Modernologies


Book Description

It is evident that modernity is a popular mountain for analysis and reflection of a largely controversial nature. Numerous theories have also been written about the beginning as well as the end of modernity. The aim of Modernologies is to achieve an account of the state of artistic research and to discuss selected contributions to the subject matter that appears central after two to three decades of an ever intensely blazing conflict over the legacy of modernity and modernism.




Design and Visual Culture from the Bauhaus to Contemporary Art


Book Description

This book complements the more textually-based Bauhaus scholarship with a practice-oriented and creative interpretive method, which makes it possible to consider Bauhaus-related works in an unconventional light. Edit Toth argues that focusing on the functionalist approach of the Bauhaus has hindered scholars from properly understanding its design work. With a global scope and under-studied topics, the book advances current scholarly discussions concerning the relationship between image technologies and the body by calling attention to the materiality of image production and strategies of re-channeling image culture into material processes and physical body space, the space of dimensionality and everyday activity.




Postsocialist Memory in Contemporary German Culture


Book Description

Scholarship on Eastern Europe after 1989 often focuses narrowly on the socialist past as authoritarian, dictatorial, or totalitarian. This collection, by contrast, illuminates an additional dimension of post-socialist memory: it traces the survival of hopes and dreams born under socialism and the legacy of the unrealized alternative futures embedded within the socialist past. Looking at contemporary German-language literature, film, theater, and art, the volume analyzes reflections on everyday socialist realities as well as narratives of opposition and dissent. The texts discussed here not only revisit the past, but also challenge the present and help us imagine alternative futures. Rather than framing the unrealized futures envisioned in the pre-1989 era as failures, this collection probes post-socialist memory for its future-oriented potential to rethink issues of community, equity and equality, and late-stage capitalism. Foregrounding the complexities of Eastern European legacies also helps us reimagine the relationship between East and West both in Germany and in Europe as a whole.




Globalization and Contemporary Art


Book Description

In a series of newly commissioned essays by both established and emerging scholars, Globalization and Contemporary Art probes the effects of internationalist culture and politics on art across a variety of media. Globalization and Contemporary Art is the first anthology to consider the role and impact of art and artist in an increasingly borderless world. First major anthology of essays concerned with the impact of globalization on contemporary art Extensive bibliography and a full index designed to enable the reader to broaden knowledge of art and its relationship to globalization Unique analysis of the contemporary art market and its operation in a globalized economy




Plural and Multiple Geographies of Modern and Contemporary Art in East-Central Europe


Book Description

This edited volume proposes a theoretical reflection on the different artistic geographies of East-Central Europe (ECE) from an interdisciplinary perspective found at the intersection of art history, art and politics, and critical geography. Contributors argue that this multiplicity is a defining feature of the region. At the same time, chapters employ the concept of “plural geographies” and call for an equal geography, based on solidarity and an equal distribution of capital, which could allow plural geographies to exist and be described. The “multiple geographies” of ECE consider the perspective of local conditions and emphasize how this region was part of successive empires with an important ethnic diversity and changing borders, giving it historical layers and multicultural characteristics. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, political studies, cultural studies, and geography.




Contemporary Art


Book Description

An engaging account of today’s contemporary art world that features original articles by leading international art historians, critics, curators, and artists, introducing varied perspectives on the most important debates and discussions happening around the world. Features a collection of all-new essays, organized around fourteen specific themes, chosen to reflect the latest debates in contemporary art since 1989 Each topic is prefaced by an introduction on current discussions in the field and investigated by three essays, each shedding light on the subject in new and contrasting ways Topics include: globalization, formalism, technology, participation, agency, biennials, activism, fundamentalism, judgment, markets, art schools, and scholarship International in scope, bringing together over forty of the most important voices in the field, including Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, David Joselit, Michelle Kuo, Raqs Media Collective, and Jan Verwoert A stimulating guide that will encourage polemical interventions and foster critical dialogue among both students and art aficionados




act normal


Book Description

i might never be no-one that shiny / the beauty of a sequin’d self / what was stitched into heaven’s drop The poems in act normal use illegibility and wilful uncertainty to evade the grasp of the normative, as endured by those institutionalized by, and through, the concept of normalcy. act normal starts in an institution where children categorized and constructed as intellectually inferior are placed into custodial care. These poems are inquisitive, articulating the entanglements of lives across categories of difference – particularly the lives of those who as children were considered to be other or less than human. Drawing upon conversations, archival materials, court cases, legislation, transcripts, and case histories, among other sources, nancy davis halifax’s poems destabilize categories of meaning – understanding disability and difference as “undecidability.” act normal is a movement of “feelingthought,” unsettling normative expectations and inviting readers to re-orient from the normative task of assuming the safety of consensual interpretation, while risking, cherishing, and performing non-indifference.




