Hans-Ulrich Obrist: A Brief History of Curating (2008)

11 interviews with curatorial pioneers.

This publication is dedicated to pioneering curators and presents a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist: Anne d’Harnoncourt, Werner Hofman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hultén, and Harald Szeemann are gathered together in this volume.

The contributions map the development of the curatorial field, from early independent curating in the 1960s and 1970s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and in the USA at this time, through Documenta and the development of biennales.

The book is part of the Documents series, co-published with Les presses du réel and dedicated to critical writings.

Colaboradores Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Lionel Bovier
Publisher JRP / Ringier, 2008
Volume 3 of Documents Series
ISBN 390582955X, 9783905829556
302 pages

publisher
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Download (removed on 2014-1-7 upon request of the distributor)

34 Multimedia Magazine (2006–) [Belarusian, English]

34mag.net is an online Belarusian independent youth publication, ran from Minsk since 2006. Aside from its online articles it publishes theme-based issues on CD-ROM of which ISO images can be also downloaded. The issues cover a range of topics including Belarusian art and culture, migration, sex, rap news, street culture, or zine culture. Selected articles are translated to English.

The magazine received several awards including Free Media Pioneer Award at the International Press Institute’s 61st World Congress in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (2012), Free Media Pioneer Award of the International Press Institute (2012), and Gerd Bucerius Prize Award in the category of Free Press of Eastern Europe (2007).

CD-ROM ISO / HTML (Belarusian)
HTML (English)

What, How and for Whom (eds.): Dear Art (2012)

“Dear art,” Mladen Stilinović wrote in 1999, “I am writing you a love letter to cheer you up and encourage you to come and visit me some time”. Always acutely aware of his own complicity and involvement, in his address to art Stilinović intimates a set of troubled, poetic, enigmatic and modest observations on the standing of art in the contemporary world, its reception and distribution. But he also questions the value of art, which far too often is translated exclusively in monetary terms, or as he puts it: “quick manipulation, quick money, quick oblivion”.

As in several previous shows curated by What, How and for Whom/WHW, Dear Art takes its title from a work by Mladen Stilinović, and once again its wager is set on the “classical” exhibition format. Amidst the disillusionment created by the persistent feeling of failure (coming from the fact that attempts for a radical reconfiguration of art and cultural production in general always become almost immediately spectacularized), Dear Art insists on the obstinate repetition of what has become the curatorial method. Obsessed with the interconnectedness of art and politics and plagued by the nature of art’s “inefficiency,” it attempts to ask necessary questions: Why do we still need art, and what is it that we expect to get from art today? What is its promise, and what do we promise it in return? And what happens when this promise is broken, betrayed, and just plain exhausted?

“Dear Art” approaches questions of the artist’s autonomy and art’s necessity through works that deliberately blur the relationship between engagement, self-referentiality and aesthetics. Engaged with a range of contradictory, heterogeneous methods that affirm endurance, endure indecisiveness, face misunderstandings and reassert allegiances, the works included address the ways in which misunderstanding, confusion, regret, possession, appreciation and devaluation, support and solidarity play out in contemporary art practice, and in defining one’s practice in relation to discussions on reconfiguring the field of art and its relationship to the political.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication, with texts by Mladen Stilinović, WHW and Stephen Wright, featuring works by Mounira Al Solh & Bassam Ramlawi, Halil Altindere, Rossella Biscotti, Chto delat?, Every Man is a Curator / Jeder Mensch ist ein Kurator. An archive as a tool, Fokus grupa (Iva Kovač & Elvis Krstulović), Siniša Ilić, Sanja Iveković, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Lutz Krüger, Marina Naprushkina, Hila Peleg in collaboration with Tirdad Zolghadr & Anton Vidokle, Cesare Pietroiusti, Public Library (Luka Prinčič, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Vuk Ćosić), Greg Sholette, Mladen Stilinović, and Wendelien Van Oldenborgh.

Publisher Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, November 2012
56 pages

exhibition (29 November 2012 – 10 February 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Maistrova 3)

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