As a representative of concrete-minimal art Charlotte Posenenske was among Germany’s leading artists in the 1960s. She aspired to a clear, hard realism of form, production, distribution and reception—all conditions that in the context of the 1968 movement meant changing society. In 1968, having come to the conclusion that art ultimately cannot have sufficient political impact Posenenske took the radical step of giving up art altogether.

She went on to study sociology and worked as a social scientist. Even though she could not envision political issues being pursued within a conceptual approach, it later became clear that she had formulated important aspects in her art that only came to bear in Concept Art in the 1970s. These aspects included the variability of objects, participation in production, the inclusion of a specific situation, a social context and institutional critique.—Between Bridges, 2007

From a collection of catalogues documenting presentations of Posenenske’s work installed at various locations including Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Lufthansa, Grossmarkthalle Frankfurt and Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt 1989, organised by Burkhard Brunn.

As a representative of concrete-minimal art Charlotte Posenenske was among Germany’s leading artists in the 1960s. She aspired to a clear, hard realism of form, production, distribution and reception—all conditions that in the context of the 1968 movement meant changing society. In 1968, having come to the conclusion that art ultimately cannot have sufficient political impact Posenenske took the radical step of giving up art altogether.

She went on to study sociology and worked as a social scientist. Even though she could not envision political issues being pursued within a conceptual approach, it later became clear that she had formulated important aspects in her art that only came to bear in Concept Art in the 1970s. These aspects included the variability of objects, participation in production, the inclusion of a specific situation, a social context and institutional critique.—Between Bridges, 2007

From a collection of catalogues documenting presentations of Posenenske’s work installed at various locations including Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Lufthansa, Grossmarkthalle Frankfurt and Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt 1989, organised by Burkhard Brunn.

As a representative of concrete-minimal art Charlotte Posenenske was among Germany’s leading artists in the 1960s. She aspired to a clear, hard realism of form, production, distribution and reception—all conditions that in the context of the 1968 movement meant changing society. In 1968, having come to the conclusion that art ultimately cannot have sufficient political impact Posenenske took the radical step of giving up art altogether.

She went on to study sociology and worked as a social scientist. Even though she could not envision political issues being pursued within a conceptual approach, it later became clear that she had formulated important aspects in her art that only came to bear in Concept Art in the 1970s. These aspects included the variability of objects, participation in production, the inclusion of a specific situation, a social context and institutional critique.—Between Bridges, 2007

From a collection of catalogues documenting presentations of Posenenske’s work installed at various locations including Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Lufthansa, Grossmarkthalle Frankfurt and Hauptbahnhof Frankfurt 1989, organised by Burkhard Brunn.

Shot in South Africa in 1992, Moyra Davey’s Gold Dumps and Ant Hills is a series of black-and-white photographs of mounds left behind by two types of excavation—one human and one non-human. For Davey, the pairings of gold dumps and ant hills “invite not only our imagined associations but, as South African landscapes, our received, politically charged associations as well.” The photographs are presented here in book form for the first time. Designed by Dan Solbach.

Moyra Davey is an artist and writer who lives in New York. She has shown her work internationally, including participation in documenta 14. She is represented by greengrassi London, Galerie Buchholz Cologne/Berlin/New York, Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam, and John Goodwin Toronto.

British artist Paul Elliman has consistently engaged with the production and performance of language as a material component of the socially constructed environment. In a world where objects and people are equally subject to the force fields of mass production, Elliman explores the range of human expression as kind of typography.

Published as a contribution to David Bennewith’s exhibition Latent Stare at CasCo, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2012.

The Renaissance Society presents a major commission by Los Angeles-based artist Mathias Poledna. For this exhibition, Poledna has created an installation that juxtaposes a new moving image work with a comprehensive reimagining of the venue’s setting.

Poledna’s art most commonly takes the form of highly concentrated film works that unfold a complex tension between the visuals and their critical and cultural implications. His work, as Michael Bracewell writes, suggests “a form of conceptualism, philosophical in basis, which attempts to engage with paradox as a means of enquiry.” In Poledna’s films and the rigorously formal environments he creates for them, salient beauty and visual restraint collude in a viewing experience that encompasses both affect and detachment.

Poledna’s concise presentations underscore a mode of production in which he frequently involves specialist collaborators in order to articulate a highly specific frame of vision. The films draw on the artist’s panoramic range of interests, from the music of post-punk and a rainforest in Papua New Guinea to 1930s style animation, as in his seminal 2013 film, Imitation of Life. Although invariably newly produced, they often create the impression of having been found as they are, seemingly extricated from present-day or historic collective imaginaries.