Documenta X, the Book: Politics Poetics (1997)

“For the first time in the history of documenta, the companion publication attempts to go beyond a survey and interpretation of the exhibited works of art to document and analyze the cultural development of the western world from 1945 to 1997 in a rich selection of paintings, photos, plans, sketches, maps, essays, quotations, discussions, poems, philosophical essays and manifestos. The book unites the diverse forms of expression in an impressive collage. The artists of documenta X are introduced in a number of artist’s inserts. A provocative, enlivening and thoroughly current reader and reference work for anyone interested in the art and culture of our times.

Since 1955, the documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, has served as the world’s most important forum for contemporary art. This year’s series of interlocking exhibitions, conferences, performances, lectures, and – notably – publications will be the tenth documenta and the last of this century. Organized by the respected French curator Catherine David, documenta X is conceived as a manifestation culturelle including a program entitled “100 Days – 100 Guests” that will host an exceptional group of international figures. Acknowledging both the significance of its position at the end of the century and the dramatic aesthetic, technological, and political challenges facing culture in the future, Catherine David has carefully structured the programming for documenta X around two themes: first, a critical reflection on the development of culture since 1945, and, second, an interdisciplinary dialogue about the need for new categories of critical and political discourse. The question where culture stands today in the world serves as the focal intersection of these two organizing themes. Each previous documenta has had a profound impact on the art world: documenta X promises to serve as a genuinely international forum for artists, writers, and thinkers from all disciplines.

Conversations with: Benjamin Buchloh, New York; Andreas Branzi, Milan; Etienne Balibar, Paris; Jacques Rancière, Paris; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, New York Original contributions by: Peter Bürger, Bremen; Daniel Defert, Paris; Fabrizio Gallanti, Genoa; Serge Gruzinski, Paris; David Harvey, Baltimore; Masao Miyoshi, San Diego; Peter Noller and Klaus Ronneburger, Frankfurt; Hans-Joachim Ruckhaeberle, Berlin; Saskia Sassen, New York; Paul Sztulman, Paris, and others.”

Edited by documenta and Museum Fridericianum Veranstaltungs
Idea and conception by Catherine David and Jean-François Chevrier
Publisher Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997
ISBN 3893229116, 9783893229116
830 pages
via Arch

Exh. reviews: Monica Amor (Third Text, 1997), Nancy Princenthal (Art/Text, 1997), Masao Miyoshi (New Left Review, 1998), Sabine Fabo (Leonardo, 1998), Kathryn Hixson (New Art Examiner, 1997), more.
Commentary: Universes in Universe (n.d.)

Exhibition website (archived by Vuk Cosic)
Exhibition archive
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (74 MB)

William Andrews: Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima (2016)

“Following the March 2011 Tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, the media remarked with surprise on how thousands of demonstrators had flocked to the streets of Tokyo. But mass protest movements are nothing new in Japan. The post-war period experienced years of unrest and violence on both sides of the political spectrum: from demos to riots, strikes, campus occupations, factional infighting, assassinations and even international terrorism.

This is the first comprehensive history in English of political radicalism and counterculture in Japan, as well as of the artistic developments during this turbulent time. It chronicles the major events and movements from 1945 to the new flowering of protests and civil dissent in the wake of Fukushima. Introducing readers to often ignored aspects of Japanese society, it explores the fascinating ideologies and personalities on the Right and the Left, including the student movement, militant groups and communes. While some elements parallel developments in Europe and America, much of Japan’s radical recent past (and present) is unique and offers valuable lessons for understanding the context to the new waves of anti-government protests the nation is currently witnessing.”

Publisher Hurst, London, 2016
ISBN 9781849045797, 1849045798
xxv+356 pages

Reviews: Carl Cassegård (Journal of Japanese Studies, 2018), Winifred Bird (Kyoto Journal, 2018), Sean Ledwith (Counterfire, 2017), Don O’Keefe (Japan Times, 2016).

Book website
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (3 MB)

The Funambulist by its Readers: Political Geographies from Chicago and Elsewhere (2019)

“Initiated in 2015 as a print and online magazine, The Funambulist does not understand architecture as the authored design of inhabitable sculptures, but rather as the discipline that organizes bodies in space. With such a perspective, we have attempted to detach ourselves from architecture as a discipline and have focused instead on formulating spatial approaches to anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, queer, trans, feminist, anti-ableist political struggles and that against which they fight.

For this book commissionned by the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019, we have invited 20 regular readers (many of whom are also contributors) of The Funambulist to pick, among the many texts we published in our 22 first issues, the one that appeared to them as the most politically useful. We are republishing these texts here, as well as their introductions, written by these 20 guests.

In addition to this, we asked five Chicago-based activists to write about the spatial politics of their city in relation to settler colonialism, the municipality, the police, the real estate pressure, as well as the school system. At a crucial moment following the change of administration, this appeared to us as the most politically useful thing we could do to propagate the voices of those active on the ground.”

Edited by Léopold Lambert, et al.
Publisher The Funambulist, Paris, Sep 2019
Open access
ISBN 9782956935803
234 pages

Publisher

PDF (34 MB)