A discussion between Daniel Birnbaum and Markus Weisbeck
on art, philosophy, graphic design, and books.
Daniel Birnbaum’s Chronology is one of the most discussed books of art criticism to appear in recent time. This fully illustrated 2nd edition, designed by Markus Weibeck/Surface, features a new introduction and afterword by the author. Daniel Birnbaum reflects on the critical reception of his book and further extends Deleuzian ideas to the fields of art and film. In his afterword on Paul Chan, the author discusses a new sense of messianic time, a beyond all chronology, as experienced with The 7 Lights series by the artist. In addition to annotated artwork illustrations, the book contains a special insert by Paul Chan: twelve original drawings where the artist explores the spatial metaphors evocated in the text. The book also features flip-book sequences from two films (Lady of Shanghai,1947, Enter the Dragon, 1973) which further elaborate on the
Deleuzian themes of mirrors, death, and the crystallization of time.
A philosophical essay on time, phenomenology and beyond, Daniel Birnbaum’s Chronology was reviewed in frieze as a “compelling and sophisticated take on the common theme of Deleuzian immanence.” Whereas many theoretical books littering the bookshops of art institutions are laudations of excess, Birnbaum’s convictions presented in Chronology cut a way through the “caesuras of non-meaning and blankness into the thick web of sense.” The works of artists such as Stan Douglas, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Doug Aitken, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Tacita Dean, Darren Almond, Tobias Rehberger, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno and Paul Chan are scrutinized as so many attempts to capture the very dialectic of time itself. The book can be seen as “an exploration of the crystallization of time that uses phenomenology as a pretext for saying things about artworks that create their own theories”.
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