CATALOGUE 2020/2021 - Black Dog Press
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CATALOGUE 2020/2021
HELLO We are excited to present Black Dog Press’ new and upcoming titles for 2020, as well as a selection of our current titles, over the following pages. As independent publishers we are entirely focused on delivering a tightly-edited selection of beautiful and bespoke publications to the widest possible range of readers. From British Abstract art to forward-thinking drawing techniques, from Portuguese gastronomy to iconic vinyl, from the theory of war to Canadian confederation, our books explore a diverse array of subjects in the world of contemporary art and culture. Read on and enjoy.
NEW AND
UPCOMING TITLES
FROM TRANSPARENT DRAWING
2 3
EAT & ART PEDRO LEMOS
ALBUQUERQUE MENDES
“THE WORLD IS SO
CONTEMPORARY NOW”
Pedro Lemos’s eponymous restaurant is locat- But I felt it was about more than me and my body,
ed in the old Porto neighbourhood of Foz, in the so I was religious (and I still am). I loved colours,
midst of bleak, multi-coloured houses (just as which, at the time, was complicated. When I was
Pedro Lemos likes it) and close to the intriguing six, I went to buy my first suit and chose the fabric –
What’s the secret of good
Central Alley. The interior is dim, kind of inti- it was an orange, brown and black tartan and I
mate, the walls painted a greyish blue and dec- looked like a gangster. At the age of ten, I was us-
orated with pottery pieces by Bordalo Pinheiro, ing bright pink and lettuce green.
Portugal’s greatest ceramicist. Everything is el- “In Coimbra, I started going to concerts at the
food? What’s the key to great
egant, simple and refined. And we have to sur- age of 14 – seeing the likes of Vinícius Moraes
render. The artist Albuquerque Mendes shoots and Nara Leão, operas in Lisbon, and so on. In
immediately. “This reminds me of something 1969 I saw an exhibition in Coimbra organised
my son once said to me: ‘Dad, the world is so by the CAPC (Coimbra Plastic Arts Circle) and I
art? And what makes a simple
contemporary now.’ And it’s true, isn’t it?” signed up on the spot. It was a new world. I met
We go to the kitchen to shoot the pictures, Paula Rego and Helena Almeida, and my hori-
where Albuquerque dresses up and maybe even zons expanded.”
tin of canned fish such a
lifts up his heels to look taller. “Am I beautiful?” And ideas, where do they come from? Pedro
he asks. “I should have brought my clown’s nose.” takes things up.
Pedro laughs. But his face grows serious as “At the start, I sought the work of those who
he talks about his kitchen. were emerging. I began emulating and, little by
striking symbol of innovation
“Our strength is our stocks. They are impor- little, I found my path. Our cuisine is wonderful,
tant, and difficult, too. But we have to show peo- but monotonous. I admire it but I want to do new
ple how we use our time. Stocks give depth to things. The ideas come from memories or from
the dishes.” travels. They might come from a chip that we
and tradition? The answer to
We discover that both Pedro and Albuquerque have missing, or an extra chip in our minds.”
were meant to study civil engineering. Pedro Albuquerque talks of how ideas come to him,
stayed on the course until the pots and pans got and quotes a verse from José Jiménez: “Artists
in the way and led him to other forms of engi- are angels who fall from heaven to their mother’s
all these questions is the same: neering. But the story starts at the beginning…
“I had a magical childhood,” says Pedro. “My fa-
ther was an engineer and my mother was a nurse.
womb.” “I’m always giving ideas to everyone,” he
says. “Even if I tried, I could not keep them.”
Pedro also likes to share, as long as it’s here
creativity. When we unleash
There was a very traditional culture of great care. in his restaurant.
The table was always a special occasion. I learned “I don’t show anything on the internet or on
how to cook and, later, when I invited friends to social media,” he says. “People must come and
come over, they enjoyed my cooking. I came to see. I’m here, away from the world, with my el-
our creativity, incredible
the conclusion that in order to eat properly either derly neighbours whom I love. I used to be very
I would need to learn how to cook or become a aggressive, even impolite. Nowadays I’m more
great engineer. In the end it was all very natural.” calm and I just want to be happy with what I have
In matters of childhood and skewed paths, around me. I tell my 92-year-old neighbour that
things can happen.
Albuquerque is second to none. “As a child, I was I want to grow old like her, but she tells me the
a bit of a sissy,” he says. “I used to read, paint and secret is becoming a widow early.”
cook. I lived in a house full of women and I loved We smile one to another, notebooks are
that. At the age of ten, I moved from Trancoso to closed and the camera lens is covered. “Did it
Coimbra and wanted to become a priest. My father, go well?” asks Albuquerque. Everyone seems to
— CAN THE CAN Lisbon who was a communist, thought that a nonsense. think it went well, really well.
50 51
AUTHOR | CAN THE CAN Lisbon ALE
XAN
Eat & Art, from the people behind Lisbon’s famous
CAN THE CAN restaurant, brings together some of
Portugal’s finest chefs and artists, using the country’s
canning industry as the source of inspiration.
DRE
Using striking photography and contemporary
design, the book explores the undeniable affinities
between gastronomy and art. It features a fascinating
and expansive historical timeline, which charts
parallel events in the two fields, such as early
SARDINE, CITRUS FRUIT
Egyptian tomb painting and the Chinese cultivating AND GRILLED CABBAGE
soybeans, rice, wheat and barley to create noodles
in 3000 BCE.
S I L
The book aims to place the canning industry,
one of the oldest and most important in Portugal,
SEPTEMBER 2020 firmly in the international spotlight, presenting
VA
Hardback eighteen dynamic chef and artist pairings. The
ISBN 978-1-912165-23-0 combined output of these pairings, either as an SARDINES IN OLIVE
OIL WITH LEMON
£39.95 · $49.95 inspirational dish or innovative work of art, is a B RA N D M A R I N A
32 × 23 cm · 12.5 × 9 in visual feast that will feed the hearts, heads and
354 pages · 240 ills stomachs of readers. 142 143
4 5
40 41
R O
COMPLEX
D
2018
R I G O
CANS PAINTED
WITH ACRYLIC, CARDBOARD,
WOOD AND CEMENT
O L I V
80 × 60 × 15 CM
E I R A
238 239
6 7
FRACTURED LIGHT
JOHNNIE COOPER:
COLLAGES 1992–1997
Rainbow, 1994
50 51
AUTHORS | Mel Gooding, Gabriella Pounds
SEPTEMBER 2020 Fractured Light focuses on a key body of work
Hardback by the British artist Johnnie Cooper, which was
ISBN 978-1-912165-24-7 instrumental in his transformation from sculptor
£34.95 · $44.95 to painter. Throughout the 1990s, with a renewed
33 × 24 cm · 13 × 9 in dedication Cooper embarked on an industrious
160 pages · 100 ills and experimental trajectory with paint and collage.
These works on paper, made by layering
multiple strips of paintings, were directly inspired
by a series of large assemblage works the artist
constructed during the late 1980s, when the
culmination of his work in art education brought a
new found freedom. The view from a new studio in
rural Gloucestershire conjured fresh inspirations
and instilled a fascination with the ever-changing
colour, shape and light values that fractured
through a nearby woodland over the course
of a day.
This book documents an important part of
Cooper’s oeuvre and is a must for enthusiasts
of Johnnie’s work or anyone who is into British
Expressionism or abstract art. It accompanies
JOHNNIE COOPER | SUNSET STRIP an exhibition, also called Fractured Light, and
Contributors | Peter Murray, Tom Hastings follows Johnnie Cooper: Sunset Strip, a major
Silver Birch Shadow, 1995
HB · ISBN 978-1-912165-09-4 monograph on the artist in 2019, also published
£29.95 · $39.95
by Black Dog Press.
28 × 23 cm · 11 × 9 in
78 79
240 pages · 150 ills
8 9
Thunder Sunset, 1993
112 113
Toward Evening, 1996
130 131
10 11
SHAME & PREJUDICE:
A STORY OF RESILIENCE
KENT MONKMAN
2
_____________________
Fathers of
Confederation
_____________________
Les Pères de
la confédération
CONTRIBUTORS | Kent Monkman,
Barbara Fischer, Lucy Lippard, Richard Hill
and John Ralston Saul
Artist Kent Monkman’s all-encompassing project,
Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, takes
viewers on a journey through Canada’s history,
starting in the present and going back to before
Canadian confederation. Throughout the book
there are clever, albeit controversial, commentaries
told by Monkman’s genderfluid, time-travelling,
supernatural alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.
Her narratives take viewers through the history
of New France and the fur trade, the nineteenth-
century dispossession of First Nations lands
through Canadian colonial policies, the horrors 42
43
of the residential school system, and modern
First Nations experiences in urban environments. L k p> q
r>
F e 1813
Shame and Prejudice challenges predominant
p (Y P%) q
narratives of Canadian history and honours the > r p p>
V V p>
resilience of First Nations peoples. p F
> pr A pV > p
This book accompanies Monkman’s largest p > p k
r V u kq p e
solo exhibition to date, which is currently travelling F k
P#k k k
2007
across Canada at venues including the Art Museum
J k
at the University of Toronto, the Winnipeg Art pp> k k pp>
r k p
Gallery, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and pJk Jp > >
qe> >
the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. p > k
r V p eWpk V ep
uV V Q >
The exhibition includes the artist’s own paintings, pk p p
11 kp p p uV
drawings, and sculptural works, which form a u e
p T u
e p
dialogue with historical artefacts and artworks _________
SEPTEMBER 2020
Et encore plus. Ce fois
çi en Français et un peut
plus longue, Même en trois
borrowed from museums and private collections lignes.
Hardback
_________
This could be a short
across Canada. The book is trilingual with all text caption. And it could
ISBN 978-1-912165-26-1
continue.
in English, French and Cree.
£39.95 · $49.95 | | 2
28 × 23 cm · 11 × 9 in THIS TITLE IS PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ART
272 pages · 200 ills MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.
12 13
> 78 >> 108, 107
78
could be a cap-
tion. This could be
a caption.
_________
Kent Monkman, Seeing Red,
2014
_________
Kent Monkman,
Réincarcération, 2014
tion. This could be
a caption. This could
be a caption.
_________
Objects made by Kapawe’no
First Nation students of the
Grouard Residential School
for the principal of the school,
1925–1931.
_________
Tous ces objets ont été
confectionnés par des élèves
du pensionnat Grouard pour le
directeur de l’école
59
61
72
tion. This could
be a caption.
This co
_________
Kent Monkman, The
Scream, 2017 (detail)
_________
Kent Monkman, Le Cri,
2017 (détail)
14 15
Contents TRANSFORMATIVE
AVANT-GARDE AND
7 Introduction: Reading IDENTITY/CULTURAL 175 Open Transmission 263 Making of Out/Inside(rs)
Wodiczko PROSTHETICS 2000 AN INTERV IEW WITH
RO S A LY N DE U T S C H E JARO S L AV AND ĚL
94 Beyond Hybrid State 2013
WA R R E N N I E S Ł U CH OW S K I A N D MONUMENT/PROJECTION 276 Casting Shadows:
DEMOCRACY/AVANT-GARDE K R Z YS Z TO F WO D I CZ KO If You See Something...
