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)

Glass Bead, 3: Site 2: Dark Room: Somatic Reason and Synthetic Eros (2019) [EN, FR, JP]

“This issue, produced in the framework of Okayama Art Summit 2019 (‘IF THE SNAKE’, curated by Pierre Huyghe, September 27 – November 24 2019, Japan), focuses on the concrete conditions of embodied thought. From the assessment of historical attempts at grounding critique in the body to the exploration of contemporary issues surrounding situated knowledge, from the analysis of the aesthetic and political economy at play in the encounter with advanced human-like sex robotics to the ways in which algorithms are transforming our sense of intimate relationships, and from the ways in which cruising practices subvert dominant discourses on architecture and the city to the libidinal economy at work in specific art forms, the contributions gathered in this issue navigate the fault line that articulates erotics and rationality.

‘Site 2. Dark Room: Somatic Reason and Synthetic Eros’ contends that contemporary upheavals concerning love, sex and reproduction are not mere side issues that can be safely dealt with in various already existing discursive regimes (e.g. biology, psychology, identity politics) but crucial transformative vectors for developing a renewed understanding of transdisciplinary reason.

The publication of this issue will be spanned across the duration of the triennial, with one new contribution uploaded every week.

With contributions by Adam Berg (artist, writer), Louis Chude-Sokei (writer), Cruising Pavilion (curatorial collective), Sally Haslanger (philosopher), Anna Longo (philosopher), Alexandra Hedako Mason (researcher), Matthew Poole (writer), Patricia Reed​ (artist, writer), Oli Surel (writer), and Three Billions of Perverts (archival material).”

Publisher Glass Bead, September-November 2019

HTML, PDFs (English)
HTML, PDFs (French)
PDFs (Japanese, added on 2020-1-15)
See also Issue 2

Dubravka Djurić, Miško Šuvaković (eds.): Impossible Histories: Historical Avant-gardes, Neo-avant-gardes, and Post-avant-gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918-1991 (2003)

“Impossible Histories is the first critical survey of the extraordinary experiments in the arts that took place in the former Yugoslavia from the country’s founding in 1918 to its breakup in 1991. The combination of Austro-Hungarian, French, German, Italian, and Turkish influences gave Yugoslavia’s avant-gardes a distinct character unlike those of other Eastern and Central European avant-gardes. The book explores movements such as Belgrade surrealism, signalism, Yugo-Dada, and zenitism; the groups Alfa, Exat 51, Gorgona, OHO, and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theater; or the magazines Danas, Rdeči pilot, Tank, Vecnost, and Zvrk.

The pieces in this collection offer comparative and interpretive accounts of the avant-gardes in the former Yugoslavian countries of Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The book is divided into four sections: Art and Politics; Literature; Visual Art and Architecture; and Art in Motion (covering theater, dance, music, film, and video). All of the contributors live in the region and many of them participated in the movements discussed. The book also reprints a selection of the most important manifestos generated by all phases of Yugoslav avant-garde activity.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2003
ISBN 0262042169, 9780262042161
xviii+605 pages
via agitprop

Reviews: Suzana Milevska (Springerin, 2004), Matthew S. Witkovsky (caa.reviews, 2004), Yevgeniy Fiks (Art Journal, 2004), Tyrus Miller (Modernism/modernity, 2005), Igor Marjanović (Design Issues, 2007).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (22 MB)