Jalal Toufic: Forthcoming (2000/2014)

14 December 2019, dusan

“Jalal Toufic is a thinker whose influence in the Beirut artistic community over the past two decades has been immense—notwithstanding that, as he put it, many, if not all of his books, most of which were published by Forthcoming Books, ‘continue to be forthcoming even after their publication.’ In relation to one of these books, he wondered: ‘Does not a book titled Forthcoming suggest, ostensibly paradoxically, a second edition?’ Here’s the revised edition of Forthcoming, a book first published nearly a decade and a half ago by Atelos press.” (Series editors Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle)

“I once wrote, ‘I am not able to find my thoughts without passing through his [Jalal Toufic’s] words, books, and concepts.’ Now, eight years later, things seem to have gotten worse (or better). Jalal wrote in Distracted: ‘— Are you saying this to me? — Also to myself. One should speak solely when also speaking to oneself. Only then is there a dialogue.’ I can also think of the following situation: ‘— Are you saying this to me? — Yes. And not to myself. And only to you.’ Or an instance in which the following is heard: ‘— Are you saying this to me? — Also to myself. One should speak solely when also speaking to oneself. Only then is there a duologue.’” (Walid Raad)

First published by Atelos, Berkeley, CA, 2000.

Second edition
Publisher Sternberg, Berlin, 2014
e-flux journal series
ISBN 9783956790553, 3956790553
296 pages

Interview with author (Aaron Kunin, Rain Taxi, 2001).
Review: Publishers Weekly (2001).

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Ilya Kabakov: On Art (2018)

15 December 2018, dusan

“During the 1960s and 1970s, the Russian conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov was a galvanizing figure in Moscow’s underground art community, ultimately gaining international prominence as the “leader” of a band of artists known as the Moscow Conceptual Circle. Throughout this time, he created texts that he would distribute among his friends, and by the late 1990s his written production amounted to hundreds of pages.

Devoted to themes that range from the “cosmism” of pre-Revolutionary Russian modernism to the philosophical implications of Moscow’s garbage, Kabakov’s handmade booklets were typed out on paper, then stapled or sewn together using rough butcher paper for their covers. Among these writings are faux Socialist Realist verses, theoretical explorations, art historical analyses, accompaniments to installation projects, and transcripts of dialogues between the artist and literary theorists, critics, journalists, and other artists.

This volume offers for the first time in English the most significant texts written by Kabakov. The writings have been expressly selected for this English-language volume.”

Edited and with an Introduction by Matthew Jesse Jackson
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis and Cynthia Martin with Matthew Jesse Jackson
Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2018
ISBN 9780226384566, 022638456X
432 pages

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