This Month: Isaac Julien, Conceptual Art, Chris Evans, Degenerate Art, Francis Alys, Doug Aitken, Josephine Mecskeper, Tauba Auerbach, Jennifer Higgie, Gerhard Richter

Acclaimed artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien produced a new  book documenting his two latest films True North and Fantôme Afrique. Texts by  Christina Albu, Eveline Bernasconi, Lisa Bloom, and Mark Nash accompany lush  poetic stills from the works. Both films continue to explore the prominent themes in Julien’s work: race, global politics, and the Africa diaspora. True North was shot on location in Iceland and Northern Sweden, and its narrative is based on the expedition writings of the African-American explorer Matthew Henson. Fantôme Afrique, in striking contrast, is set in urban African city of  Ouagadougou and rural Burkina Faso. Fans of Isaac Julien should also check out the New Museum’s Point of View: An Anthology of the Moving Image project. The groundbreaking 11 DVD box set of video art includes an original piece by Julien in its impressive roster of commissioned works.

 MIT Press’ newly released Art After Conceptual Art is, undoubtedly, required reading on the important legacy of Conceptual Art and its resonance in the work of today’s artists. This meaty volume argues that the movement spurned different and often-contradictory forms of art practice that both contested commonplace assumptions of what art is and served to buttress those beliefs. The editors present a selection of original and innovative essays exploring topics as diverse as the interrelationships between Conceptualism and institutional critique, neoexpressionist painting, design and commodity culture and identity politics. Contributors include:  Alexander Alberro, Edit András, Ricardo Basbaum, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Sabeth Buchmann, Thomas Crow, Helmut Draxler, Elizabeth Ferrell, Isabelle Graw, Helen Molesworth, Luiza Nader, Henrik Olesen, and Gregor Stemmrich.

Chris Evans, whose work could certainly fall under the header of conceptualism, has published a new book with the Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum Bureau. Available in a limited edition of 600, Militant Bourgeois documents Evans’ project ‘Militant Bourgeois – An Existentialist Retreat’, founded during his residency at the Bureau. In response to a request to develop a project exploring ‘community art’, Evans built a shack in a major thoroughfare of the Sloterdijk district. Evans furnished the shack with a bed, a desk, a wood burning stove, and one sole copy of J.G. Ballard’s Concrete Island (1974)—offering up a retreat for other artists-in-residence seeking a more genuine experience from which to draw inspiration. Fellow artist Stuart Bailey designed the book, which contains essays by Alex Farquharson, Robert  Garnett, and Nina Power.

The Degenerate Art Book proposes another unique and valuable entry into art practice. Based on the premise that writing or being written about legitimizes all forms of art and their underlying political ideas, the format of the book itself is open and incomplete, carefully sidestepping its own participation in this phenomenon. The title makes reference to the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition, a showcase organized by the Nazi party to demote modern art. Matt Hawthorne’s text, "Degenerate Art – Haunting Contemporary Culture", reveals echoes of this logic in contemporary culture and proposes a critical framework for this argument. Contributors include: Paul Granjon, Juliet Robson, Jordan McKenzie, Roddy Hunter, Glyn  Davis Marshall, Ailith Roberts, John Dummett, Kira O’Reilly, and Doran  George.

Francis Alys’ stellar new catalog The Green Line, masterfully explores the relationship of art and politics. Published in conjunction with his current exhibition SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POETIC CAN BECOME POLITICAL AND SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POLITICAL CAN BECOME POETIC at David Zwirner, the book includes a map and DVD of The Green Line (a film Alys directed in collaboration with Julien Devaux examining the Arab/Israeli conflict). In the film, Alys is shown carrying a can of dripping green paint along the boundary that Moshe Dayan marked with green pencil after Israel’s War of Independence ended in 1948.

Doug Aitken’s spectacular Sleepwalkers now has its own book documenting the project that graced the exterior walls of MoMA this past January and February. Aitken took inspiration from the dense midtown environment surrounding the space, focusing on five characters as they navigated New York at night. The book includes image stills from Sleepwalkers as well as conversations between Aitken and a variety of artists, architects, writers and performers about different elements of city life.

Josephine Meckseper, a New York-based artist who has held exhibitions at the Whitney, Tate Modern, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, White Columns, Haunch of Venison, Greene Naftali, and MUSAC, recently published a gorgeous new catalog. Meckseper uses department store display cases and sales ephemera in her work in order to incite discussion about the consumption of both politics and art. Her carefully styled and composed displays, which pull a disparate array of objects together from designer lamps to toilet rolls to political pamphlets- aesthetically recalls elements of minimalism. An essay by the acclaimed writer, art critic, and editor of Semiotexte Sylvère Lotringer accompanies the catalog.

The beauty of symbols is the focal point for emerging artist Tauba Auerbach, who debuts her first book this month entitled How to Spell the Alphabet. A trained sign painter, Auerbach looks at the arbitrary shape of letters rather than their ability to express a language. The book connects the dots between graphic design, contemporary art, and semiotics, and would certainly be relevant to any or all of these subjects.