1992 184 I Want to be a Catalyst AN INTERV IEW WITH
16 Maine College of Art 101 An Interview with Bruce Robbins AN INTERV IEW WITH KATHL EEN M ACQ UEEN
OTHER WRITINGS
Commencement Address 1996 WIL L IAM F URLO NG 2014
2004 107 On Alien Staff 1988 287 The Inner Public
20 Creating Democracy A N I N T E RV I E W W I T H 187 Memorial Projection 2015
A N I N T E RV I E W W IT H TO M FI N K E L P E A R L 1986
PAT RI C IA C PH IL L I PS 2001 190 Public Projection
2003 112 Xenology: Immigrant Instruments 1983 WAR/UN-WAR
26 The City, Democracy 1996 193 A Conversation between Douglas
and Artistic Practice 114 Cultural Prosthetics Crimp, Rosalyn Deutsche, Ewa Lajer- 302 Message from the Artist
2007 2015 Burcharth and Krzysztof Wodiczko 1999
38 Realism as a Course of Life 121 Designing for the City of Strangers 1986 304 City of Refuge: A 9/11 Memorial
AN INTERVIEW 1997 206 The Venice Projections 2009
WITH SC APEGOAT 129 The Prophet’s Prosthesis 1986 310 Response to the October Questionnaire
2012 A N I N T E RV I E W W I T H 208 The Homeless Projection: AUG US T 2 0 0 7
45 I’m for the Academy C H R I S T I A N E PAU L A Proposal for the City of New York 317 Constructing Peace
A N I N T E RV I E W 1999 1986 AN INTERV IEW WITH
A Conversation with Marek Bartelik Projection on the Monument
AUTHOR | Krzysztof Wodiczko
W IT H K BA N AC H OW S K A 135 210 CARO L BECKER
1977 D ECE M B E R 2006 to Friedrich II, Kassel 2012
48 West/East: The Depoliticization 1987 322 Arc de Triomphe: World Institute for the
of Art 212 Speaking Through Monuments Abolition of War
K A RL B E RV E RIDG E A N D INTERROGATIVE DESIGN 1988 2010
K RZ YS Z TO F WO DI C Z KO 214 City Hall Tower Projection, Kraków 328 The Culture of War
1980 142 Interrogative Design 1996 2012
51 Personal Instrument: 1994 218 Instruments, Monuments, Projections 334 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:
A Response to Maria Morzuch 144 Homeless Vehicle Project 2003 The Józef Rotblat Institute for
1992 DAV I D LU R I E A N D 227 Monumental Interruption the Abolition of War
54 For the De-incapacitation K R Z YS Z TO F WO D I CZ KO 2004 2015
62
of the Avant-Garde in Canada
1984
Avant-Garde as Public Art:
the Future of a Tradition
149
153
1988– 1989
Poliscar
1991
An Interview with Bruce W Ferguson
232 Communicating Through Statues
2004
341
344
Un-War Cities
2012
The American Civil War
Memorial Institute
The fourth publication of Krzysztof Wodiczko
PARRHÉSÍA/INNER PUBLIC
with Black Dog Press, exploring the artist and
1998 1991 2 0 1 8 AND 2 0 1 9
66 Liberate the Avant-Garde 161 Alien Staff (Xenobacul) 352 The 70th Anniversary
G REG O RY S H O L E T T E A N D 1992 236 The Fearless Monument Speaks of the Hiroshima Bombing
K RZ YS Z TO F WO DI C Z KO 163 The Mouthpiece (Le porte-parole) 2003 AUG US T 2 0 1 5
2014 1993 240 Critical Guests 357 Global Warming and Nuclear Weapons
writer’s distinctive oeuvre. Transformative Avant-
74 Transformative Avant-Garde: 166 Variants of the Mouthpiece JO HN RAJCHM AN AND AUG US T 2 0 1 7
A Manifest of the Present (Le porte-parole) KRZYS ZTO F WO D ICZKO
2014 1995– 1997 2009
85 Art, Design and Education 168 Ægis: Equipment for a City of Strangers 246 Art, Trauma and Parrhésía 360 Bibliography
2015 1998 2011
172 Dis-Armor
1998
254 War Veteran Vehicle
AN INTERV IEW WITH BEN PARRY
2012
361
362
Acknowledgments
Index
Garde and Other Writings is a comprehensive
The City, Democracy,
and Artistic Practice
democracy will die and it will be like it was in the communist Poland before I left.
Nobody told me about all that before I left Poland. I suspect that then nobody
really knew it. Who then would dare say that when democracy reaches the point
collection of Wodiczko’s writing from the 1970s to
of stability and the safeguarded guarantee of its existence, it disappears? Who
2007 would dare say that democracy often equals risky work and a battle?
As an immigrant from Poland rooted in the Polish tradition and in the
emigrant tradition, I started to think more and more about Adam Mickiewicz. I
the present day, providing a new perspective on
War/Un-War
remembered that the title Trybuna Ludu (The Tribune of People) was a loan name
this often controversial artist. An in-depth book that
from a socialist and Christian journal, La Tribune des Peuples, co-established by
Mickiewicz who was also its editor-in-chief. In this journal the poet published the 27
so-called “constitution for Europe” that is a “set of principles” in which he put
forward the issue of “otherness”, stressing the importance of equal rights for
peasants, women and Jews and where he also formulated a certain social program.
How was it possible to learn the democratic tradition if the words
themselves such as: “democracy”, “socialist democracy”, “citizen”, “social
good”, “conditions of existence”, “equality of rights”, “social activism”, “political
activism”, “economic equality”, “social equality”, “political awareness”, “social
represents the many political, social and theoretical
class”, etc all sounded like petrifying slogans from the communist newspaper
Trybuna Ludu and belonged to the language of the place I wanted to run away
from as far as I could? Already I realized then that irrespective of the language,
which was made infamous and corrupted by the communist regime, everything
that is democratic has to have a close link with what is social, political, ethical
motivations and concerns of Wodiczko’s work, this
is a must for art and culture theorists and fans alike.
and artistic. The work for the cause of democracy has to be continued. We need
Aeschylus: Why should we admire a poet? to restore and refresh the meaning of the language of democracy.
Euripides: For his intelligence and his admonishments, his warnings, and Today Ladies and Gentlemen, you and I are at the same point of the
because we make men in the cities better. above mentioned restoration of meaning to the language of democracy and are
Aristophanes, The Frogs in the process of working for democracy; myself, who as many others was exiled
Introduction
In 1977 I left the then undemocratic Poland in my quest for democracy. However,
from Poland by communism, and you, who forced communism to be exiled from
Poland. Today, we meet on the same democratic grounds.
The City
This overarching publication highlights the
equal merits of Wodiczko’s writings in respect of his
I have not managed to find democracy as something ready-made that could give The city—the civitas, topos, locus that means “a place”. Since the 18 April
me something concrete. I thought erroneously that, contrary to the bad ‘presents’ 1791 Free Royal Cities Act, an integral part of the Constitution of 3 May 1791
which we had always received from an undemocratic system, a democratic system adopted by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city is the place where
would give me good ‘presents’. Fairly quickly I came to realize that my hope for city-dwellers are equal and free. However, despite this highly inspiring promise,
finding democracy and receiving its presents is a utopia. Crossing more and more and perhaps because of it, the city’s egalitarianism and its freedoms and rights
new frontiers of different countries and cities I came to realize that democracy is
something that has to be made by ourselves because nobody can make it via ‘a
directive from above’. Democracy cannot be made for us without us. Democracy
cannot be ordered upon us, unless we are willing to accept the ‘democracy’ of
are being put to test every day. The city promises all its citizens to be protective,
supportive, open to newcomers, open to new cultures, practices and discourses
and yet the city does not always manage to deliver this promise and be open
and inclusive enough. The city is both the stage and the stake of democracy.
artistic practice, demonstrating the overlapping
President Putin. By its very nature democracy cannot offer anything definite Paraphrasing Jacques Derrida, it is possible to say that, “the city does not exist”.
beyond constitutional rights, which are in fact only a conceptual ‘legal right’, the
right to have rights, to persistently ask for human and political rights, to strive
for the rights to be stable and all inclusive for ourselves and for others.
In my unending pilgrimage to democracy I also started to understand that
Like democracy the city is a phantom, “a thing to come” (a venire), a “thing to
become”. And this is where our ethical and political responsibility comes in as
a continuous, constantly repeated effort (encore un effort) and work on the city.
This effort and work requires political passion and the freedom to express one’s
influences and considerations that run throughout
his life.
the privilege of having the rights which democracy can offer is connected to the views, the right to disagree (dissensus), to protest, to contradict and to intervene.
duty to wake it up from the lethargic sleep it has a tendency to drift into it. I saw Emmanuel Levinas said that “the political hierarchy and totality of Athens” and
clearly that there is nothing worse for democracy than the passiveness of its “the ethical and anarchic individualism of Jerusalem” are equally indispensable
citizens. I came to understand that if dominated by those who will strengthen in order to suppress violence and secure the democratic process. The city as a
their own rights at the expense of limiting access to these rights of others, community must be continuously and simultaneously created and delegitimized
Transformative Avant-Garde and Other Writings Democracy/Avant-Garde
Wodiczko is famed for his large-scale,
Arc de Triomphe: World Institute for the Abolition of War, 2010
politically-charged video and slide projections,
projected onto prominent architectural structures.
Monument/ SEPTEMBER 2020 Since the 1980s, his work has been engaging
Projection Hardback marginalised residents of cities to make their
ISBN 978-1-912165-28-5
The Survivors of Survivors groups, communities and society at large, as those who can offer a unique and
The person who assists another person in surviving is a survivor also, and she or
he may also be in a need of cultural-prosthetic equipment.
The lost breast or prostate of one member of the family is a lost breast or
valuable contribution to it.
War Veterans
voice and experience public. He is Professor in
£29.95 · $39.95
prostate for an entire family. The lost leg of a father in the fog of war is a lost leg War veterans suffer—perhaps even more than other survivors—a loss of capacity
Residence at Harvard University, and was awarded
suffered by his entire family. For the family whose members have been physically to communicate and express emotions, to convey their overwhelming feelings
or psychologically traumatized in war the trauma is of the loss of the persons that and memories of war and post-war events and experiences. For psychological
they once were. and cultural reasons only a small percentage of them, and almost none of their
Cultural prostheses are clearly required not only for survivors, but also for families or those close to them, speak of this publicly.
25 × 17 cm · 10 × 6.7 in
116 their loved ones, those who suffer traumatic symptoms via secondary trauma: the Their incapacitation denies them a chance to share their experience with 117
survivors of survivors.
Family members and partners who are caregivers for those impaired by war,
congenital defect, accident, or illness also have a primary need for prostheses,
society at large, especially with younger people (including those who might wish to
join the military) and to help people learn the realities of war rather than absorbing
romanticized media phantasms of war and military recruitment propaganda.
the Hiroshima Prize in 1998 for his contribution as
368 pages · 7 ills
so that they too should have the possibility and means to bear their loss together, Veterans’ communicative incapacitation contributes to a distorted public image and
an artist to world peace.
without the moral blackmail that prevents them from also being recognized among imagination of war, leading only to the perpetuation of wars. As a result, the public
the wounded and amputees: as survivors in their own right. remain unaware of what they and their families may face in the event that they join
What kind of cultural-prosthetic equipment might they both need, and, the military and go to war. The development of cultural prostheses would therefore
when appropriate, collectively, in tandem or separately, use or share? play a vital role in helping veterans in the vital task of developing and disseminating
a greater societal awareness of war.
Communicative Prostheses
Technically advanced prosthetic substitutes for parts of our bodies are within US War Veterans
reach, but the loss of a breast, eye, hand, foot, arm, or leg also constitute a Only those who have been through war can tell us what war has done to them and
charged cultural and psychological domain. Responding to the physical and their comrades, to their ‘enemies’ and to civilians, and what war will continue to
emotional needs of the survivors of such loss, we must envisage innovative do should it occur again.
psycho-social and techno-aesthetic approaches. Such new cultural-prosthetic Unfortunately the wall that separates those who know what war is and those
equipment can aid in the process of recoding the ‘self’ beyond mere substitution who do not is a thick one. To challenge such a social divide is a difficult task, not
and improvement; to empower the impaired with new abilities, including the only because of the very small number of veterans who are inclined to and able to
virtuosity to regain and acquire an invigorated sense of personal and social speak of war but also, and especially, because uninformed and misguided younger
worth. The design and technology of cultural prostheses must offer its users both people, potential new soldiers and future veterans, are not inclined to listen. They
inspiration and assistance in the process of developing new forms and skills of are poisoned by our war-based national and ethnic cultures and by the recruitment
communication and expression, which will aid users in resuscitating lost social propaganda with which they were brought up. They will not listen as they seek an
ties and connections or to create new ones. ideological path to noble missions.
In order to proceed, we must respond to the core questions in the In such a situation, to close the divide between the minority who are
development of prostheses. What kind of prosthesis can be designed, equipped, conscious of war and the unconscious majority who are not, requires extraordinary
and ‘fitted’ to overcome survivors’ physical, cultural and social impairment? cultural and artistic measures. It requires an invention of some thing in-between,
How will our prosthetic design resolve those impaired zones and other aspects some transitional artifice through which veterans experienced in war can
of their emotional, family, cultural and social lives? Could, for example, today’s communicate in public. Both war veterans and the path to a war-free world require
technologically advanced prostheses be further enhanced by integrated the design of special kind of cultural prosthesis.
communications like electronic memory, interactive software, sensors, audio-
visual display and projection components, as well as wireless communication A New Type of War
and transmission functions? We are engaged in a new type of warfare in which 80 per cent of soldiers have been
Finally, via a greater inventiveness, elegance, artistry and symbolic trained and desensitized so as to better be able to kill (in contrast to 20 per cent Proposal for a public projection at Place de La République, 2000
articulation, can we displace, disrupt, and challenge the stereotypical and of those who killed in the Second World War). At the same time advanced medical
often degrading perceptions of survivors of illness, displacement, social and field technology and armor saves more lives. Every US soldier killed leaves
cultural exclusion, accident or war? A cultural prosthesis must help its users, 16 comrades who survive. The greater survival rate contributes to a greater Democracy/Avant-Garde
wearers, operators, and performers transform themselves into agents who number of traumatized veterans, survivors who have killed more ‘enemies’ and have
are different from others not by virtue of their psycho-logical and physical witnessed more killing and wounding. More of them will return alive and more of them
disadvantage, but through their new bodily and mental skills and expressive traumatized. An estimated one-fifth of current veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan
communicative capacities. Cultural prostheses must allow users to be conflicts report suffering from PTSD. Upon their return from war, many will live as if
admired, desired, respected, and welcomed as legitimate members of social dead, or have a deadly and violent life. Many will commit suicide.
Transformative Avant-Garde and Other Writings Identity/Cultural Prosthetics
A Personal Note Art, Design and Education
Being ahead of oneself and beside oneself, ahead and beside the ways of one’s
own upbringing, ahead and beside acquired and outdated norms, values and 2015
patterns of thinking, beyond acceptance of one’s own conditions of life, is a
psycho-social, political and ethical imperative for changing such norms, patterns,
values and conditions in oneself and in the larger outside world.
To transform the world one must transform oneself, and transforming the
world helps self-transformation. This is the conviction that informs the pursuits
of my own work and of the work of many fellow artists who have chosen to join
84 or are an unintentional part of the transformative avant-garde.
Art is a communicative, developmental psycho-aesthetic, and socio-
expressive tool, as well as a prophetic and magical force. The transformative
avant-garde is born of the artists’ existential, social, political and ethical
consciousness, their critical motivation and visionary will, and of their capacity
and skills in making full use of and mastering such force.
It is a true task to match our avant-garde predecessors in the ambition,
scale, and scope of their transformative projects, in the impact they have
had on public consciousness, in their fearless and proactive challenge to our
conservative patterns of thinking and feeling, and to our addictions to the
ideologies of our cultures and to our life immersed in everyday phantasms.
I am not ashamed and afraid to see myself, call myself and be seen by others
as an avant-garde artist. I am only afraid that in my attempts to respond to the
present world, and to myself within it, in a critical, transformative and proactive
way, I may not be, or have been, avant-garde enough. What art works most influenced your ideas about the role of the artist when
you were starting out?
Krzysztof Wodiczko: Before answering any questions, I want to say that I find it
This text was inspired by the book by Andrzej Turowski, Manifest/Manifesto. very difficult to advise people on the basis of my own experience because I don’t
Sztuka, ktora wznieca niepokoj/Art That Sparks Unrest: The Artistic-Political want anyone to simply follow me. Everyone is different! In any case, I don’t know
Manifesto Of Particular Art, Warsaw: Ksiazka i Prasa, 2012. Originally published what use my own art experience may be for young artists today. So, please take
in Third Text, vol 28, issue 2, 2014, pp 111–122. note of this qualification. In this context I would say to them: listen to me, if you
wish, but do not ‘believe’ me, nor take me as an example, especially as your ‘best’
or only example.
KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO CITY OF REFUGE | A 9/11 MEMORIAL THE ABOLITION OF WAR
1 Such general feeling prevails in most countries but is especially evident in the United States. In responding to you question it is difficult to suggest one single image or art
2 Arendt, Hannah, “We Refugees”, Menorah Journal 1, 1942, p 77.
3 See Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde, Michael Shaw trans, Minneapolis:
object that has been the most important for me, but I can suggest a few things that
University of Minnesota Press, (1974) 1984. set the course for my work. First and foremost, there were things that I have read.
Contributors | Rosalyn Deutsche, Author | Krzysztof Wodiczko Author | Krzysztof Wodiczko
4 Joseph Pine II, B and James H Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater
and Every Business a Stage, Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011, p 17.
Reading the book by Linda Nochlin, called Realism, 1971, was a real event in my
5 Pine and Gilmore, The Experience Economy, p 255. life. It was translated into Polish quite quickly and I read it when still living in Poland
6 See the Wikipedia entry on “Creative Class”. See also Florida, Richard, The Rise of
the Creative Class... And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday
in the early 1970s, quite soon after I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in
Life, New York: Basic Books, 2002, p 8. Warsaw. Another important reference was the book Design for the Real World by
Lisa Saltzman, Andrzej Turowski et al PB · ISBN 978-1-906155-80-3 PB · ISBN 978-1-907317-66-8
7 I speak here of conflict transformation, rather than conflict management or conflict
resolution. See for instance Miall, Hugh, Conflict Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional
Victor Papanek, 1971, and also writings On Theatre by Bertolt Brecht, 1978.
Task, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, 2004, In terms of art, learning about the Soviet Constructivist, and Productivist
available online at http://www.berghof-handbook.net/documents/publications/
miall_handbook.pdf.
art inspired me. Thinking of a specific artwork that always stays in my mind, I
must recall a small painting by Honoré Daumier called The Third Class Carriage,
HB · ISBN 978-1-907317-13-2 £19.95 · $29.95 £14.95 · $24.95
8 These are the words of Johan Galtung, the originator of “peace studies” who
distinguished between positive and negative peace. See “Negative versus Positive
Peace”, on the Irenees Peace Workshop, 2007, available at http://www.irenees.
and also works by Vladimir Tatlin, especially one called Letatlin, and John
net/bdf_fiche-notions-186_en.html. See also the United Nations Department of Heartfield’s photomontages for AIZ magazine. Of course, the work of visionary
Economic and Social Affairs, The Centre for Conflict Resolution, Skills Development
for Conflict Transformation: A Training Manual on Understanding Conflict, Negotiation
designers, such as Buckminster Fuller and Lucien Kroll, were very important for
£39.95 · $59.95 21 × 15 cm · 8 × 6 in 21 × 15 cm · 8 × 6 in
and Mediation, 1997, available at http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/ me as well. So as you can see both the tradition of critical art and avant-garde
documents/un/unpan001363.pdf.
design have played an important role in my life.
The one particular project that also sticks in my mind is a 1922 project by
the avant-garde composer Arseny Avraamov. It was called Symphony of Factory Sirens
Transformative Avant-Garde and Other Writings Democracy/Avant-Garde
26 × 21 cm · 10 × 8 in 120 pages · 24 ills 144 pages · 80 ills
368 pages · 200 ills
16 17TRANSPARENT
DRAWING
With an artistic mindset,
we don’t always draw what
we can’t see. And because we
don’t draw it, we can’t fully
understand it. — Kurt Ofer
AUTHOR | Kurt Ofer
With an artistic mindset, we don’t always draw
what we can’t see. And because we don’t draw
it, we can’t fully understand it.
To challenge this restricted outlook, architect
Kurt Ofer has formulated an utterly unique way of
drawing, which gives a superior understanding
of form. By following the method of ‘transparent
drawing’, you ignore an object’s opacity and see
beyond its surface, allowing you to draw it in a
very distinct and holistic way. This enables us to
fully see and understand the object, and brings
unimaginable results.
Transparent Drawing will appeal to anyone
who has ever picked up a pencil and made marks
on a piece of paper. The book questions why we
draw, but it is not a book on how to draw. It is clear
that through Ofer’s detailed exploration of various
SEPTEMBER 2020 drawing movements through history, taking into
Paperback account prominent thinkers and philosophers,
ISBN 978-1-911339-34-2 the purpose of the book is not only to advance a
£29.95 · $39.95 new mode of drawing, but to enrich readers with a
27 × 22 cm · 10.6 × 8.6 in knowledge, which gives a previously inconceivable
192 pages · 170 ills outcome when put into practice.
18 1920 21
FORM 32 Jeff Thomas
Dreamscape Street Car Dundas Street, 1987
Carole Condé & Karl Beveridge
Work in Progress, 1980–2006
33
FOLLOWS FICTION
ART AND ARTISTS
IN TORONTO The purpose of locating nations in urban landscapes in this exhibit
is twofold. Firstly it acknowledges the empirical reality of aboriginal
peoples who have been historically displaced from traditional lands,
and recognizes the importance and the legitimacy of the hybrid
histories that have arisen out of their displacement. Secondly, it
metaphorically situates all aboriginal or indigenous peoples – Native,
Indian, Inuit, and Métis – as Nations in an urban landscape.… Some
aboriginal people would remain living on reserve; others would live
12 Luis Jacob
WHEN FICTIONS
13 both on reserve and in urban communities, commuting between the
The Demonstration, 2013 two; some would choose “enfranchisement,” believing it to be the
only possible way to live a decent life, while continuing to identify
BECOME FORM
themselves with their traditional territories and cultures; others would
choose to integrate as fully as possible into “modern” Canadian
society; and still others did not self-consciously choose their place in
society, but were born and raised within the unquestioned centricity of
Euro-Canadian ideology and its liberal values. I use the term “choose”
loosely here, recognizing that few real choices were available to First
Nations people, that these “choices” have been mitigated and limited by
the legal and social impact of colonial imperialism.
— Marica Crosby, “Nations in Urban Landscapes” (p.12)
The centre of reality is wherever one happens to be, and
its circumference is whatever one’s imagination can make
sense of....
– Northrop Frye1
94 General Idea Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay 95
....no books this time, nodictionaries to hang on to, The 1971 Miss General Idea Pageant, 1971 Audition Tape, 2003
just me and the citythat’s never happened before, and
happenedthough not ever like this....
– Dionne Brand2
There are moments when the patterns that inform our view of things
are made visible as patterns. The informing attitude that we customarily
but unreflectively assume towards things is suddenly revealed. Such
moments of recognition are transformative. Things around us take a
new form that is inflected by this objectification of our attitudes, and we
are endowed with new subjective resources to engage with what we had
formerly passively accepted as being ‘the way things are’.
The epiphany is extravagant. Like fractals, its effects flow
in multiple directions and take place at various registers. The
transformation is a change in the way we think. More fundamentally, it
is also a change in the ways that things present themselves to us. On the
one hand, we see things through a new lens; on the other hand, it is the
things themselves that teach us new ways of seeing our surroundings.
The eye, the mind and the heart are altered. What is revealed in these
patterns is simultaneously who we are, in our social and personal modes
of being, and where we are, in the setting of shared world-views and in
the context of our material means of subsistence.
These phenomena are intertwined. Eye, mind and heart, our
perspectival attitudes and the ways that things reveal themselves, the
‘who’ and the ‘where’ of our identities—all these things coalesce around
an idea of place, which serves to define the structured and structuring
features of existence.
****
FORM FOLLOWS FICTION:
ART AND ARTISTS IN TORONTO [During the 1970s] the downtown art scene operated not in a vacuum
but, let’s say, in a vacancy. Part of that vacancy was the open territory
of the downtown Toronto landscape where it would situate itself – a
LUIS JACOB sketchy neighbourhood right on the edge of the financial district, with
its dive hotels, drinking taverns, greasy spoons, and empty turn-of-
the-century warehouses surrounded by vast parking lots, the residue of
demolished buildings. It was pretty vacant. And nobody was watching.
— Philip Monk, “Is Toronto Burning? Three Years in the Making
(and Unmaking) of the Toronto Art Scene” (pg.15)
EDITOR | Luis Jacob
130 Ian Carr-Harris Michael Snow 131
But she taught me more, 1977 Walking Woman in Toronto Subway, 1963/2016
How do artists in Toronto visualise their sense of
SEPTEMBER 2020
place? Are there particular ‘made-in-Toronto’ ways
Hardback
of thinking about the city? With work selected by
ISBN 978-1-912165-27-8
internationally renowned Toronto-based artist
£34.95 · $44.95
Luis Jacob, Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists
28 × 23 cm · 11 × 9 in
in Toronto considers the ways in which artists see
240 pages · 227 ills
Toronto, throughout a period of fifty years. Presenting 126 Ian Carr-Harris
Wendy Sage Being Compared, 1973
Roula Partheniou
Dopplekopf, 2013
127
a thematic clustering of works by 86 artists, the book
On any given day one can likely catch at least one festival screening in
is premised on the tendency of artists in the city to the city…. This is a city that likes to watch moving images of all sorts….”
— Richard Fung, “We Like to Watch: Toronto’s Passion for Film
Festivals” (in ‘Explosion in the Movie Machine: Essays and
favour performative and allegorical procedures to
Documents on Toronto Artists’ Film and Video’ pg.139)
articulate their sense of place.
