Published on the occasion of Piero Gilardi’s 2003 exhibition at Costantini Arte Contemporanea e il Torchio Galleria d’Arte, Milan.

Piero Gilardi’s artistic practice is certainly an early statement about this evolution into a machine-made and financialized nature. From his role as one of the early protagonists of Arte Povera, to his collective actions organized for protests, and since 2008 the development of his initiative Parco de Arte Vivente in Turin, Gilardi has forged a distinctive unity between artistic practice and activism.

Since 1963 Gilardi has produced large, hyper-realistic sculptures of polyurethane foam, the so-called Nature Carpets. With these interactive sculptures he tries to give new meaning to interaction between viewer and artwork and nature and culture.

Published in conjunction with the artist’s comprehensive exhibition retrospective curated by Miguel A. López, and held at Witte de With from May–November 2019.

This publication gives an overview of Vicuña’s artistic practice as a poet, visual artist, and activist from the 1960s to the present day. It is edited by López, designed by Studio Manuel Raeder, Berlin, and includes a forward by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, new essays by Miguel A. López, Julia Bryan-Wilson and Carla María Macchiavello, existing essays by Lucy Lippard and Dawn Adès and an anthology of texts authored by Cecilia Vicuña.

It includes color and black and white photography of more than 120 artworks by Vicuña, encompassing the full range of Vicuña’s body of work: textiles, poetry, performances, film, collages, drawings, paintings, precarious objects, and activism. A chapter in the book is especially devoted to these images, which are organized in four thematic sections.

Jacob Kassay’s canvases are simultaneously painting, sculpture and interactive installation. The exhibition includes a new body of work, in which Kassay continues his dialogue with the traditions of monochrome and colour field painting.

A wooden framework with a selection of canvases embedded within it, each of which is evenly painted and then silver-plated, will be located in the ICA’s lower gallery. The movement of ambient colours and changing light subtly and continuously alter the appearance of the works throughout the day. The wooden structure releases the canvases from their status as single units, combining them into a larger composite installation that functions as both architectural support and environment.

Essay by Peter Eleey and conversation between Jacob Kassay & Matt Williams.

Dean’s work is often concerned with the play of legibility through the creation of private lexicons. The relation between spoken word performance and its graphic representation, often in the form of private, personal and self-made typefaces, is one key to his work. The otherwise mute objects are inscribed, via clues, or fragments of lettering, with a personalised form of writing, which gives the opportunity of animating the artwork. Here the book operates as a form of sculpture, inscribed with both a personal and bodily form, to be read, spoken or carefully deciphered. Designed by Michael Dean, with Fraser Muggeridge.

‘NOW LEAVES describes leaving and having left. Glossolalia like, against noise, about the bones of a writing, written in tongue graphics legible by reason of the trees with as many words as there are leaves. The percussion of these leaves is f***ing news. The percussion of these leaves is not his news. The percussion of these leaves is not her news. The percussion of these leaves is definitely not their news.’—Michael Dean

Produced on the occasion of Peter Friedl: Work 1964–2006 at Museu d ‘Art Contemporari de Barcelona (MACBA) from 26 May–3 September, 2006.

Peter Friedl’s practice has continually challenged the art world, as “conceptual acts,” his works take on the role of models: as exemplary articulations and solutions of aesthetic problems involving political and historical consciousness. With them, Friedl continues to transgress the borders of art, a process begun by the Conceptual Art of the 1960s, opening contemporary art to its social, economic, and institutional conditions. “Overcoming the dictate of visibility, without using text as a substitute,” is how Friedl outlines his artistic program.

With texts by Mieke Bal, Roger M. Buergel, Norman M. Klein, Bartomeu Mari, Jean-Pierre Rehm.

Produced on the occasion of Peter Friedl: Work 1964-2006 at Museu d ‘Art Contemporari de Barcelona (MACBA) from 26 May–3 September, 2006.

Peter Friedl’s practice has continually challenged the art world, as “conceptual acts,” his works take on the role of models: as exemplary articulations and solutions of aesthetic problems involving political and historical consciousness. With them, Friedl continues to transgress the borders of art, a process begun by the Conceptual Art of the 1960s, opening contemporary art to its social, economic, and institutional conditions. “Overcoming the dictate of visibility, without using text as a substitute,” is how Friedl outlines his artistic program.

With texts by Mieke Bal, Roger M. Buergel, Norman M. Klein, Bartomeu Mari, Jean-Pierre Rehm.