Stephen Willats has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the 1960s. His work has involved interdisciplinary processes and theory from sociology, systems analysis, cybernetics, semiotics and philosophy. This manifests in wall installations, project works, films & computer simulations, drawings & diagrams, bookworks and texts.

Published on the occasion of the exhibitions Building and People at Berlinsiche Galerie, Berlin and Goethe Institute, London, 1993.

Published on the occasion of …ical Krbbr Prdly Prsnts Gart Jas, Jon Klsy, Josf Stra at Portikus, Frankfurt, 16 December, 2006–21 January, 2007. A group show curated by Michael Krebber also featuring Gareth James, John Kelsey and Josef Strau.

“A bridge, an ellipsis, a sudden trailing off, the title of this exhibition, etc, the … might also be the blub blub blub of an underwater clam drawn by Jack Smith (“Ploduction Ploblems”), or a sort of mussel-talk taking over. In Réné Daumal’s unfinished novel Mount Analogue, which narrates the search for an invisible mountain (the largest on earth), there is a description of the money used in this place: smooth, pearl-like orbs dug out of the invisible mountain’s soil and very difficult to find. So on Mount Analogue, the … would also be a price, a sum, exact amount of invisible cash.”

Designed by Yvonne Quirmbach.

Rereading Appropriation reconsiders the artistic strategy of appropriation through later elaborated theories of affect, to explore how an understanding of ‘reciprocal investment’ reconfigures appropriation as an act that is based in connecting, acknowledging and being porous to material. Rereading Appropriation compiles texts read in the sister reading groups of If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution during its Edition V – Appropriation and Dedication (2013–2014).

Reading / Feeling centers around the notion of affect, a term that delineates a field where the personal and the political meet through sensory movements between bodies. Affect, as a pre-emotional experience, constitutes the social and economic relationships that make up the fabric of society. Reading / Feeling considers the meaning of affect in theory and artistic practice, with a selection of texts by theoreticians, artists and curators that were read in If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution’s reading groups in Amsterdam, Toronto and Sheffield for the past two years, as part of the programme Edition IV—Affect (2010–2012). It also includes three new essays, short statements by reading group members, and artist pages.

(Mis)reading Masquerades comprises a selection of theoretical texts drawn from different fields of knowledge that address questions such as transgression, gender identity and subversion, gesture, the carnivalesque, the construction of subjectivity, authorship, mimesis, and alterity. The publication features introductions to each text by the participants of our monthly reading group, newly commissioned essays by writers and curators from the field of contemporary art and contributions by artists from the Dutch Art Institute (Enschede) and Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam).