Traction argues that contemporary art is defined by a moral economy of indeterminacy that allows curators and artists to imagine themselves on the other side of power. This self-positioning, in turn, leaves us politically bankrupt, intellectually stagnant, and aesthetically predictable. In his memoir-polemic, curator and writer Tirdad Zolghadr candidly reflects on his own experiences and the work of others.
A speculative, existentialist fiction on the melancholia of revolutionary politics and good intentions, Tirdad Zolghadr’s novel is composed of the logorrhea of online communication and unpublished manuscripts.
Solution 168-185: America is the fourth book in the Solution Series. Opting for the United States of America—which the author says is “still the most proficiently colonial place” [he knows]—Tirdad Zolghadr provides a compilation of highly entertaining “solutions” for a nation suspicious of progressive politics yet rich in its history of harboring and cultivating the avant-garde.
With the global rise of a politics of shock driven by authoritarian regimes that subvert the rule of law and civil liberties, what paths to resistance, sanctuary, and change can cultural institutions offer? In this book, more than twenty leading curators and thinkers about contemporary art present powerful case studies, historical analyses, and theoretical perspectives that address the dynamics of activism, protest, and advocacy.
How do artists work today? Has the pluralism of art given way to a pluralism of roles that artists may occupy? What are the contemporary conditions of labour producing this new state of affairs, and what re-skilling does it ask of artists? These are some of the questions addressed in The Artist As.
This reader is the result of Joanna Warsza’s course at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. It examines four recent cases of boycotts, presenting their political, ideological, and economic contexts, timelines, statements, as well as interviews with parties involved. It reflects on how certain biennials became the place where the power of art is renegotiated and why one simply “can’t work like this.”
The ars viva Prize has been awarded annually since 1953 to young artists living in Germany whose work stands out for its innovative potential and high artistic quality. The recipients of this year’s prize are Jan Paul Evers, Leon Kahane, and Jumana Manna.
As the first significant overview of the work by artist Olivia Plender, this monograph navigates through the evolving attitudes to historical and contemporary forms of communication and education that her research-based practice has explored for the last ten years.
The Human Snapshot draws upon a 2011 conference of the same name. The conference contributions and subsequent essays examine contemporary forms of humanism and universalism as they circulate and are produced in art and photography. The look toward these two terms stems from theorist Ariella Azoulay’s research on the seminal exhibition “The Family of Man,” first installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955.
Cultures of the Curatorial assumes a curatorial turn in contemporary cultural practice and discourse. Coming from a variety of disciplines and professional backgrounds, the contributors exemplify the entanglement of theory and practice, consider recent developments within the curatorial field, allow self-reflexive analysis, and explore the conditions—disciplinary, institutional, economic, political, and regional—under which art and culture become public.
The work of artist Chris Evans evolves through conversations with people from various walks of life, selected in relation to their public position or symbolic role—resulting in sculptures, letters, drawings, film scripts, and unwieldy social situations. To all intents and purposes, this publication is a comprehensive survey of his work, isolating and documenting the formalities of objects and situations.
Selected Maria Lind Writing brings together twenty-two essays selected by Beatrice von Bismarck, Ana Paula Cohen, Liam Gillick, Brian Kuan Wood, and Tirdad Zolghadr.
Europe, as a political space, is as conflictual as its constitution. It needs to be designed and negotiated. It is longing for an architecture of strategic encounters. Based on the curation of a space at the 2007 Lyon Biennial, London-based architect and writer Markus Miessen has drawn together a group of people to lead conversations around alternative notions of participation, the clash of democratic heterogeneities, and what it means to live in Europe today.
