Based on questions raised by the work of filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha, the second volume of the Wattis Institute’s annual reader includes new writing and art by Ranu Mukherjee, Kathy Zarur, Shylah Hamilton, Astria Suparak, and Tamara Suarez Porras, as well as written and visual contributions by Trinh T. Minh-ha, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Sky Hopinka, Christina Sharpe, Christine Wang, Camille Rankine, Dionne Brand, Renee Gladman, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Steffani Jemison, among others. Designed by Scott Ponik.

The work of Jacqueline Mesmaeker is intangible, discreet and captivating. Starting from analytical intentions and experimental protocols linked to perception and representation, her practice remains anchored in a literary and poetic universe, including references to Lewis Carroll, Mallarmé, Melville or Paul Willems. Minimal, sometimes even unnoted, her rare and precise work is nonetheless present. It willingly takes over space, playing with the actual and symbolic architecture, revealing the structures and lines of force, but also the errors, by thwarting their perspectives or correcting them with delicate touches.

Facsimile edition of Stephanie Oursler’s 1975 artist’s book. Oursler self-published 5 CUTS in 1975 with a small number of copies, on the occasion of her exhibition of the same name which took place in Rome, Bari, Milan and Como. She combines stills from unidentified silent films with autobiographical texts, and in doing so creates an open narration of her life, which is both an intimate recollection and a literary construction. A poetic depth unfolds in Oursler’s language, which—in connection with the sometimes concrete, sometimes surreal and enigmatic images—approaches the essence of memory.

The exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief by the Berlin-based artist Michael Stevenson (born in 1964, NZ) presents an unconventional invocation of his practice over the past 35 years. Since the 1980s Stevenson has developed an artistic language that operates at the juncture of economy, technology, education, and faith, exploring the infrastructural systems that condition these disciplines and their entanglement. The exhibition marks Stevenson’s first institutional solo presentation in Berlin and presents a focused revision of his work, in which early paintings are brought into dialogue with more recent expansive installation.

Designed by Will Holder.

Produced on the occasion of Massimo Spada’s exhibition Pavistil, in a former Pavistil shop, Conegliano (I), October–November 2021.

You can find more information on the exhibition here.

Massimo Spada’s photography becomes testimony to, and an opportunity to reflect on, an extraordinarily significant work of architecture: the ‘houses’ of the new town of Longarone, designed by architect Valeriano Pastor immediately after the Vajont Dam disaster. It is a historical experience using photography, a record of reality that conciliates the relationship between individual sensibility and the world, then becoming a recollection, and once again a memory. In this open format document there is a perpetual present, a changing vision, open to continuous reinterpretation and, perhaps, new considerations.