This is the first re-issue of Stephen Willats’ major text The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour since its original publication in 1973. Willats wrote The Artist as an Instigator while he ran the Centre for Behavioural Art, a cross-disciplinary research and discussion platform he established at Gallery House, London, in 1972–73. Long out of print, and as relevant today as it was in the early 1970s, the essay includes rigorous analyses of social forms of artistic production and descriptions of a number of projects by Willats. Along with the original text, this edition features archival images and a specially written introduction by the artist.

Adapted from writings by artists and critics appearing in magazines, catalogs, and other recent publications, The Auratic Narrative was conceived by Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda as a framing device for their exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in 2019. The text-as-artwork offers a dramatic account of an unnamed artist’s ambivalence toward their professional milieu. Here the narrative is presented in its entirety along with bibliographical notes and an introduction by artist and writer Ariane Müller. Photographic documentation of the exhibition—the first survey of the artists’ collaborative practice—accompanies the work. Taken together, word and image chart a course through the show and the artists’ oeuvre.

Following endless digital threads of information and being in constant touch with ‘hardware,’ it is easy to forget one’s bodily presence and situatedness. Weavings, just like computer coding, are complex automated nettings. Only the point of rupture—a dropped stitch, like a bug in the code, a systemic error—redirects the attention outside of the machine by requesting a manual intervention.

To experience a gesture of repair and an analogue form of ‘networking,’ as a literal and tactile activity, we initiated two hole mending meditations conducted online, with participants at home, to relax the senses while focusing on fixing holes in garments and touching soft textiles. To feel the impact each detail has on a structure as a whole: disruptions in the weave of a garment cause holes to grow. By tracing the dropped stitches and patching up obvious ‘bugs,’ we remediate and re-activate unappreciated clothes without erasing traces of our bodies inhabiting them.

Chapter 24 illustrates 61 paintings from the exhibition of the same name at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Germany, 3 June–4 November, 2012. This latest chapter employs a variety of images directly related to Museum Abteiberg and Mönchengladbach. Many of the paintings are made from the museum’s image archive, and photographs taken by the artist of works in the permanent collection. These images are presented alongside several small portraits of their custodian, chief curator Hannelore Kersting.

The boxed set of 61 cards depicts each painting accompanied by corresponding notes written by the artist about each image. Additionally, the box includes an essay on Chapter 24 by Mark Godfrey, a facsimile of Yve-Alain Bois’ early essay The Tree and the Square, plus the original 1977 version L’arbre et le carré, and a new German translation. The box format is a direct reference to the famous catalogues published by the Museum in Mönchengladbach under the direction of Johannes Cladders.

For the first time, the 35 legendary box catalogues of Städtische Museum Mönchengladbach have been published as a book. Museum director Johannes Cladders developed the idea of catalogues in the form of a box with Joseph Beuys in 1967. Until 1978, Cladders worked closely with exhibiting artists to create such catalogues, which radically re-envisaged the traditional exhibition and museum publication. They embody the participatory approach of their time and instance a vision of a porous democratic work. Viewers are invited to actively participate in this artistic and institutional endeavour and engage both intellectually and physically. Researched by Susanne Rennert, designed by Petra Hollenbach, with photographs documenting all catalogues by Tobias Hohn & Stanton Taylor, and introductory essays by Susanne Rennert and Susanne Titz.

Produced on the occasion of gerlach en koop, Was machen Sie um zwei? Ich schlafe, at the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, 19 September 2020–28 February, 2021. In an exhibition at the edge of sleep gerlach en koop display works by Ismaïl Bahri, Kasper Bosmans, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Mark Geffriaud, Voebe de Gruyter, Ian Kiaer, Kitty Kraus, Gabriel Kuri, Rita McBride, Guy Mees, Jacqueline Mesmaeker, Helen Mirra, Laurent Montaron, Melvin Moti, Jean-Luc Moulène, Henrik Olesen, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Emilio Prini, Bojan Šarčević, Shimabuku, Steve Van den Bosch, and a contribution by writer Haytham El-Wardany

Available to download here.