World Food Books

Francis Alÿs

Work

Edited by Friederike Sigler

2017

Work
Edited by Friederike Sigler

2017, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 145 x 210 mm
Published by Whitechapel / London The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$55.00 - In stock -

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Warhol’s Factory of the 1960s, Minimalism’s assembly-line aesthetics, conceptual and feminist concern with workers’ conditions in the 1970s—these are among the antecedents of a renewed focus on the work of art: labor as artistic activity, as artistic method and as object of artistic engagement. In 2002, the “Work Ethic” exhibition curated by Helen Molesworth at the Baltimore Museum of Art took its cue from recent art to spotlight this earlier era of artistic practice in which activity became as valid as, and often dispensed with, object-production. Revealed through this prism was “dematerialized” art’s close and critical relation to the emergent information age’s criteria of management, production and skill.

By 2015, the Venice Biennale reflected artists’ wider concern with global economic and social crises, centered on exploitative and precarious worlds of employment. Yet while art increasingly engages with human travail, work’s significance in itself is seldom addressed by critics. This anthology explicitly investigates work in relation to contemporary art, surveying artistic strategies that grapple with the complexities of being an art worker in the new economy, a postproducer, a collaborator, a fabricator, a striker, an ethical campaigner, or would-be transformer of labor from oppression to liberation.

Artists surveyed include
Pawel Althamer, Francis Alÿs, Marwa Arsanios, Chto Delat, Alice Creischer, Ana de la Cueva, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jeremy Deller, Maria Eichhorn, Harun Farocki, Claire Fontaine, Andrea Fraser, Liam Gillick, Melanie Gilligan, Gulf Labour Coalition, Tehching Hsieh, Lamia Joreige, Lee Lozano, Goshka Macuga, Teresa Margolles, Adrian Melis, Annette Messager, Gustav Metzger, Jean-Luc Moulène, Ahmet Ögüt, Philip Rizk, Martha Rosler, Tino Sehgal, Santiago Sierra, Tamas St. Auby, Mladen Stilinovic, W.A.G.E., Artur Zmijewski

Writers include
Claire Bishop, Luc Boltanski, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sabeth Buchmann, Ève Chiapello, Kodwo Eshun, Silvia Federici, Isabelle Graw, Maurizio Lazzarato, Achille Mbembe, Antonio Negri, Jacques Rancière, Gerald Raunig, Dietmar Rübel, Paolo Virno, Joseph Vogl

About the Editor
Friederike Sigler is a researcher and lecturer at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Dresden. She is the author of Work/Strike.

File under: Pawel Althamer Francis Alÿs Marwa Arsanios Chto Delat Alice Creischer Ana de la Cueva Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Jeremy Deller Maria Eichhorn Harun Farocki Claire Fontaine Andrea Fraser Liam Gillick Melanie Gilligan Gulf Labour Coalition Tehching Hsieh Lamia Joreige Lee Lozano Goshka Macuga Teresa Margolles Adrian Melis Annette Messager Gustav Metzger Jean-Luc Moulène Ahmet Ögüt Philip Rizk Martha Rosler Tino Sehgal Santiago Sierra Tamas St. Auby Mladen Stilinovic W.A.G.E. Artur Zmijewski Claire Bishop Luc Boltanski Julia Bryan-Wilson Sabeth Buchmann Ève Chiapello Kodwo Eshun Silvia Federici Isabelle Graw Maurizio Lazzarato Achille Mbembe Antonio Negri Jacques Rancière Gerald Raunig Dietmar Rübel Paolo Virno Joseph Vogl Friederike Sigler Whitechapel / London The MIT Press / Massachusetts Art Performance / Dance / Theater Conceptual Art Film / Video Theory / Essay

Boris Groys

Particular Cases

2016

Boris Groys
Particular Cases

2016, English
Softcover, 296 pages, 13.3 x 20.6 cm
Published by Sternberg Press / Berlin

