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, and with the Wealth of Negations group, coordinating communications on behalf of the migrant-led Cleaners & Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIWU).

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