Anthony Davies

Wealth of Negations, Please Take Generously. (The past: domestic violence. The present: anxiety attack. The future: desertion, mutiny or more of the same? Place your bets), Billboard poster for Utopian Pulse-Flares in the Darkroom at Secession, Vienna, 2014. [1]

Anthony Davies (b 1965) is a London based writer, independent researcher and organiser, currently working in the Fine Art department at Central Saint Martins College, London.

As a writer on art, politics and economics, Davies has published in numerous journals. In the late 1990s, along with Simon Ford, he developed a series of critical debates on young British art (yBa) and the Creative Industries, introducing the dystopian figure of the cultural entrepreneur or ‘Culturepreneur’. This was followed by a series of articles in Mute Magazine on the neoliberal transformation of cultural and educational institutions and later texts including "There is No Alternative: The Future is Self-Organised Parts 1 & 2", co-written with Stephan Dillemuth and Jakob Jakobsen, can be found in various publications.

Davies is a founder member of MayDay Rooms (2011-2016), an educational charity based in London and set up as a safe haven for historical material linked to social movements and experimental culture. He has co-organised or participated in a range of self-organised initiatives including Infopool, Copenhagen Free University, Flaxman Lodge, The School of Walls and Space [2], Rosa Kerosene and 10th Floor. More recently, with James Stevens, Liz Wright and Reverso, he set up a DIY wireless communications and self-archiving platform with autonomous cultural spaces in the Peripheries/Favelas and Workers Occupied Houses of São Paulo, Brazil - culminating in a series of events Distributed Spaces 1-5 and Vagabundo Social, an online international forum over the period 2020-2022.

Selected Publications

• "Art Capital" (with Simon Ford), Art Monthly 213, February 1998, pp 1-4; repr. in The Market, London: Whitechapel, 2013. Publisher.

• "Verienigungsdrang" (with Simon Ford), Texte zur Kunst 29, March 1998, pp 59-64. Publisher. (German)

• "Art Futures" (with Simon Ford), Art Monthly 223, February 1999, pp 9-11; repr. in Corporate Mentality, Berlin: Strernberg Press, 2001. Publisher.

• "Art Networks. Fin-de-siècle" (with Simon Ford), in The Academy and the Corporate Public: an investigation into changes afflicting the public sphere, and their influence on the academy, research and Norway, Bergen: Kunsthoegskolen i Bergen, and Cologne: Permanent Press, March 2002.

• "J18 and All That", Mute 14, London, 2000; repr. in Proud to Be Flesh: A Mute Magazine Anthology, eds. Josephine Berry Slater and Pauline van Mourik Broekman, et al., London: Mute Publishing, 2009.

• "Kulturpartner im Netzwerk" (with Simon Ford), Texte zur Kunst 38: "Kulturpolitik", 2000, pp 60-69. Publisher. (German)

• "Culture Clubs" (with Simon Ford), Mute 1:18, London, September 2000, pp 23-24; repr. in Proud to Be Flesh: A Mute Magazine Anthology, eds. Josephine Berry Slater and Pauline van Mourik Broekman, et al., London: Mute Publishing, 2009.

• "The Surge to Merge Culture with the Economy", Copenhagen Free University 3, Copenhagen, September 2001, 20 pp, PDF; repr. in Documents NYC 22, April 2003.

• "Back to Basics. Posteuphorische Tendenzen in Wirtschaft, Kunst und Aktivismus", Texte zur Kunst 55, September 2004, pp 54-71. Publisher. (German)

• "Flaxman Lodge: An Open Letter of Invitation", Variant 2:20, Summer 2004, p 3.

• "Basic Instinct: Trauma and Retrenchment 2000-4", Mute 1:29, London, February 2005; repr. in The Populism Reader, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2005, pp 71-82; repr. in Producta50, Barcelona: YProductions, 2007, pp 62-75. [3]

• "There is No Alternative: The Future is Self-Organised. Part 1" (with Stephan Dillemuth and Jakob Jakobsen), June 2005; repr. in Art and its Institutions: Current Conflicts, Critique and Collaborations, London: Black Dog Publishing, and Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, 2007, pp 176-179, [4]; repr. in Andreas Fogarasi, Kultur und Freizeit: Hungarian Pavilion, Venice, Cologne: Walther König, 2007, pp 63-66; repr. in Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader, London: Tate Publishing, and Afterall, 2007, pp 378-381; repr. in Anarchism Without Adjectives: On the Work of Christopher D’Arcangelo (1975–1979), New York: Artists Space, 2011; repr. in Microhistorias y macromundos, vol. 3, México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, 2011.
  • "No existe alternativa: !el futuro esta en la autogestión!", in Microhistorias y macromundos, vol. 3, México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, 2011. (Spanish)
  • "Não existe alternativa: o futuro é auto-organizado", trans. Daniel Lühmann, Nossa Voz 1018, São Paulo: Casa do Povo, December 2017-January 2018; repr. in Arte e ativismo: antologia, eds. André Mesquita, Charles Esche and Will Bradley, São Paulo: MASP, and London: Afterall, 2021, pp 404-417. [5] (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • "No hay alternativa: El futuro es la autogestión", trans. Ching Shih, et al., GASTV, n.d. (Spanish)

• "Lost in Normalisation", in Under Construction. Perspectives on Institutional Practice, eds. Vanessa Joan Mueller and Nicholas Schafhausen, Cologne: Walther König, 2006. pp 118-123

• "Take Me I'm Yours: Neoliberalising the Cultural Institution", Mute 2:5, April 2007. [6]

• "Flaxman Lodge. What a Waste", Frozen Tears 3, Article Press, 2007, pp 529-539.

• "Boom und Bankrott", die bildende 04: "Arbeitsverhältnisse", eds. Sabeth Buchmann and Marion von Osten, Vienna: Akademie der bildenden Kuenste Wien, December 2008. (German)

• "Notes on Art and Finance", Centre for Useless Splendour, 2009. [7]

• "Burn Baby Burn: Some Notes on Art and Finance", in How Can We Sing the Song of the Lord in an Alien Land? / PDF, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010, pp 256-259.

• "There is No Alternative: The Future is Self-Organised. Part 2" (with Stephan Dillemuth and Jakob Jakobsen), February 2012; repr. in Self-Organised, eds. Stine Hebert and Anne Szefer Karlsen, London: Open Editions, and Bergen: Hordaland Art Centre, 2013.
  • "Não existe alternativa: o futuro é auto-organizado", trans. Daniel Lühmann, Nossa Voz 1018, São Paulo: Casa do Povo, December 2017-January 2018; repr. in Arte e ativismo: antologia, eds. André Mesquita, Charles Esche and Will Bradley, São Paulo: MASP, and London: Afterall, 2021, pp 404-417. [8] (Brazilian Portuguese)

• Terms and Conditions: Welfare Edition, London: Wealth of Negations, March 2012, 46 pp.

• Terms and Conditions: Management Edition, London: Wealth of Negations, March 2013, 51 pp.

• "Political Contexts of 1970s Independent Filmmaking" (interview with Steve Sprung), in Other Cinemas. Politics, Culture and Experimental Film in the 1970's, I.B. Tauris, 2017, pp 56-72. Publisher.

• "Catch Me I'm Falling" (TIPPA, CVA Group and Wealth of Negations 2010-2014), in Potosí Principle Archive, Volume 1-4, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2022. Publisher.

Links

• Wealth of Negations

• Vagabundo, [9]

• Profile on UAL