Four gestures—mapping, modelling, performing 164 This is Paradise
Dot Tuer once described the following strange encounter:
Form Follows Fiction
shifting, and they all want it to stop—and if that means
they must pretend to know nothing, well, that’s the
165
and congregating—serve as guideposts to a diverse
In a few brief years, KAA/CEAC [Kensington sacrifice they make.4
Arts Association/Centre for Experimental Art and
Communication], published catalogues, nine issues of Toronto is Ojibway/Anishinaabe land... and yet for Brand hardly any of
Art Communication Edition (A.C.E.), and three issues of its settler-inhabitants knows or cares about this shared reality. Except
STRIKE magazine; it organized exhibitions, conferences, that the very name of this city is but one of the surviving and enduring
international tours, workshops, performances, film and traces of Indigenous language that informs their tongues, their mouths,
array of artistic practices. The book is a constellation video screenings, and music events. During 1976 and
1977, there was literally an event held at CEAC every
night of the week. Yet a decade and a generation later,
it is only through talking to individual artists involved
in CEAC that I learn of its existence.… And it is only
and their ears each time they call their home “Toronto”... which they
nonetheless fail to recognize as such.5
Social reciprocity—the sandpaper friction of bodies compressed
in the city—creates the energy that reanimates the wounds which have
been buried and kept withheld:
of symbolic forms, or memes, that repeatedly appear
through archival research that I am able to uncover,
in a fragmented and hieroglyphic form, evidence of its But as in any crossroad there are permutations of
activities and copies of its publications, all of which seem existence. People turn into other people imperceptibly,
to have vanished without a trace from the Toronto art unconsciously, right here in the grumbling train. And on
community’s historical record.2 the sidewalks, after they have emerged from the stations,
after being sandpapered by the jostling and scraping a
in the work of artists of different generations; it
This passage forcefully articulates the intertwining of the tangled garden city like this does, all the lives they’ve hoarded, all the
and the vacant lot. A remarkable outpouring of artistic, discursive and ghosts they’ve carried, all the inversions they’ve made
social activity centred in one of Toronto’s many artist-run centres, results for protection, all the scars and marks and records for
a decade later in a nearly absolute erasure of its existence. Plenitude recognition—the whole heterogeneous baggage falls out
dissipates in an entropy of forgetting. But the vacant lot of historical with each step on the pavement. There’s so much spillage.6
neglect leads to another turn in the lifecycle. The city’s amnesia towards
presents a panorama of the blueprints that artists its own cultural ecology is inversely reflected in the historian’s dawning
realization of proliferating and interconnecting forms of life—the
imperceptible thrusting of a carpet world: “In researching CEAC, I was
left with the impression that I had excavated but one layer of a 1970s
local context for art as a political and social practice. The early years of
Culture is the name we give to this spillage in a city understood as the
meeting-place of identities contending with the entangled facts of their
formation. In the magnetic push-and-pull of heterogeneous desires,
culture is the social site of encounter of vulnerable identities, the
unsettling place of their wounding or healing transformations.
have drafted over many decades to give form to life
A Space, Body Politic, and Centrefold (which became Fuse Magazine)
are also part of CEAC’s history.”3 ****
Form Follows Fiction explores the interplay between these two
impressions—these two competing voices—that constitutes the ground Desh Pardesh [was a] groundbreaking multidisciplinary
on which Toronto’s artistic culture takes place. South Asian Arts Festival that operated in Toronto from
Perhaps an ‘original’ or archetypal wound now underlies for 1988 to 2001… dedicated to providing a venue for
in one of North America’s largest cities. The book
152 Suzy Lake Bridget Moser 153 us the intelligibility of all others: the attempts to erase Indigenous underrepresented and marginalized voices within the South
A Genuine Simulation of…, 1973–74 The Mirror Has Two Faces, 2016 experiences, traditions, economies and histories both in the colonial past Asian diaspora…. Since its closure in 2001, the festival has
as well as during the neoliberal present. Dionne Brand’s description of become a relic for the Toronto South Asian arts community.
this situation is attuned to its underlying reversals: While it has been sporadically commemorated… there
had yet to be any sustained investigation into this queer
features work by artists such as Suzy Lake, Kent
There are Italian neighbourhoods and Vietnamese diasporic festival that took hold of the Canadian arts scene
neighbourhoods in this city; there are Chinese ones and in the 1990s. In part, this is due to the lack of archival
Ukrainian ones and Pakistani ones and Korean ones and sources and their inaccessibility; as Gayathri Gopinath
African ones. Name a region on the planet and there’s has argued, events such as Desh Pardesh often resist
someone from there, here. All of them sit on Ojibway textualization because the “queer spectatorial practice
land, but hardly any of them know it or care because and the mercurial performances and more informal forms
Monkman, Ed Pien, Roula Partheniou and Michael
that genealogy is wilfully untraceable except in the name of sociality” that occur at queer diasporic night clubs,
of the city itself. They’d only have to look, though, but festivals, and community events are not easily documented.
it could be that what they know hurts them already, and Remaining traces are often found basements, buried under
what if they found out something even more damaging? boxes, or in the memories of organizers and participants,
These are people who are used to the earth beneath them spaces that are inaccessible to the wider public.7
Snow, all of whom have previously published
with Black Dog Press. It includes historical
SEEING AND BELIEVING | LUIS JACOB documents gathered from local archives, as
Contributors | Luis Jacob, Marie Fraser, well as contemporary ephemera.
David Liss, Anne-Marie Ninacs
PB · ISBN 978-1-908966-06-3
THIS TITLE IS PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ART
£19.95 · $29.95 Artists inhabiting roles.
Artists occupying conquered territory.
MUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.
Artists at home, manipulating formats.
Artists in residence.
26 × 22 cm · 10 × 9 in — David Buchan, “Artists in Residence: Women’s Performance Art
in Toronto” (Vie des Arts, Spring 1977)
192 pages · 150 ills
22 23THE LISTENER
JOHNNIE COOPER
Following on from Johnnie Cooper’s two other
publications from Black Dog Press, Sunset Strip
(2019) and Fractured Light (2020), The Listener
centres on the most recent major body of work by
the British Abstract artist.