$38.00 - Out of stock

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This collection of essays does not aim to illustrate a prefabricated theory of art, but rather follows the impulses given by artworks themselves. Philosopher and art critic Boris Groys writes about significant works and artists over the last century that have pushed his thinking in new directions. His compelling arguments do not try to replace the singular content or message of an artwork. Instead, his writings are inspired by art as a mind-changing practice—as if contemporary artists, completely secularized, can still produce a kind of conversion within the spectator. Particular Cases is an original exploration of pivotal concerns related to the development of contemporary art—originality and repetition, the valuation of artworks, materiality and production, historical and personal archives, and the language of power.

Featuring essays on Paweł Althamer, Francis Alÿs, Yael Bartana, Paul Chan, Olga Chernysheva, Marcel Duchamp, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Martin Honert, Rebecca Horn, IRWIN, Wassily Kandinsky, Piero Manzoni, Anri Sala, Thomas Schütte, Mladen Stilinović, Inga Svala Thorsdottir and Wu Shanzhuan, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol

Design by Chad Kloepfer

File under: Andy Warhol Anri Sala David Weiss Francis Alÿs Inga Svala Thorsdottir Jeff Wall Marcel Duchamp Martin Honert Mladen Stilinovic Olga Chernysheva Paul Chan Paweł Althamer Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss Piero Manzoni Rebecca Horn Thomas Schütte Wassily Kandinsky Wu Shanzhuan Yael Bartana Boris Groys Sternberg Press / Berlin Art Theory / Essay

Boredom

Edited by Tom McDonough

2017

Boredom
Edited by Tom McDonough

2017, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 21 x 23 cm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts Whitechapel / London

$50.00 - Out of stock

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Without boredom, arguably there is no modernity. The current sense of the word emerged simultaneously with industrialization, mass politics, and consumerism. From Manet onwards, when art represents the everyday within modern life, encounters with tedium are inevitable. And starting with modernism’s retreat into abstraction through subsequent demands placed on audiences, from the late 1960s to the present, the viewer’s endurance of repetition, slowness or other forms of monotony has become an anticipated feature of gallery-going.

In contemporary art, boredom is no longer viewed as a singular experience; rather, it is contingent on diverse social identifications and cultural positions, and exists along a spectrum stretching from a malign condition to be struggled against to an something to be embraced or explored as a site of resistance. This anthology contextualizes the range of boredoms associated with our neoliberal moment, taking a long view that encompasses the political critique of boredom in 1960s France; the simultaneous aesthetic embrace in the United States of silence, repetition, or indifference in Fluxus, Pop, Minimalism and conceptual art; the development of feminist diagnoses of malaise in art, performance, and film; punk’s social critique and its influence on theories of the postmodern; and the recognition, beginning at the end of the 1980s, of a specific form of ennui experienced in former communist states. Today, with the emergence of new forms of labor alienation and personal intrusion, deadening forces extend even further into subjective experience, making the divide between a critical and an aesthetic use of boredom ever more tenuous.

Artists surveyed include:
Chantal Akerman, Francis Alÿs, John Baldessari, Vanessa Beecroft, Bernadette Corporation, John Cage, Critical Art Ensemble, Merce Cunningham, Marcel Duchamp, Fischli & Weiss, Claire Fontaine, Dick Higgins, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ilya Kabakov, Boris Mikhailov, Robert Morris, John Pilson, Sigmar Polke, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Gerhard Richter, Situationist International, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Andy Warhol, Faith Wilding, Janet Zweig

Writers include:
Ina Blom, Nicolas Bourriaud, Jennifer Doyle, Alla Efimova, Jonathan Flatley, Julian Jason Haladyn, The Invisible Committee, Jonathan D. Katz, Chris Kraus, Tan Lin, Sven Lütticken, John Miller, Agné Narušyté, Sianne Ngai, Peter Osborne, Patrice Petro, Christine Ross, Moira Roth, David Foster Wallace, Aleksandr Zinovyev

About the Author
Tom McDonough is Associate Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author of “The Beautiful Language of My Century”: Reinventing the Language of Contestation in Postwar France, 1945–1968 (MIT Press)

From the "Documents of Contemporary Art" series.

