhaus, Graz (2016). Characters, noted by letters A through Z, explore the idea of a “life coach” in an attempt to find happiness, fulfillment or even financial success in their lives. When the character-object turns into a subject, the letter representing their name is marked in bold. A-Z, Life Coaching aims to expose the owners of an innocent heart to reality’s true structures in hopes of spiritual growth. Numerous other works by Cytter have been published by Sternberg Press.

Add to your order

JULIAN DASHPER

This Is Not Writing

The first collection ever of writing by the internationally acclaimed and widely exhibited New Zealand artist Julian Dashper, who died in 2009. Dashper’s writing – clean yet reflective, poignant and often confrontational – reads like a diary, moving from freeform texts to poetry, from journal-like reflections to rigorous art criticism. His relaxed style engages the reader, offering a deeply human contrast to academic tomes. His critical observations on the influence of Modernism on the way we look at contemporary art are particularly powerful. He was an early factor in forcing the art community to open its doors and hear voices from around the world, and his curiosity, humor and passion make us realize what was lost with his death at only 49.

Add to your order