December 2011–January 2012
Jonathas de Andrade, in a conversation with Stuart Comer, thinks about the condition of stiffness that inhibits his generation and explains how his work sets the goal—identified by Suely Rolnik—of grasping a new political-creative flux.
Chantal Akerman has addressed issues like otherness and confinement, starting with her own biography and that of her mother, a survivor of the Nazi camps. Elisabeth Lebovici met with the artist to talk about how her extraordinary filmography has been able to shed light on the Other as Subject.
The Arab Image Foundation is an expanding collection of photographs from the Arab region. Alessandro Rabottini talked with its co-founder, the artist Akram Zaatari, who explains why the images produced by everyday people are so important in his work.
Jens Hoffmann and Maria Lind weave a discussion on two visions of curating. One attempts to explore the exhibition format along all its paths, while the other has an “expanded” conception whose goal is public art.
Over the years Sadie Benning has used different media that have allowed her to gain a closer or more rarified look at reality. In a wide-ranging interview with Tina Kukielski, the artist reveals the way in which her narratives develop.
In REPRINT Nicolás Guagnini tells us why Birdcalls by Louise Lawler has been a politically disruptive work, and how it triggered profound rethinking inside his work as well.
In the activity of Sean Landers writing and painting intertwine, each becoming the “color”—certainly not in the chromatic sense of the term—of the other. Beatrix Ruf meets the artist to discuss the various aspects of his practice, from painting to sculpture, and the reasoning behind them.
Social practices in art are gaining ground in terms of institutional recognition. Chelsea Haines analyzes the phenomenon in detail through a series of exhibitions and work-operations—from the project Waiting for Godot by Paul Chan to the group show “Living as Form” curated by Nato Thompson.
In NICE TO MEET YOU: Esperanza Rosales meets Trisha Baga to talk about her works on the borderline between failure and potential. Max Andrews converses with Erick Beltrán about the artist’s attempt to create the terms of a dictionary of multiplicity. Cecilia Alemani discusses form of energy as a metaphor of the movements of the body with Eduardo Basualdo.
TEN FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF CURATING is a project conducted by Jens Hoffmann and sponsored by Fiorucci Art Trust and Mousse Publishing, to explore the many faces of the curator. The seventh of ten dossiers presents Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy who asks “What about collecting?”. The text is accompanied by the visual concept of Mario Garcia Torres.*
REPORTING FROM
NEW YORK: the film work of Lucy Raven investigates the changes caused by globalization. Fionn Meade converses with the artist on this research, from the relocation of labor to the drift of visual formats, whose fates seem to intersect.
LOS ANGELES: Andrew Berardini tries his hand at archaeology, strolling through the cardboard ruins of Rome and the tunnels of pallet pyramids created by Liz Glynn, an artist who aptly interprets our historical moment, the culmination of all histories of Rise and Fall.
LONDON: the work of Ian Law tries to counter the classic production process. This conversation with Pavel Pyś brings out the ways in which the artist’s strategy of subjecting work to a cycle of re-creation and re-showing generates new meanings and contexts.
BERLIN: Dani Gal has produced a series of multimedia installations that examine and break down media formats and narratives. The conversation with Ana Teixeira Pinto sheds light on the function of each expressive medium in relation to the content, which focuses on situations in Israel.
PARIS: the work of the young French artist Neïl Beloufa exists at the intersection of different media—video, installation, sculpture, photography—integrated in a conceptually meaningful continuum. Jarrett Gregory examines a selection of videos by the artist.
PLUS
Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi have had an impact on the history of filmmaking and art over the last forty years. In LOST AND FOUND Andrea Lissoni analyzes their production, marked by forceful intellectual independence and political commitment.
Christopher Eamon takes a tour of the last two decades of relations between art and cinema, analyzing certain innovative works and ways of directing, and providing a framework on present developments in the artistic sphere.
Ian Wilson is one of the few legitimate ancestors of all immaterial works, the man who transformed words into art. Hans Ulrich Obrist retraces the artist’s career, in a conversation that reveals the influence of his ideas on new curatorial formats and the works of young artists.
In the third part of the study entitled WHAT’S ALTERNATIVE? / ALTERNATIVE TO WHAT?—conducted by Vincenzo de Bellis—Anthony Huberman and Yasmil Raymond talk about institutions that have gotten away from business models, and the importance of a slow time frame of exposure to artworks.
The artistic practice of Hank Willis Thomas focuses on the capacity of American culture to give rise to stereotypes and clichés with racial overtones. Talking with Luigi Fassi, the artist explains that he wants to reassert a humanistic vision of consciousness, to combat the commonly accepted notion of values.
Francesco Garutti and Francesco Valtolina have prepared a questionnaire on independent publishing, for five of the most interesting graphic designers and art publishers: Zak Kyes, Chiara Figone, Mark Manders, Jacqueline Burckhardt, Christoph Keller.
Edward Kienholz has touched on America’s sore spots more than once. The essay by Anja Nathan-Dorn examines some of his most provocative and censored works, including Five Car Stud and its extremely raw take on racism.
* Available in Italy on to subscribers
FROM MOUSSE PUBLISHING
New titles
Liam Gillick and Lawrence Weiner. A Syntax of Dependency:
Adelita Husni-Bey. A Holiday from Rules / Fondazione Pastificio Cerere
Elisa Strinna / Fondazione Pastificio Cerere
Matthew Brannon: Hyenas Are…
Allan Kaprow. A Bibliography
The Otolith Group. Thoughtform – La forma del pensiero
Peep-Hole Sheet #10 – Fall 2011. Jimmie Durham
Upcoming publications
Kuehn Malvezzi: Index
Rosa Barba. In Conversation with / Kunstverein Braunschweig – CCA Tel Aviv
Le Théâtre des Expositions / Villa Medici, Académie de France à Rome
The Dream Seminar II / XVII Advanced Course in Visual Arts, Fondazione Antonio Ratti
Cover above:
Akram Zaatari, Syrian Resistant, 1970s, from the series “Hashem El Madani: Studio Practices,” 2007. Courtesy: Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg/Beirut