File under: Ad Reinhardt Andy Warhol Bernadette Corporation Boris Mikhailov Chantal Akerman Claire Fontaine Critical Art Ensemble David Weiss Dick Higgins Donald Judd Faith Wilding Francis Alÿs Gerhard Richter Ilya Kabakov Janet Zweig Jasper Johns John Baldessari John Cage John Pilson Marcel Duchamp Merce Cunningham Mierle Laderman Ukeles Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss Robert Morris Robert Rauschenberg Sigmar Polke Situationist International Vanessa Beecroft Yvonne Rainer Agné Narušyté Aleksandr Zinovyev Alla Efimova Chris Kraus Christine Ross David Foster Wallace Ina Blom Jennifer Doyle John Miller Jonathan D. Katz Jonathan Flatley Julian Jason Haladyn Moira Roth Nicolas Bourriaud Patrice Petro Peter Osborne Sianne Ngai Sven Lütticken Tan Lin The Invisible Committee Tom McDonough The MIT Press / Massachusetts Whitechapel / London Art Sound / Music Theory / Essay

Explosion!

Painting as Action

2012

Explosion!
Painting as Action

2012, English / Swedish
Softcover, 224 pages (ill. colour & b/w), 28 x 21.7cm
Published by Walther König / Köln

$45.00 - In stock -

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After the second world war, a number of painters in different parts of the world began to attack painting’s fundamental assumptions in ways that were at once both aggressive and playful. The creative act itself was as important as the painting that resulted from it.

In this borderland between painting and performance, chance or the spectator were often recruited as co-creators of the work. In recent years, interest in performance art has increased, and with it interest in its roots.

Explosion! Painting as Action explores the connections and cross fertilisations between painting, performance and conceptual art. Featured artists include the Japanese Gutai group, Lynda Benglis, Cai Guo-Qiang, Allan Kaprow, Yves Klein, Rivane Neuenschwander, Jackson Pollock, Carolee Schneemann, Shozo Shimamoto and Yoko Ono.

Published to accompany the exhibition at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2 June – 9 September 2012.

File under: Adel Abdessemed Allan Kaprow Andy Warhol Bruce Nauman Cai Guo-Qiang Ceal Floyer Francis Alÿs George Brecht Jackson Pollock Jean Tinguely John Baldessari John Cage Jutta Koether Lawrence Weiner Niki de Saint-Phalle Paul McCarthy Robert Rauschenberg Tony Conrad Yoko Ono Yves Klein Ann-Sofi Noring Daniel Birnbaum Julia Robinson Ming Tiampo Walther König / Köln Art Arte Povera Dada Fluxus Minimal Art Painting Pop Art Performance / Dance / Theater Group Shows / Collections

Animals

edited by Filipa Ramos

2016

Animals
edited by Filipa Ramos

2016, English
Softcover, 240 pages, 145 x 210 mm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts Whitechapel / London

$52.00 - In stock -

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Animals have become the focus of much recent art, informing numerous works and projects featured at major exhibitions including dOCUMENTA (13) (2013), the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014), and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Contemporary art has emerged as a privileged terrain for exploring interspecies relationships, providing the conditions for diverse disciplines and theoretical positions to engage with animal behavior and consciousness.

This interest in animal nature reflects a number of current issues. Observations of empathy among nonhumans prompt reconsiderations of the human. The nonverbal communication of animals has been compared with poetic expansion of the boundaries of language. And the freedom of animal life in the wild from capitalist subordination is seen as a potential model for reconfiguring society and our relationship to the wider environment. Artists’ engagement with animals also opens up new perspectives on the dynamics of dominance, oppression, and exclusion, with parallels in human society. Animal nature is at the heart of debates on the Anthropocene era and the ecological concerns of scientists, thinkers, and artists alike. Centered on contemporary artworks, this anthology attests to the trans-disciplinary nature of this subject, with art as one of the principal points of convergence.

