Produced on the occasion of Peter Friedl: Work 1964–2006 at Museu d ‘Art Contemporari de Barcelona (MACBA) from 26 May–3 September, 2006.

Peter Friedl’s practice has continually challenged the art world, as “conceptual acts,” his works take on the role of models: as exemplary articulations and solutions of aesthetic problems involving political and historical consciousness. With them, Friedl continues to transgress the borders of art, a process begun by the Conceptual Art of the 1960s, opening contemporary art to its social, economic, and institutional conditions. “Overcoming the dictate of visibility, without using text as a substitute,” is how Friedl outlines his artistic program.

With texts by Mieke Bal, Roger M. Buergel, Norman M. Klein, Bartomeu Mari, Jean-Pierre Rehm.

Produced on the occasion of Peter Friedl: Work 1964-2006 at Museu d ‘Art Contemporari de Barcelona (MACBA) from 26 May–3 September, 2006.

Peter Friedl’s practice has continually challenged the art world, as “conceptual acts,” his works take on the role of models: as exemplary articulations and solutions of aesthetic problems involving political and historical consciousness. With them, Friedl continues to transgress the borders of art, a process begun by the Conceptual Art of the 1960s, opening contemporary art to its social, economic, and institutional conditions. “Overcoming the dictate of visibility, without using text as a substitute,” is how Friedl outlines his artistic program.

With texts by Mieke Bal, Roger M. Buergel, Norman M. Klein, Bartomeu Mari, Jean-Pierre Rehm.

Produced on the occasion of Tom Nicholson’s After action for another library, 1999–2001/2006 at Pier 2/3 as part of Zones of Contact, 15th Biennale of Sydney, 8 June–27 August, 2006.

On 30 August 1999 East Timorese voted overwhelmingly to become an independent nation in a ballot sponsored by the UN. Following the announcement of the result, occupying Indonesian troops carried out systematic destruction throughout East Timor. Within two weeks several thousand civilians were murdered (a precise number is unknown), 200,000 were forcibly transported to concentration camps in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia, and most significant infrastructure was destroyed.

Libraries were systematically burned, amongst them the widely-used university library and the English library in Dili. Private collections of books were targeted, and in notable cases book collections of prominent intellectuals and independence activists were collected on the street where they were publicly set alight. Action for another library was established in Melbourne in response to these circumstances. Thousands of books were donated by bookstores, libraries, and individuals. They were shipped to Dili in containers where they now form part of the nascent National University Library of East Timor.

Published on the occasion of Experiment, řád, důvěrnost: Běla Kolářová at Muzeum Umění, Olomouc, 27 September–31 December, 2006.

Prague-based artist Běla Kolářová (1923–2010) began experimenting with photographic techniques in the early 1960s, creating photograms and X-ray photographs that continued the Bauhaus tradition of photography as an abstract medium. Thus, for a series of photograms she called vegetages, she produced miniature “artificial negatives” by pressing natural materials into soft paraffin and using them for the exposure of the photographic paper instantaneously as “negatives.” In the late sixties Kolářová increasingly began creating assemblages out of found objects including household items such as snap fasteners, needles and safety pins. Kolářová arranged these objects according to conceptual grids, and thus they are somewhat akin to the work of Nouveaux Realistes as well as to various conceptual practices. The work she produced in this way defied the aesthetic canon of Socialist Realism, and Kolářová developed a remarkable conceptual feminist style that was all her own.

In recent years, Kolářová’s work was shown at the documenta 12 (2007), at Raven Row in London (2010) and in solo shows at the Museum Kampa in Prague (2008) and Muzeum Umění in Olomouc (2006).

Christopher Williams precise photographs retain in a paradoxical way what is in the process of vanishing. His photographs, influenced by the advertising aesthetics of the 1960s or 70s tend to become as anachronistic as their motifs. Published as the second volume of the De Rijke / De Rooij catalogue on the occasion of their exhibition at the Vienna Secession, the two volumes are, however, independently conceptualized artist`s books.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz subtly intervenes in the gallery space, altering the atmosphere and décor of the environment. This catalogue, devised in collaboration with the graphic designer Adeline Morlon, reflects his working method, developing quiet, multi-perspective views of a spatial installation. Chaimowicz’s environments embrace the domestic sphere, incorporating interior design, ceramics, wallpaper and textiles. The exhibition at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen documented in this book shows works spanning the years 1975 to 2005 and includes objects, drawings, photo collages and paintings.

‘Spaces and their potentialities of allowing ideas to come into being forms the central pillar of interest for the artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz… for the first time ever in a German institution, he has realized his ideas in a richly faceted manner and shown his work to an interested and curious audience.’—Rita Kersting