1/3.
(Over)production and Value
Diedrich Diederichsen
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2017, 64 pp., 11.5 × 18 cm, English/German
Price: €9

The “economization of art” began to take shape in the wake of the crisis of capital in 2009. The shifts that occurred in the art field during this time were accompanied by explicit critique and academic analysis that aimed to make the genesis of these transformations comprehensible. In this book, first delivered as a lecture at Kunsthalle Bern in April 2016, Diedrich Diederichsen follows Marx’s labor theory of value and counters the symbolic economies dominating the art field, as well as economic exceptionalism or calculation, with systems of recording and reading out. Expanded to include the sphere of individual aesthetic experience, these systems are not formulated as solipsism, or in terms of purposefulness, but as a means to compare relations within the productivity of open and incalculable connectivity, relations that allow aesthetic experience to be read out as the liquefied labor and lifetime of concrete others. Designed by HIT.

#2017 #diedrichdiederichsen #hit #sternbergpress #theory
1/6.
The weather, a building
Ruth Buchanan
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2012, 82 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 19.5 × 14.5 cm, English
Price: €18

Libraries are generally perceived as storehouses, spaces of stable accumulation and containment. While the architecture may attempt to operate in this stable tone, the material contained within them is often far wilder. Histories, biographies, loose thoughts, detailed notations, bodies, and objects are all temporarily suspended, cataloged, and organized, creating relationships where perhaps previously there was none. An example of where the tension between what is contained in libraries and how it is contained emerges in a highly palpable way in the trajectory of the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. This new artist book by Ruth Buchanan charts three narratives associated with the life of this particular library. The anecdotes become both concrete examples and metaphors through which to interrogate the production, situating, and sharing of meaning.

With texts by Ruth Buchanan and Ian White. Designed by David Bennewith.

#2012 #davidbennewith #ianwhite #ruthbuchanan #sternbergpress
1/9.
The Place Is Here
The Work of Black Artists in 1980s Britain
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2019, 431 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 19 × 25 cm, English
Price: €30

Contributions by Nick Aikens, Sonia Boyce, Laura Castagnini, Deborah Cherry, Alice Correia, Chandra Frank, June Givanni, Sunil Gupta, Evan Ifekoya, Claudette Johnson, Raisa Kabir, Gail Lewis, Amna Malik, Samia Malik, Priyesh Mistry, Dorothy Price, susan pui san lok, Raju Rage, Elizabeth Robles, Ashwani Sharma, Marlene Smith, Leon Wainwright, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Rehana Zaman.

The publication developed from the exhibition and research project The Place Is Here (2016–19), which traced the urgent and wide-ranging conversations taking place between black artists, writers, and thinkers in Britain during the 1980s. Within the context of Thatcherism and a racist art establishment, a new generation of black artists and intellectuals produced some of the most compelling ideas and images in recent British cultural history. Across four exhibitions, The Place Is Here brought together over one hundred works by forty artists and collectives, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, and expanded archival displays. Richly illustrated, the book includes thematic essays, close readings of works, and a series of panel discussions bringing together key scholarly, critical, and artistic voices foundational to art in Britain in the 1980s. The result is an intergenerational dialogue around pressing intellectual, political, and aesthetic debates, highlighting the significance of the work of these artists for the present.

#2019 #nickaikens #sternbergpress #vanabbemuseum
1/3.
The Disintegration of a Critic
Jill Johnston
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2019, 224 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 10.8 × 18 cm, English
Price: €16 (Out of stock)

Jill Johnston—cultural critic, auto/biographer, and lesbian icon—was renowned as a writer on dance, especially on the developments around Judson Dance and the 1960s downtown New York City scene, and later as the author of the radical-feminist classic Lesbian Nation (1973). This book collects thirty texts by Jill Johnston that were initially published in her weekly column for The Village Voice between 1960 and 1974. The column provided a format in which Johnston could dissolve distinctions between the personal, the critical, and the political. Her writing took turns and loops, reflecting its times and contexts, and set a stage for the emergence of Johnston as a public figure and self-proclaimed radical lesbian that defied any prescribed position.

Johnston’s original texts are accompanied by three new contributions by Ingrid Nyeboe, Bruce Hainley, and Jennifer Krasinski, as well as an appendix with archival material related to a panel Johnston organized in 1969, titled The Disintegration of a Critic: An Analysis of Jill Johnston. Edited by Fiona McGovern, Megan Francis Sullivan, Axel Wieder. Designed by HIT.

You can read more on Jill Johnston in Jennifer Krasinski’s Art in America article here.

#2019 #axelwieder #brucehainley #hit #jilljohnston #meganfrancissullivan #sternbergpress #theory
1/3.
Animism (Volume I)
Anselm Franke (Ed.)
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2010, 256 pp. (colour & b/w ill.), 15.6 × 24 cm, English
Price: €45 (Out of stock)

What is the role of aesthetic processes in the drawing of the boundaries between nature and culture, humans and things, the animate and inanimate? Structured around the aesthetic processes and effects of animation and mummification, Animism—a companion publication to the long-term exhibition of the same title, brings together artistic and theoretical perspectives that reflect on the boundary between subjects and objects, and the modern anxiety that accompanies the relation between “persons” and “things.”

With works by Agency, Art & Language, Christian W. Braune & Otto Fischer, Marcel Broodthaers, Paul Chan, Tony Conrad, Didier Demorcy, Walt Disney, Lili Dujourie, Jimmie Durham, Eric Duvivier, Harun Farocki, León Ferrari, Christopher Glembotzky, Victor Grippo, Brion Gysin, Luis Jacob, Ken Jacobs, Darius James, Joachim Koester, Zacharias Kunuk, Louise Lawler, Len Lye, Étienne-Jules Marey, Daria Martin, Angela Melitopoulos & Maurizio Lazzarato, Wesley Meuris, Henri Michaux, Santu Mofokeng, Vincent Monnikendam, Tom Nicholson, Otobong Nkanga, Reto Pulfer, Félix-Louis Regnault, Józef Robakowski, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Paul Sharits, Yutaka Sone, Jan Švankmajer, David G. Tretiakoff, Rosemarie Trockel, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Dziga Vertov, Klaus Weber, Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Design by NODE Berlin Oslo.

#2010 #annemievankerckhoven #anselmfranke #artamplanguage #briongysin #harunfarocki #henrimichaux #lenlye #lilidujourie #nataschasadrhaghighian #paulsharits #sternbergpress #tomnicholson #tonyconrad
1/3.
Secret Modernity, Selected Writings and Interviews 1981–2009
Peter Friedl
Published by Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2010, 272 pp., 14 × 21 cm, hardcover with dust jacket, English
Price: €24

Since the early 1980s, Friedl has written on a variety of subjects. The book Secret Modernity: Selected Writings and Interviews 1981–2009 compiles for the first time a representative selection of his (partly unpublished) texts, along with a series of interviews. As in his artworks, Friedl’s writings quote from and rework multiple genres. He offers reviews and portraits of George Sand and Clarice Lispector, of Alighiero Boetti and Jean-Luc Godard; articles and documents contributing to theater and film history, which examine the work of, among others, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, or Glauber Rocha; as well as comments and reflections on his own projects. Alongside these are essays delving deep into the past, exploring mainly colonial history and its paradoxical traces in the present: narratives about Haiti, South Africa, and Italy’s repressed colonial rule in Africa.

Edited by Anselm Franke. Designed by NODE Berlin Oslo. Co-published with Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen.

#2010 #peterfriedl #sternbergpress