Exhibition History 1964–1975 and Selected Works 1957–1975
Marcel Broodthaers
Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2021, 880 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 22.8 × 31 cm, English
Price: €78

In 1963, the writer Marcel Broodthaers decided to embark on a career in the visual arts. Yet he never severed his ties to poetry and language, whose systems of meaning make up an integral aspect of his work. Retaining a certain distance to the art world, he posed fundamental questions about art -its mediums, its conceptions of what constitutes an artwork, its representation in museums. To this day, his oeuvre takes a critical stand on art’s commercialization strategies. Exhibition-making itself was a key element of Broodthaers’s artistic approach. Documenting all of the artist’s solo exhibitions that took place during his lifetime, the catalogue is the first ever to highlight that praxis. The extensive chronology and the accompanying detailed pictorial documentation of the most important works of every year together offer a systematic overview of his oeuvre. In addition to scholarly essays and many texts by Marcel Broodthaers himself, the publication also features an extensive series of photographic views of the major retrospective at the Fridericianum.

Edited by Susanne Pfeffer, with contributions from Michael Compton, Anny De Decker, Sebastian Egenhofer, Sabine Folie, Maria Gilissen Broodthaers, Gloria Moure, Susanne Pfeffer & Cord Riechelmann.

#2021 #annydedecker #marcelbroodthaers #sabinefolie #susannepfeffer #verlagderbuchhandlungwaltherkonig
Duets
Frederick Weston & Samuel R. Delany
Published by Visual AIDS, New York, 2021, 88 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 14 × 18.7 cm, English
Price: €15

Frederick Weston and Samuel R. Delany come together for a wide-ranging dialogue, reflecting on their overlapping histories in Times Square, the deep impact of AIDS on their creative practices, and the ever-changing intersections of race, sex, language, and art.

With additional contributions by Bruce Benderson, Svetlana Kitto, and Tavia Nyong’o.

#2021 #aidshistory #frederickweston #samuelrdelany #visualaids
Duets
Julie Ault & David Deitcher in Conversation on William Olander
Published by Visual AIDS, New York, 2021, 152 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 14 × 18.7 cm, English
Price: €15

Julie Ault and David Deitcher illuminate the life and work of the influential art historian, New Museum curator, and Visual AIDS co-founder William Olander (1950–1989). Olander’s exhibitions challenged oppressive institutional boundaries, blew open dichotomies, and boldly confronted discrimination, sexual difference, and AIDS, shaping curatorial practice for decades to come.

Committed to using the New Museum as a platform to challenge the ideological functions of the art world, Olander invited members of ACT UP to design a multimedia installation for the museum’s window on Broadway in 1987. The first museum project to unflinchingly address the AIDS epidemic and the political figures who enabled it, Let the Record Show… became the centerpiece of art historian and critic Douglas Crimp’s impassioned call for “new cultural practices” to respond to AIDS.

#2021 #aidshistory #julieault #visualaids #williamolander
1965–2001
Ewa Partum
Published by Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 2021, 172 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 21.3 × 29 cm, German/English
Price: €75

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Ewa Partum: Retrospektive 1965–2000 at Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, 17 February–16 April, 2021.

In the 1960s and 70s, Ewa Partum was part of the artistic avant-garde in Poland. She sought a new reality in art, considered the possibilities of thought within painting to be exhausted, and championed the new art forms of the time. Starting with the language and concepts that shape our ideas about art as well as our notions of work and practice, Partum focused on semantic material as the “raw material” of art and its visualization. With actions in public space, an understanding of art that referred to active processes in time, and a self-reflexive concept of media, Ewa Partum belonged to the first generation of conceptual artists.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and may have some traces of previous ownership.

#2021 #concretepoetry #ewapartum
Edition
Jason Dodge
Published by the artist, Denmark, wrapped bar of soap, 8.3 × 5.3 cm, English
Price: €200

Bar of soap as part of the exhibition Cut a Door in the Wolf by Jason Dodge at MACRO, Rome, 11 November, 2021–16 March, 2022.

#2021 #artistedition #jasondodge
Modern Subjects, Chapter Zero
R. H. Quaytman
Published by Wiels, Brussels, 2021, 62 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 19.5 × 12 cm, English
Price: €12

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition R. H. Quaytman: Modern Subjects, Chapter Zero at Wiels, Brussels, 10 September, 2021–30 January, 2022, which explored Brussels’ artistic history and, more specifically, the relationship to power of some of the artists with whom the artist shares an affinity, such as Magritte and Broodthaers. In preparatory research, Quaytman came across the painter Antoine Wiertz and his personal museum, which is now nestled in the heart of the European Quarter. With its unique and spectacular hanging, this museum bears witness to the golden age of monumental painting, which was in the throes of decline in the face of photography and film. Wiertz sought to compensate for this waning with an overabundance of moralising subjects condemning injustice and inequality. He depicted chilling scenes of poverty, war, suicide, or cholera.

Designed by Goda Budvytytė.

#2021 #godabudvytyte #painting #rhquaytman #wiels