Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Berkeley–1968
Elvan Zabunyan
Published by les presses du réel, Dijon, 2013, 236 pages (b/w ill.), 15 × 21 cm, French
Price: €18 (Temporarily out of stock)

From the mid-1970s until her death at age 31 in 1982, Korean-born artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha created a rich body of conceptual art that explored displacement and loss. Her works included artists’ books, mail art, performance, audio, video, film, and installation. Although grounded in French psychoanalytic film theory, her art is also informed by far-ranging cultural and symbolic references, from shamanism to Confucianism and Catholicism. Her collage-like book Dictée, which was published posthumously in 1982, is recognized as an influential investigation of identity in the context of history, ethnicity and gender.

#2013 #theresahakkyungcha
Les Cahiers: Mémoire D'expo
Öyvind Fahlström
Published by Institut d’art contemporain — Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, 2002, 74 pages (b/w ill.), 17 × 24 cm, French
Price: €8 (Out of stock)

With texts by Jean-François Chevrier & Mike Kelley.

#2002 #mikekelley #oyvindfahlstrom
Queer Formalism: The Return
William J. Simmons
Published by Floating Opera Press, Berlin, 2021, 88 pages (colour ill.), 12 × 17 cm, English
Price: €15

Queer Formalism: The Return expands upon William J. Simmons’s original, influential essay Notes on Queer Formalism from 2013, offering novel ways of thinking about queer-feminist art outside of the critical-complicit and abstract-representational binaries that continue to haunt contemporary queer art. It therefore proposes a new kind of queer art writing, one that skirts the limits imposed by normative histories of art and film.

Artists addressed in Queer Formalism: The Return include: Sally Mann, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Math Bass, Lorna Simpson, Laurie Simmons, Alex Prager, Lana Del Rey, Jessica Lange, and Louise Lawler, among others.

#2021 #floatingoperapress #louiselawler #williamjsimmons
The BANK Fax-Bak Service
BANK
Published by Lenz Press, Milan, Treize, Paris, Galerie Neu, Berlin, and Kunsthalle Zürich, 2021, 328 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 24 × 31 cm, English / French
Price: €38 (Out of stock)

A comprehensive record of the London-based art collective BANK’s notorious project from the late 1990s, a fierce critic of the language elements of the art market.

Between 1998 and 1999, BANK operated The BANK Fax-Bak Service. For the project, the group’s members, Simon Bedwell, John Russell and Milly Thompson proof-read and copy-edited more than 300 press releases published by galleries in London and New York. The procedure was simple: after adding their mocking corrections, the artists faxed the promotional texts back to the respective galleries. The BANK Fax-Bak Service exposes the art market’s (ongoing) sisyphean effort to legitimize itself through boasting, self-important and nonsensical language. Published in collaboration with Treize (Paris), this volume is a comprehensive record of BANK’s notorious project from the late 1990s.

Edited by Tenzing Barshee, Gallien Déjean, Dan Solbach. Designed by Dan Solbach.

#2021 #dansolbach #galerieneu #galliendejean #kunsthallezurich #lenzpress #tenzingbarshee
Why Call it Labor?:
On Motherhood and Art Work
Published by Archive Books, Berlin, 2021, 178 pages, 12.5 × 21 cm, English / Arabic
Price: €10

Edited by Mai Abu ElDahab. Contributions by Mai Abu ElDahab, Lara Khaldi, Mary Jirmanus Saba, Mirene Arsanios and Nikki Columbus, Basma Alsharif.

Four essays and one conversation with contemporary artists and curators from different backgrounds and origins (Jerusalem, Lebanon, Kuwait, USA, Egypt) discussing their experience of becoming mothers as professionals in the arts, its reality and effects.

While their reflections represent a similar strata of art worker in terms of background, class, and career trajectory, the impact of instruments of patriarchy on rendering maternity invisible that they describe is recognizable and insidious. In a post-partum diary, Lara Khaldi makes audible the everyday exhaustion and disregard that comes with being a new mother; Mirene Arsanios and Nikki Columbus discuss the impact of the absence of legal or social protection for mothers; Basma Alsharif walks us through the difficulties of navigating the demands of different social contexts; Mary Jirmanus Saba pre-occupies at home with a flimsy maternity blog; And Mai Abu ElDahab puts propositions on the table for how to deal with all of this.

#2021 #archivebooks #basmaalsharif #maiabueldahab #mirenearsanios #mophradat #motherhood
The carpenter of your neighbourhood
Ilke Gers
Published by DOLCE. Athens, 2020, 108 pages (b/w ill.), 15.3 × 21.2 cm, English
Price: €14

The carpenter of your neighbourhood is an attempt to draw a socio-psychological portrait of Nea Ionia, a district in north-western Athens.

Extending her research into improvised communication practices within local contexts, Ilke Gers collected makeshift paper flyers and notices in the area and called the numbers provided in the collected material, requiring additional information in English. The resulting encounters ranged from abrupt hang ups to longer talks, testing the limits and potential of this interactive exercise.

This artist book compiles the translated street notices, together with the transcripts of the resulting phone discussions between the artist and anonymous respondents to the respective listed phone numbers.

#2020 #ilkegers