Inspired by Walter de la Mare’s brooding poem
The Listeners (1912), this beautifully-presented
book brilliantly conveys the power of Cooper’s
monocromatic collection of paintings. These works
serve as a meditation on the lived experience and
the rich atmosphere of the artist’s rural surroundings.
The Listener documents an important shift
in Cooper’s practice, in tone—texture and also
material, with the introduction of industrial bitumen
paint. Overall, the paintings, which were executed
at night time, bring a darker and more abstract
emotion to the fore, confirming Johnnie Cooper’s
current status as one of the most diverse and
important British artists working in the UK today.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on
the dark stair,
SEPTEMBER 2020 That goes down to the empty hall,
Hardback Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
ISBN 978-1-912165-25-4 By the lonely Traveller’s call.
£34.95 · $44.95
34 × 24.5 cm · 13.4 × 9.6 in
160 pages · 100 ills EXCERPT FROM THE LISTENERS, WALTER DE LA MARE (1912)
24 25MORGAN HOWELL
AT 45 RPM
FOREWORDS | Sir Peter Blake and Andrew Marr
CONTRIBUTORS | Dominic Mohan, Johnny Marr,
Shaun Ryder, Andrew Lloyd Webber, William
Orbit, Dylan Jones, Donick Carey, Kay Mellor,
Mark Radcliffe, KT Tunstall, et al.
Morgan Howell paints classic 7” singles and takes into
account every crease, every tear, every imperfection
—producing a one-off, truly unique artwork, almost
identical to the owner’s original copy, but blown up,
supersize, to 70 by 70 cm, and three-dimensional,
with the spindle in the centre, as if the record is
ready to play.
This completely original approach has resulted
in Howell attracting a cult following amongst art
collectors and musicians alike—with paintings
commissioned by the likes of Neil Diamond, Jude
Law, Edgar Wright, and The Stone Roses’ Ian Brown,
and major music labels selecting the artist’s work
for display in their headquarters, indeed, Howell’s
painting of David Bowie’s The Jean Genie is
displayed at the Sony Music Building in London,
and Yesterday by The Beatles has been shown at
the Capitol Building in L.A.
Morgan Howell at 45rpm, published by Black Dog
Press, beautifully documents 95 of Howell’s creations,
from “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard to “Heart of Glass”
by Blondie, to “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones,
to “Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks. The artworks are
shown in full, alongside evocative commentaries
from fans of Howell’s work, including The Smiths’
Johnny Marr, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, comedian
Al Murray, journalist Tony Parsons, actress Kay Mellor,
Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, producer William Orbit
and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The book features Forewords by Sir Peter Blake
OCTOBER 2020 and Andrew Marr, plus an in-depth interview with
Hardback Morgan Howell, exploring his process as an artist
ISBN 978-1-912165-30-8 and why, for him, music and art are intrinsically
£39.95 · $49.95 linked. With a format perfectly designed to fit on
30.5 × 30.5 cm · 12 × 12 in record shelves, this book is a must for vinyl junkies,
240 pages · 100 ills music heads and art lovers everywhere.
26 27PUNK ORIENTALISM
CENTRAL ASIA’S
CONTEMPORARY ART
REVOLUTION
EDITOR | Sara Raza
Punk Orientalism explores the radical story
of contemporary art in Central Asia since the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, following
almost 75 years of Soviet rule. What ensued was the
chaotic emergence of various political, religious
and ethnic groups vying for power. At the same
time a new generation of contemporary artists
were emerging from art schools into this changing
and divided society.
Punk Orientalism examines this cohort of
artists and their creation of art that challenged the
Soviet-style dogmas dominating the academe
in Central Asia. In critiquing societal hypocrisy
this formed a movement that contributed to
the evolution of a Central Asian contemporary
art scene. Alongside interviews and essays this
book aims to provide both an introduction and
comprehensive survey of one of the most under-
MARCH 2021 researched regions in the contemporary art world,
Paperback yet one that remains a truly emerging market
ISBN 978-1-908966-59-9 positioned at the intersection of Asia’s social,
£24.95 · $34.95 cultural and economic development. Focusing
28 × 23 cm · 11 × 9 in on art from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,
192 pages · 150 ills Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
28 29CONSISTENT
INCONSISTENCIES
I WISH I COULD TALK
SEICNETSISNOCNI
SEICNETSISNOCNI
IN TECHNICOLOR
CONSISTENT
IN TECHNICOLOR
I WISH I COULD TALK
CONSISTENT S E I CNETSISNOCNI
CONSISTENT
The artist must be the
fingernails scraping across AxisMundi
Beckmann
John John AxisMundi
0
0
40
38
Beckmann
the chalkboard of culture.
— John Beckmann
I WISH I COULD TALK
IN TECHNICOLOR
AUTHOR | John Beckmann/Axis Mundi
Consistent Inconsistencies: I wish I could talk in
Technicolor is a ludibrium-like romp through the
architectural imaginary, surreal displacements, and
baroque high jinx.
Axis Mundi is a New York-based studio poised
at the intersection of architecture, design, and
anomalous interdisciplinary site-specific works.
Launched in 2004 by John Beckmann, the studio’s
unpredictable ethos yields new and unparalleled
forms of seeing, imagining and making.
Beckmann has survived car crashes, cyber-
attacks, interrogations by the Secret Service and life-
threatening diseases, all while navigating Axis Mundi
to the dizzying heights of success. He has been called
a misfit; a raconteur; a mercurial trickster. Beckmann
sees himself as the perpetual outsider, whom the cabal
of the deep state invariably seeks to conspire against.
“Paranoia is another word for common sense—reality
itself is a conspiracy theory, somehow or other I think
that I would like to rescue myself from the idea that
there are many different realities...I’d like to find out
what reality I’m in.”, he once stated.
This imaginatively deconstructed ‘anti-
monograph’, which can be read front-to-back or
back-to-front, is part Instagram feed, travelogue
and personal memoir, and brimming with enigmatic
koan-like aphorisms. Organised as a spiraling SPTEMBER 2021
cinematic tri-partite structure—which seamlessly Paperback
blends Axis Mundi’s entire oeuvre, the book is an ISBN 978-1-911164-78-4
engrossing stream of consciousness, bastardising £24.95 · $34.95
the real with cogent thought-experiments, by one 27 × 22 cm · 10.6 × 8.6 in
of the great provocateurs of our time. 176 pages · 200 ills
30 31You can also read
