Essay #5 in the series by S*I*G Verlag. Designed in collaboration with Sara De Bondt. Edited by Megan Francis Sullivan.

Anthology of essays on Jack Goldstein’s work (contributions by Hélène Winer, Laurie Anderson, Morgan Fisher, Douglas Crimp, David Salle, Thomas Lawson, Carter Ratcliff, Michael Newman, Jack Goldstein, John Hutton, Craig Owens, Therese Lichtenstein, Jean Fisher, Chris Dercon, Hal Foster, Jack Bankowsky, Rosetta Brooks, Philip Pocock, Bruce Greenville, Lionel Bovier, Fareed Armaly). Published on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition at Le Magasin, Grenoble, from 3 February–28 April, 2002.

Jack Goldstein was one of the most important artists of the 80’s in New York. He returned to California in the 90’s and slowly disappeared from the art world until renewed interest in his work began to happen in 2000. He was in the first graduating class from CalArts and went on to experiment with performance, film, recording, sculpture, and painting. His art of the late seventies, eighties, and early nineties influenced many artists who came after him. He died on 14 March, 2003.

Contributions by Paul Chan, Keren Cytter, Nicolás Gaugnini, Irena Haiduk, Madeline Hollander, Sarah Kürten, Jordan Lord with Carissa Rodriguez, Luzie Meyer, John Miller, Rachel Rose, Karin Schneider, Cally Spooner, Studio for Propositional Cinema, Lawrence Weiner, Christopher Williams

A compendium of essays, scripts, poems, and proposals by various artists, in relation to a Spectator: was compiled by Studio for Propositional Cinema for their eponymous exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover. In the opening text, Studio for Propositional Cinema—an artist collective founded in Düsseldorf in 2013—sets the context for the book’s investigations into notions of the script, staging, and the conditions of the exhibition itself. Other contributions include Keren Cytter’s rules and declarations for engaging life; Irena Haiduk and John Miller’s ruminations on the nature of the image and of the cinematic, respectively; a series of missives to Kevin Spacey from Cally Spooner; and an “open letter” by Christopher Williams detailing the labor and material conditions that have furnished the walls on which his exhibitions have hung.

This book is part of an ensemble of structures related to the nature of presentation in the Kestner Gesellschaft exhibition. Visually connected in their ultra-gloss white surfaces, they are meant to be seen as intertwined sites for the display of objects, the reproduction of images, the staging of performances, and the transmission language through talks and conversations. Design by Ronnie Fueglister.

An exchange of letters; two mother tongues; two ways to tell a story. What happened during the week-long meetings in 1972 organized by the MLF (Mouvement de libération des femmes) and Psychoanalyse et Politique (which formed in 1968 in Paris), which were attended by some of the women who went on to found The Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective. These encounters gave rise to a series of practices that continue to distinguish the Italian movement. The publication Two Voices offers an opening into this story.

Published on the occasion of two exhibitions, one at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Cologne and the other at Greene Naftali in New York, that presented a group of works by artist, filmmaker and musician Tony Conrad entitled “Yellow Movies”. Alongside an introductory note by Tony Conrad that served as a press release for the two gallery exhibitions, the book contains a new text by Diedrich Diederichsen and a comprehensive documentation of all the “Yellow Movies” still in existence. The catalogue is produced in collaboration with Galerie Daniel Buchholz and Greene Naftali.

“Yellow Movies,” is the title of a series of works in which Conrad explored the intersection of film and painting. He conceived of these works not as paintings but as films of incredibly long duration, devoid of the action or narrative typically associated with Hollywood cinema. When the works were first debuted in 1973, Conrad referred to their installation as a “screening.” To make this work, and others like it, he painted a rectangle of cheap house paint on paper and framed it with a black border. Over time the central painted rectangle will slowly yellow, much in the same way film emulsion does. This yellowing happens with or without exposure to light; it is always “screening,” as the passage of time itself actively marks its surface.

Design by Yvonne Quirmbach.

Guy de Cointet (American, b. France, 1934–1983) was fascinated with language, which he explored primarily through performance and drawing. His practice involved collecting random phrases, words, and even single letters from popular culture and literary sources—he often cited Raymond Roussel’s novel “Impressions of Africa” as influential—and working these elements into non-linear narratives, which were presented as plays to his audience.

Paintings and works on paper would then figure prominently within these performances. In his play “At Sunrise A Cry Was Heard” (1976), a large painting depicting letters bisected by a white sash served as a main subject and prop, with the lead actress continuously referring to it and reading its jumble of letters as if it were an ordinary script. His drawings likewise are almost readable but just beyond comprehension.

Edited by Hugues Decointet, François Piron, Marilou Thiébault. Designed by Laure Giletti & Gregory Dapra.