Jennifer Higgie,  co-editor and staff writer of Frieze magazine and editor of Whitechapel Art  Gallery’s Art and Humor, has written a novel inspired by the life of Richard Dadd, one of the greatest Victorian painters and an inmate of Bethlem Hospital  – more commonly known as Bedlam. This fictional examination into the story behind Dadd’s eventual admittance to Bedlam, which involves a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East, an introduction to Egyptian mythology, and the  violent murder of his father, is greatly informed by Higgie’s background as a  contemporary art writer and editor. The book is a compelling read for 19th century buffs and contemporary art aficionados alike.

And absolutely not to be missed … Gerhard Richter’s Atlas. At almost 1,000 pages long, with a collection of more than 5,000 photographs, drawings, and sketches dating from 1962 until the present, the book serves as a paramount record of Richter’s career. Organized by year, Atlas is a fantastic and invaluable reference tool.

CHECK OUT THE FULL LIST FOR MARCH

Foreword by Vert Görner. Text by Christina Albu, Eveline Bernasconi, Lisa Bloom, Mark Nash.

This book documents the two most recent works by the critically acclaimed British artist and filmmaker, Isaac Julien, both of which continue his investigation of issues of race and global politics. True North, shot in the spectacular landscapes of Iceland and Northern Sweden, is conceived around the expedition writings of the African-American explorer Matthew Henson, one of the key members of Robert E. Peary's 1909 Arctic expedition, and arguably the first person to reach the North Pole. True North's diametric counterpart, Fantôme Afrique, weaves cinematic and architectural references through the rich imagery of urban Ouagadougou, Africa's cinematic center, and the arid spaces of rural Burkina Faso. The film is punctuated by archival footage from early colonial expeditions and landmark moments in African history.

Hatje Cantz, October 2006, Hardcover, 12 x 12 in. / 100 pgs / 53 color., ISBN: 3775718672

$50.00

Edited by Alexander Alberro and Sabeth Buchmann

Art After Conceptual Art tracks the various legacies of conceptualist practice over the past three decades. The anthology introduces and develops the idea that Conceptual art generated several different, and even contradictory, forms of art practice. Whereas some of these art modes contested commonplace assumptions of what art is, others served to buttress those beliefs. The bulk of the volume features newly written and highly innovative essays challenging standard historicizations of the legacy of Conceptualism, as well as the critical impact of these art practices on art since the 1970s. The essays explore topics as diverse as the interrelationships between Conceptualism and institutional critique, neoexpressionist painting and conceptualist paradigms, Conceptual art's often-ignored complicity with design and commodity culture, the specific forms of identity politics taken up by the reception of Conceptual art, and Conceptualism's North/South and East/West dynamics.

MIT Press, December 2006, 9 x 10, 240 pp., 75 illus., ISBN-10:0-262-51195-9

$30.00

Edited by Chris Evans and design by Stuart Bailey

Publication for Chris Evans' exhibition ‘Militant Bourgeois – An Existentialist Retreat’, organized with the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam in Autumn 2006. 'Retreat' was a residency program operated in a hut that was stationed between two busy roads in Amsterdam's Sloterdijk district. This temporary structure functioned as the nexus of Evans' 'Retreat', which was commissioned in the context of a city council-subsidised project investigating the possibilities of 'community art'. Essentially a no-frills hut where wealthy artists could go to suffer in order to facilitate a more authentic artistic experience, the retreat offered a Spartan environment for its programme of artists' residencies. Apart from a bed and a desk, the only other thing occupying the shack was a wood burning stove and a copy of J.G Ballard's Concrete Island (1974), which was left by the first resident, Pedro Bakker.
Essays from Alex Farquharson, Robert Garnett, Nina Power, book contains pictures of the exhibition in SMBA and of the actual retreat on location.

Black Diamond Press, February 2007, 43 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9554923-0-3

EDITION OF 600

$16.00

Contributors: Paul Granjon, Juliet Robson, Jordan McKenzie, Roddy Hunter, Glyn Davis Marshall, Ailith Roberts, John Dummett, Kira O’Reilly, Doran George

Starting from the premise that all forms of art production - the famous, the great, the good and the authoritative - are established by writing or being written about, The Degenerate Art Book questions the legitimising function of publishing in relation to live performance actions. Filled with spaces, blind spots and mistakes as it opens up the text to critical intervention, The Degenerative Art Book is in a perpetual incomplete state. Taking the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition as a spiritual starting point Matt Hawthorne’s text, Degenerate Art – Haunting Contemporary Culture, aims to establish a critical framework for thinking about the relationship of an idea of art to an idea of political action. The unique contributions by contemporary practitioners, whose work questions current notions of Art Practice, Culture and Politics, consider what a Degenerate Art Exhibition might consist of today.

