My sweet little lamb (Everything we see could also be otherwise) is a series of exhibition episodes based on the Kontakt Collection and dedicated to the artist Mladen Stilinović, unfolded in Zagreb and London in 2016–2017. This publication, conceived as a “post-episode” of the project, presents extensive visual documentation of the exhibitions alongside newly commissioned texts by theorists and writers Branislav Dimitrijević, Miguel A. López, Oxana Timofeeva, and Marina Vishmidt. Drawing on the legacy of the Eastern European neo-avantgarde and the work of Stilinović in particular, these contributions grapple with urgent questions about the value of art and exhibition making. Including the work of Mária Bartuszová, Stano Filko, Tina Gverović, Katalin Ladik, Sanja Iveković, Běla Kolářová, Július Koller, Edward Krasiński, Dóra Maurer, Goran Trbuljak, KwieKulik, Ivan Kožarić, Vlado Martek, Mangelos, Heimrad Bäcker, Stephen Willats.
From February 12 to March 6, 2022, Pure Fiction presented an exhibition and performance program at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne titled Shifting Theater: Sibyl’s Mouths. The starting point was a collective reading of Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, in which the narrator discovers a collection of scribbled oak leaves scattered in a cave outside Naples.
Contributions by Rosa Aiello, Gerry Bibby, Coleman Collins, Ayanna Dozier, Annie Ernaux, Amelia Groom, Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Ellen Yeon Kim, Bitsy Knox, Dan Kwon, Erika Landström, Enad Marouf, Katrin Mayer, Aislinn McNamara, Kamila & Jasmina Metwaly, Luzie Meyer, Vera Palme, Theresa Patzschke, Georgia Sagri, Mahsa Saloor, Elif Saydam, Mark von Schlegell, Simon Speiser, Elaine Tam, C.S. Tolan, Mikhail Wassmer, Anna Zacharoff.
The New York gallery American Fine Arts, Co.—whose name today is largely synonymous with that of its gallerist, Colin de Land (1955–2003)—represents a gallery practice in which a decided deviation from conventional models overlaps with successful activities within the framework of the art market. Today, American Fine Arts, Co. and de Land figure as uncontested projection screens for the desire for independence from or bohemian resistance against the dictate of the market.
Texts by Andrea Fraser, Manfred Hermes, Karl Holmqvist & Tobias Kaspar, Isla Leaver-Yap, Jackie McAllister, James Meyer & Christian Philipp Müller, Magnus Schäfer, Axel John Wieder, Phillip Zach; conversation between Colin de Land, Josef Strau, and Stephan Dillemuth; introduction by Hannes Loichinger and Magnus Schäfer.
American artist Peter Fend (born 1950) founded the Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation (“OCEAN EARTH”) in 1980, a legally incorporated successor to an artist venture initiated in 1979 to deliver art ideas and practices to real-world clients. The firm launched its worldwide business with a 1982 show at The Kitchen, NY called Art of the State.
Africa-Arctic Flyway: Physiocratic States is Fend’s first major publication since 1993’s Ocean Earth. It features projects and proposals located on the bird and insect flyways from Sub-Saharan Africa through Europe to the Arctic. Made over the past three decades, these projects take the form of extensive writing, his ubiquitous poetic “wordstacks,” and Fend’s signature cut-out maps, sketches, and installation views of sculptures.
Edited by Elisa R. Linn, Lennart Wolff. Designed by Dan Solbach.
Video peepshows, porno theatres, garden pavilions—with subtle insight, Tom Burr (*1963) sheds light upon what is marginalized, or not immediately recognizable. His works, which make reference to Minimal art’s object sculptures, redefine them in current socio-economic “queer” aspects. By acting as an intermediary between formal stringency and socio-political content, Tom Burr’s works overcome Hal Foster’s criticism that Minimal art tended to “handle the viewer as historically innocent and sexually indifferent.” With comprehensive texts and illustrations, this book features an artist who belongs among those who have shaped a new form of institutionally critical art.
With texts from Tom Burr, Carina Herring and Juliane Rebentisch.
Designed by Yvonne Quirmbach.
Since the late 1980s, Tom Burr has been reusing appropriation strategies in his art. Not confined to his photographic and sculptural works, they also lend momentum to many of his writings. The artist has created assemblages of personal writings and sources, differing in nature and style, which he has used as both conceptual and aesthetic materials in his oeuvre. Thus, Burr extends his art praxis into the field of writing, and vice versa; art and language cannot be dissociated from each other. At times, the text precedes and anticipates the work; at others, it emanates and results from it; in most instances, it is an integral part of it. Words constitute the work.