In the artistic activities of Philippe Thomas (1951–1995), there was a determination to disappear: it was his procedure to transfer his title of author onto his collectors. This was the case when selling an artwork, or whenever the author’s credit was needed for a commissioned text, and in the institutional co-operations that Thomas was a participant of. With this strategy Thomas worked against his own historicization, erasing his name from the reigning European and North American art fields and with prescience Thomas “put up obstacles to block his future ‘googleability’” (Hanna Magauer). In recent years, the works and writings of the artist, who also acted on behalf of the semi-fictional agency readymades belong to everyone®, again gained greater visibility and as of current are being assigned a place in art history.

With this book, Élisabeth Lebovici elaborates on Thomas’s strategy to cede and fictionalize authorship and suggests a reading of his work that incorporates questions of gender and reproduction, the multiplicity of the subjects involved, and the unbearable disappearance of Thomas (who died of AIDS-related complications), into the process of enunciation. It is Lebovici’s suggestion that the performativity of Thomas’s work requires two versions at once: “the one where one enters into the fiction and the one where one observes the beauty of the arrangement and the plot at work. The one where one is inside and the one where one contemplates it.”

Designed by HIT.

Guy Mees’s (1935–2003) photographs, videos, and above all his fragile works on paper are characterized by a formal rigor combined with sensitivity and delicacy. The uniqueness of his oeuvre lies precisely in its avoidance of conventional aesthetics and discursive classifications. A leading figure of the Belgian avant-garde, Mees left behind an outstanding body of work that transgresses geometric abstraction, Minimalism, Conceptualism, and applied art.

The Weather is Quiet, Cool, and Soft is published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (February 1–April 8, 2018), and at Mu.ZEE, Ostend (November 25, 2018–March 10, 2019). Borrowed from a note the artist jotted down on one of his works on paper, the title pays homage to the atmospheric impermanence of Mees’s works, as well as his infra-ordinary, relativistic, and poetic approach.

Edited by Lilou Vidal. Texts by François Piron, Fernand Spillemaeckers, Lilou Vidal, Wim Meuwissen, Dirk Snauwaert, Micheline Szwajcer. Copublished with Kunsthalle Wien. Designed by Joris Kritis.

Lilou Vidal, curator of the exhibition and François Piron, art critic, curator and editor, to discuss Guy Mees’ work here.

Produced on the occasion of Kate Newby’s exhibition I can’t nail the days down at the Kunsthalle Wien, 16 May–2 September 2018.

Kate Newby’s works are poetic confrontations with spatial conditions and the fleeting nature of interactions. Through small as well as radical interventions into existing environments, she directs our view to what is often overlooked in everyday life. The objects she creates are testimonials to individual experiences, with the specific context of creation remaining inseparably linked to the resulting work.

For the exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz, Newby continues her ongoing engagement with ephemeral and often peripheral situations. Therefore she created a large-scale work installed on the floor in the Karlsplatz building, using bricks as artistic material. For this work, the artist modified unfired bricks and inserted found elements: shattered glass fragments left behind as a result of people spending time outdoors in the Karlsplatz area, and bits of clay collected when the subway was constructed.

Introduction by Nicolaus Schafhausen and texts by Juliane Bischoff, Christina Barton and Chris Kraus.

The catalogue GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI and I is published on the occasion of the eponymous solo exhibitions GEORGIA SAGRI GEORGIA SAGRI at Kunstverein Braunschweig, December 2017–February 2018, and GEORGIA SAGRI and I at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, April–June 2018. As her first comprehensive publication, this catalogue surveys the multi-facetted oeuvre of the Greek artist Georgia Sagri. As the title of this book suggests, the staged objects Sagri produces are doubled modules, where each I or self can be “cross-eyed.” This effect, often produced theatrically, reorders the collective gaze to be subverted through a “catastrophe of emotions.” Across performance, video work, and sculpture, Sagri navigates the murky relationships between the artist’s body and her body of work, subjectivity and persona, original and reproduction with equal parts humor and severity.

Collected in this catalogue is both current documentation of Sagri’s work and rich archival material since 1999; together they are juxtaposed against essays by Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Daniel Horn, Ruba Katrib, Christina Lehnert, Diego Singh and Stephen Squibb, an interview conducted with Silvia Federici, and a conversation between the artist, Bettina Funcke, and John Kelsey.

Design by Yvonne Quirmbach.

Produced on the occasion of Hanne Darboven’s exhibition in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1982.

Since the early 1960s, Stephen Willats has devoted himself to the dialogue between the artwork and the viewer.

His models from the series Multiple Clothing are specially made mix-and-match PVC garments. Each design is produced as an assemblage of clothing sections that contain either singe words, or a range of letters. These can be built up within the framework of each design, indicating the state of mind of the wearer.

This artist’s book contains diagrams, drawings and photographs of the work alongside comment and text written by Willats himself.

A video about the project can be found here.