As part of Paris Internationale 2019, 1856 presented “Everything is fine” with work by Patricia L. Boyd, Ian Burn, Lauren Burrow, and Fred Lonidier.

The work of art is possibly one of the only commodities with equal claim to both private and civic space. It is due to how artworks are embedded in our social relations that we recognise their different values: as historical artefacts, as objects of appreciation (“beautiful” or sensible to taste), political critiques, private financial investments, modes of communication, public documents of the national imaginary—the list goes on. However, the line that divides private and civic has become ever more indiscernible in recent decades—for instance, the erosion of public infrastructure and state industry, private capitalisation on culture and entertainment, the withering of the 8 hour work day, the return of 19th century work conditions, and the ongoing enclosure of our personal lives by a new technological industrialism. In response we might ask, in a reflective manner, what capacity the work of art has to represent these problems at the different points of its reception. The four artists selected here, at different times and with different methods, have asked this of their work.

Curated by Nicholas Tammens. Designed by Ziga Testen.

More on information can be found here.

Notes on Fundamental Joy; seeking the elimination of oppression through the social and political transformation of the patriarchy that otherwise threatens to bury us holds up the work of JEB, Clytia Fuller, Tee Corinne, Ruth Mountaingrove, Katie Niles, Carol Osmer, Honey Lee Cottrell, and others, documenting a community of women/womyn in their collective embrace of the ‘back to the land’ movement. Through the lens of pervasive image-making—women holding cameras, women taking pictures of women—the project considers the radical potential of social and political optimism predicated on the absence of men.

The book includes a personal essay by writer and artist Ariel Goldberg realized in two parts, understanding the photographs and wider cultural moment through a broader gender lexicon and in the context of trans-exclusionism.

Printed on Igeba IBO One 60gsm, a lightweight semi-transparent paper which allows for the show-through of images between page, creating an exchange and dialog between partially visible photographs.

Produced on the occasion of Rossella Biscotti’s 2013 exhibition The Side Room, at Secession, Vienna, 5 July–1 September, 2013. With texts from Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, András Pálffy, Bettina Spörr, Laboratorio Onirico.

Designed by Louis Lüthi.

• Josef Bauer, Körpergalerie,1974
• Dear Trisha Brown: A letter from Robert Wilhite
• Dear Mr Christopher Williams: A letter from Robert Wilhite
• Nina Beier: In tribute to time spent walking with Will (2013)
• Will Holder: Caption card (2014)
• Democracy is Empty, A conversation between Doug Ashford and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, originally published in Documents, no.10, Fall 1997, pp. 23–30
• Lucky Dime, for Seth Siegelaub by Willem Oorebeek
• Thoughts on control by Raivo Puusemp
• Jan Mot and Germaine Kruip in discussion about Ian Wilson
• A letter to Céline Condorelli by Tyler Coburn
• A conversation between Eva Berendes and Doug Ashford
• A conversation between Lucy Skaer and Willem Oorebeek
• Invited by Tirdad Zolghadr, Marina Noronha’s Curatorial Systems Manifesto (as a response to Mierle Laderman Ukeles)
• Céline Condorelli, Three letters to all and no one: strangers, friends, collaborators, allies
• Notes on a lunch meeting (with Willem Oorebeek) by Kate Strain
• Sarah Browne, Remembering Gray, 2013: In collaboration with Alice Lyons
• Beatrice Gibson, A letter to Axel Wieder (and also implicity to Will Holder)
• David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey: A conversation
• Victoria Dejaco: Lantern slides

Designed by Marc Hollenstein.

Yutaka Matsuzawa (1922–2006) was considered the father of Japanese conceptual art. In his pursuit of ways to express the invisible invisibly, Matsuzawa developed a unique understanding of conceptual art that both elevated and transcended the typical notions of conceptual art in the western, euro-centric art worlds.

A new edition of Yutaka Matsuzawa’s groundbreaking book, Quantum Art Manifesto was published on the occasion of the exhibition Yutaka Matsuzawa at Yale Union, curated by Alan Longino and Reiko Tomii. Including the original Japanese text, the original English translation (with minor edits), a foreword by Haruo Matsuzawa, and an essay by Reiko Tomii.

Offset printed by Gary Robbins at Container Corps with tipped-in color fields and Matsuzawa’s Psi stamp. Exposed spine Smyth-sewn binding. Dust jacket letterpressed by Aaron Flint Jamison. This new edition of the publication is now also out of print. Images of the exhibition can be seen here. And a text by Alan Longino on Yutaka Matsuzawa can be found here.

The 5th installment of The Social Life of the Book series is a an assemblage of text fragments taken from different books by LA-based writer Chris Kraus, conceived and annotated by artists and writers Jon Bywater, Louise Menzies and Marnie Slater. By reading through Kraus’s texts looking for traces of New Zealand, where she grew up, the three Kiwis question the representation of the distant; how it is embodied by characters, situations, language, and in the writing/reading dynamics Kraus creates.

The Social Life of the Book is a collection of commissioned texts dealing with books, and how they engage with the circulation of ideas and the agency of social situations. It brings together artists, publishers, writers, designers, booksellers, etc. who consider books less as finished objects or forms but for their disruptive potential and their ability to produce new relationships, new publics and new meanings.

Designed by Will Holder.