Christian Höller (ed.): L’Internationale: Post-War Avant-Gardes Between 1957 and 1986 (2012/2015)

“L’Internationale is a trans-institutional network of five major European museums and artists’ archives (Moderna galerija Ljubljana; Július Koller Society Bratislava/Vienna, MACBA Barcelona, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, M HKA Antwerp).

Taking as its starting point these five museums and their respective collections, L’Internationale—Post-War Avant-Gardes Between 1957 and 1986 presents a wide range of case studies, historiographical and theoretical essays that reconsider a period in art history that, according to the established canon, has been almost exclusively dominated by Western Europe and North America. In questioning this canon the publication works to acknowledge the existence of and to explore a dispersed, multi-polar, and at times interconnected neo-avant-gardist field that existed (long) before it became common to think according to frameworks of globalization or trans-nationalism. In the process, this collection of compelling contributions puts many a central question on the table: To what extent has a common international language existed in art over these three decades, while at the same time local terminologies and approaches might have differed significantly? How were such dispersed forms of knowledge and experience situated in their respective social contexts? What parallels of artistic method appeared across different regions, even continents? Finally, can such local narratives be brought together in a new “rhizomatic” way, one that works to reshape our ideas of trans-localism and internationalism?”

With essays by Inke Arns, Zdenka Badovinac, Bart de Baere, Charles Esche, Daniel Grúň, Christian Höller, Bartomeu Mari, Viktor Misiano, Piotr Piotrowski, Georg Schöllhammer, Steven ten Thije, and others.

First published in print by JRP Ringier, Zurich, 2012
eBook Publisher L’Internationale Online, 2015
416 pages

Review: Natalia Smolianskaïa (Critique d’art, 2013).

Publisher

PDF, PDF (11 MB)
EPUB (12 MB)

Isabelle Stengers: In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism (2009/2015)

“There has been an epochal shift: the possibility of a global climate crisis is now upon us. Pollution, the poison of pesticides, the exhaustion of natural resources, falling water tables, growing social inequalities – these are all problems that can no longer be treated separately. The effects of global warming have a cumulative impact, and it is not a matter of a crisis that will “pass” before everything goes back to “normal.”

Our governments are totally incapable of dealing with the situation. Economic warfare obliges them to stick to the goal of irresponsible, even criminal, economic growth, whatever the cost. It is no surprise that people were so struck by the catastrophe in New Orleans. The response of the authorities – to abandon the poor whilst the rich were able to take shelter – is a symbol of the coming barbarism.” (from the back cover)

First published in French as Au temps des catastrophes. Résister à la barbarie qui vient, Editions La Découverte, Paris, 2009.

Translated by Andrew Goffey
Publisher Open Humanities Press & meson.press, Lüneburg, Nov 2015
Critical Climate Change series (OHP)
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License
ISBN 9781785420092 (Print), 9781785420108 (PDF)
156 pages

Review: McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).

Publisher (OHP)
Publisher (meson)
OAPEN
WorldCat

PDF, PDF, PDF, PDF (1 MB, updated on 2016-7-19)

Jiří Kolář: Návod k upotřebení (1969) [Czech]

A collection of collages and “destatic” poems from the Czech experimental poet and artist.

With an Afterword by Josef Hlaváček
Publisher Dialog, Most, Czechoslovakia, 1969
[116] pages

Commentary: Pavlína Morganová (Sešit, 2013, CZ).

PDF (15 MB, no OCR)
English translation of selected poems (trans. Ryan Scott, 2015)