Artists surveyed include
Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Julieta Aranda, Brandon Ballengée, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Lygia Clark, Marcus Coates, Jimmie Durham, Marcel Dzama, Simone Forti, Pierre Huyghe, Natalie Jeremijenko, Joan Jonas, Eduardo Kac, Mike Kelley, Henri Michaux, Robert Morris, Henrik Olesen, Lea Porsager, Julia Reodica, Carolee Schneemann, Michael Stevenson, Rodel Tapaya, Rosemarie Trockel, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Haegue Yang, Adam Zaretsky

Writers include
Giorgio Agamben, Steve Baker, Raymond Bellour, Walter Benjamin, John Berger, Jonathan Burt, Ted Chiang, Simon Critchley, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, David Elliott, Carla Freccero, Maria Fusco, Tristan García, Félix Guattari, Donna J. Haraway, Seung-Hoon Jeong, Miwon Kwon, Chus Martinez, Brian Massumi, Thomas Nagel, Jean-Luc Nancy, Ingo Niermann, Vincent Normand, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Will Self, Jan Verwoert, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

About the Editor
Filipa Ramos is editor-in-chief of art-agenda and a Lecturer in Experimental Film at Kingston University and Moving Image at Central Saint Martins, London. She is the author of Lost and Found: Crisis of Memory in Contemporary Art (2009).

File under: Adam Zaretsky Allora & Calzadilla Apichatpong Weerasethakul Brandon Ballengée Carolee Schneemann Eduardo Kac Francis Alÿs Haegue Yang Henri Michaux Henrik Olesen Jimmie Durham Joan Jonas Joseph Beuys Julia Reodica Julieta Aranda Lea Porsager Lygia Clark Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Dzama Marcus Coates Michael Stevenson Mike Kelley Natalie Jeremijenko Pierre Huyghe Robert Morris Rodel Tapaya Rosemarie Trockel Simone Forti Ana Teixeira Pinto Brian Massumi Carla Freccero Chus Martínez David Elliott Donna J. Haraway Eduardo Viveiros de Castro Felix Guattari Filipa Ramos Gilles Deleuze Giorgio Agamben Ingo Niermann Jacques Derrida Jan Verwoert Jean-Luc Nancy John Berger Jonathan Burt Maria Fusco Miwon Kwon Raymond Bellour Seung-Hoon Jeong Simon Critchley Steve Baker Ted Chiang Thomas Nagel Tristan Garcia Vincent Normand Walter Benjamin Will Self The MIT Press / Massachusetts Whitechapel / London Art Ecology Theory / Essay

THE LULENNIAL: A SLIGHT GESTUARY

2015

THE LULENNIAL: A SLIGHT GESTUARY

2015, English / Spanish
Softcover w. dustjacket, 144 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 16 x 23 cm
Published by Mousse Publishing / Milan

$23.00 - Out of stock

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Fabiola Iza, Chris Sharp, eds.
Economy, “in the sense of doing a lot with a little or sometimes nothing at all,” is one of the founding principles of the Lulennial, a biennial organized by Fabiola Iza and Chris Sharp at Lulu, a 9-square meter independent space in Mexico City. The diminutive space is not necessarily a constraint if the works exhibited (and featured in this accompanying publication) are the startling outcome of slight gestures, like those created by Jirí Kovanda, Roman Ondák, Kirsten Pieroth, Wilfredo Prieto, and Martín Soto Climent, just to name some of the more than 25 participants in the exhibition. Other instigators of this peculiar attitude, the purpose of which is to achieve the maximum effect through the smallest of means, range from Billy Apple to Graciela Carnevale to Mierle Laderman Ukeles and La Monte Young, among others.