Arnolfini, Softcover, 48 pages, 344 mm x 238mm ISBN 0907738672

$30.00

This is an exhibition catalog for the show SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POETIC CAN BECOME POLITICAL AND SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POLITICAL CAN BECOME POETIC, on view at David Zwirner from February 15 - March 17, 2007. Exhibition includes a film in collaboration with Julien Devaux as well as a map of Alÿs’s journey, photocollages, paintings, drawings, and a group of sculptures. The film, which revisits the artist’s 1995 work entitled The Leak, shows Alÿs carrying a dripping can of green paint along the armistice boundary that Moshe Dayan marked on a map with green pencil after Israel’s War of Independence ended in 1948. The piece questions the physicality and cultural relevance of the Green Line, its function as a social and spiritual division in the city of Jerusalem, and its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

David Zwirner, March 2007., 144 pages; 11 interviews in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Fold-out map and DVD. ISBN: 0-9769136-7-4

$40.00

In January and February of 2007, the Los Angeles-based video artist Doug Aitken projected a new work, commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art and the New York arts institution Creative Time, onto seven facades on and around MoMA's fabled West Fifty-third Street building. sleepwalkers was both inspired by, and offered in opposition to, the densely built midtown environment; it integrated itself onto the surfaces on which it was projected, and it challenged viewers' perceptions of architecture and public space. The piece, which follows the trajectories of five characters as they make their way through nocturnal New York, explores Aitken's key recurring themes: broken and recombined narratives, the rhythm and flow of information and images, and the relationship of individuals to their environment.

The Museum of Modern Art, January 2007, 176 pages, 10.7 x 8.7 x .7 inches, ISBN-10: 0870700456

$39.95

With an essay by Sylvere Lotringer

This fully illustrated, artist-designed catalog features the most recent work of New York-based Josephine Meckseper, including her work in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. The artist suggests that our desire for luxury goods and fashion is induced by media-driven ruling regimes, and comes to the conclusion that partisan politics are just another status symbol. Radicalism quickly morphs into radical chic, which is just one more object to be fetishized; next thing we know, it’s sold in a museum-gallery-boutique that nostalgically samples utopian dreams ranging from the communists to the hippies. “In Meckseper’s work, politics becomes a style, and commitment an object to be displayed in a chic display cabinet, suggestive of those in museums and ethnographic societies,” write the curators of the 2005 Lyon Biennale. “Meckseper explores the questionable links between images of political news, the fashion industry and advertising.”

Sternberg Press, December 2006, Softcover, 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, 48 pp, 32 color reproductions, ISBN: 1-933128-14-3

$40.00

How arbitrary are the marks, analog and digital, used to express language, and where do they begin to muck it all up? This first book from Tauba Auerbach, Yes and Not Yes features over 20 new paintings and drawings that spring from those questions. They offer an excellent if roundabout answer: while letters are largely arbitrary, they are rich with abstract beauty and conceptual depth. In razor-sharp execution--which reveals her training as a sign painter--Auerbach's works on panel and paper update the abstract conceptual tradition, while retaining its intellectual rigor. Uppercase Insides and Numeral Insides recall Russian Suprematism, and, upon further contemplation, turn out to be just what their titles call them. Works based on signal flags and the Ugaritic Alphabet--an extinct language from Syria, 1300 B.C.--confirm that puzzlement is part of the desired effect here. Where direct exchange between sign and meaning is impossible, the beauty of the symbol comes to the fore.

Deitch Projects, March 2007, Hardback, 8.5 x 9.75 in. / 112 pgs / 50 color., ISBN: 0977868605 ISBN13: 9780977868605

$30.00

It is 1842. Two Englishmen set out on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East. One is a young, gifted artist, the other a gentleman. By the time they return to England, the artist has become a devotee of the Egyptian god Osiris. One night, after dining together in a small inn in Cobham, he violently murders his beloved father, believing him to be an imposter. Why? Bedlam is a novel inspired by the life of Richard Dadd, one of the greatest Victorian painters and inmate of Bethlem Hospital – more commonly known as Bedlam. Jennifer Higgie is co-Editor and staff writer of frieze magazine. Her recent pieces for frieze include features on artists including Marjetica Potrc and Sue Tompkins. Higgie also contributed to Parkett, Brian Wilson: An Art Book, and is editor of Art and Humour for the Whitechapel Gallery.

Sternberg Press, December 2006, Softcover, 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, 140 pp, 1 color reproductions, ISBN: 1-933128-12-7

$29.95

At 864 pages, this monumental and comprehensive publication maps the ideas, processes, life and times of one of the most important painters of the late twentieth century. Conceived and closely edited by Gerhard Richter himself, Atlas cuts straight to the heart of the artist's work, collecting more than 5,000 photographs, drawings and sketches that he has compiled or created since the moment of his creative breakthrough in 1962. The images closely parallel, year by year, the subjects of Richter's paintings, revealing the orderly but open-ended analysis that has been so central to his art. Offering invaluable insight into Richter's working process, this encyclopedic new edition, which completely revises and updates the rare, out-of-print 1997 edition and includes 147 additional plates, features 780 multi-image panels, each reproduced full page and in full color.

D.A.P. Walther Konig, January 2007, 816 pages, 8.8 x 6.9 x 2.3 inches, ISBN-10: 1933045477

$60.00