File under: Ana Roldán Ana Santos B. Wurtz Chantal Peñalosa Darren Bader Fernanda Gomes Francis Alÿs Gabriel Orozco Goran Petercol Goran Trbuljak Isaac Contreras Jenine Marsh Jiri Kovanda Karin Sander Kirsten Pieroth Lin Yilin Marie Cool Fabio Balducci Martin Soto Climent Matt Hinkley Paola de Anda Pierre Bal-Blanc Robert Barry Roman Ondák Simon Gabriel Greenberg Tania Pérez Córdova Wilfredo Prieto Yoko Ono Zarouhie Abdalian Chris Sharp Fabiola Iza Mousse Publishing / Milan Art Sculpture / Installation Fluxus Conceptual Art Group Shows / Collections

TIME

Amelia Groom (Ed.) - Documents of Contemporary Art series

2013

TIME
Amelia Groom (Ed.) - Documents of Contemporary Art series

2013, English
Softcover, 237 pages, 15.2 cm x 21.2 cm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts Whitechapel / London

$50.00 - Out of stock

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What does 'contemporary' actually mean? This is among the fundamental questions about the nature and politics of time that philosophers, artists and more recently curators have investigated over the past two decades. If clock time -- a linear measurement that can be unified, followed and owned -- is largely the invention of capitalist modernity and binds us to its strictures, how can we extricate ourselves and discover alternative possibilities of experiencing time? Recent art has explored such diverse registers of temporality as wasting and waiting, regression and repetition, deja vu and seriality, unrealized possibility and idleness, non-consummation and counter-productivity, the belated and the premature, the disjointed and the out-of-sync -- all of which go against sequentialist time and index slips in chronological experience. While such theorists as Giorgio Agamben and Georges Didi-Huberman have proposed "anachronistic" or "heterochronic" readings of history, artists have opened up the field of time to the extent that the very notion of the contemporary is brought into question.

This collection surveys contemporary art and theory that proposes a wealth of alternatives to outdated linear models of time.
Artists surveyed include Marina Abramovi, Francis Alys, Matthew Buckingham, Janet Cardiff, Paul Chan, Olafur Eliasson, Bea Fremderman, Toril Johannessen, On Kawara, Joachim Koester, Christian Marclay, nova Milne, Trevor Paglen, Katie Patterson, Raqs Media Collective, Dexter Sinister, Simon Starling, Hito Steyerl, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tehching Hsieh, Time/Bank.
Writers include Giorgio Agamben, Mieke Bal, Geoffrey Batchen, Hans Belting, Walter Benjamin, Franco Berardi, Daniel Birnbaum, Georges Didi-Huberman, D gen Zenji, Peter Galison, Boris Groys, Brian Dillon, Elena Filipovic, Joshua Foer, Elizabeth Grosz, Adrian Heathfield, Rachel Kent, Bruno Latour, George Kubler, Doreen Massey, Alexander Nagel, Jean-Luc Nancy, Daniel Rosenberg, Michel Serres, Michel Siffre, Nancy Spector, Nato Thompson, Christopher Wood, George Woodcock, Mark von Schlegell.

Edited by Amelia Groom.

File under: Bea Fremderman Christian Marclay Dexter Sinister Francis Alÿs Hiroshi Sugimoto Hito Steyerl Janet Cardiff Joachim Koester Katie Paterson Marina Abramovič Matthew Buckingham Olafur Eliasson On Kawara Paul Chan Raqs Media Collective Simon Starling Tehching Hsieh Toril Johannessen Trevor Paglen Adrian Heathfield Alexander Nagel Amelia Groom Boris Groys Brian Dillon Bruno Latour Christopher Wood D gen Zenji Daniel Birnbaum Daniel Rosenberg Doreen Massey Elena Filipovic Elizabeth Grosz Geoffrey Batchen George Kubler George Woodcock Georges Didi-Huberman Giorgio Agamben