The Spaces of the Modern City


Book Description

It historicizes the contemporary discussion of urbanism, highlighting the local and global breadth of the city landscape. This interdisciplinary collection examines how the city develops in the interactions of space and imagination. The essays focus on issues such as street design in Vienna, the motion picture industry in Los Angeles, architecture in Marseilles and Algiers, and the kaleidoscopic paradox of post-apartheid Johannesburg. They explore the nature of spatial politics, examining the disparate worlds of eighteenth-century Baghdad, nineteenth-century Morelia. They also show the meaning of everyday spaces to urban life, illuminating issues such as crime in metropolitan London, youth culture in Dakar, "memory projects" in Tokyo, and Bombay cinema.




Political Economy of Contemporary African Popular Culture


Book Description

Drawing on examples from across the continent, this volume examines socially significant aspects of contemporary African popular culture—including music cultures, fandoms, and community, mass, and digital media—to demonstrate how neoliberal politics and market forces shape the cultural landscape and vice versa. Contributors investigate the role that the media, politicians, and corporate interests play in shaping that landscape, highlight the crucial role of the African people in the production and circulation of popular culture more broadly, and, furthermore, demonstrate how popular culture can be used as a tool to resist oppressive regimes and challenge power structures in the African context. Scholars of political communication, cultural studies, and African studies will find this book particularly useful.




Congoville


Book Description

One hundred years after the founding of the École Coloniale Supérieure in Antwerp, the adjacent Middelheim Museum invites Sandrine Colard, researcher and curator, to conceive an exhibition that probes silenced histories of colonialism in a site-specific way. For Colard, the term Congoville encompasses the tangible and intangible urban traces of the colony, not on the African continent but in 21st-century Belgium: a school building, a park, imperial myths, and citizens of African descent. In the exhibition and this adjoining publication, the concept Congoville is the starting point for 15 contemporary artists to address colonial history and ponder its aftereffects as black flâneurs walking through a postcolonial city. Due to the multitude of perspectives and voices, this book is both a catalogue and a reference work comprised of artistic and academic contributions. Together, the participating artists and invited authors unfold the blueprint of Congoville, an imaginary city that still subconsciously affects us, but also encourages us to envision a decolonial utopia. Een eeuw na de oprichting van de École Coloniale Supérieure in Antwerpen nodigt het naburige Middelheimmuseum onderzoeker en curator Sandrine Colard uit om een tentoonstelling te creëren die sitespecifiek peilt naar de stille geschiedenissen van het kolonialisme. Congoville duidt op de zichtbare en onzichtbare stedelijke sporen van de kolonie, niet op het Afrikaanse continent, maar pal in het België van vandaag: een schoolgebouw, een park, imperialistische mythes en burgers van Afrikaanse origine. Doorheen de tentoonstelling en deze bijhorende publicatie is Congoville de context waarbinnen 15 hedendaagse kunstenaars, als zwarte flâneurs op pad in een postkoloniale stad, het koloniale verleden en de impact ervan adresseren. Door de veelheid aan perspectieven en stemmen is dit boek tegelijk een catalogus en een naslagwerk met zowel academische als artistieke bijdragen. Samen ontvouwen de betrokken kunstenaars en auteurs de blauwdruk van Congoville, een imaginaire stad die ons nog steeds onbewust in haar greep houdt, maar ons ook aanspoort om na te denken over een de-koloniaal utopia. With contributions by/Met bijdragen van: Pieter Boons, Sandrine Colard, Filip De Boeck, Bas De Roo, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Sorana Munsya & Léonard Pongo, Herman Van Goethem, Sara Weyns, Nabilla Ait Daoud Participating artists/Deelnemende kunstenaars: Sammy Baloji, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Maurice Mbikayi, Jean Katambayi, KinAct Collective, Simone Leigh, Hank Willis Thomas, Zahia Rahmani, Ibrahim Mahama, Ângela Ferreira, Kapwani Kiwanga, Sven Augustijnen, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Elisabetta Benassi, Pélagie Gbaguidi For more information, visit www.middelheimmuseum.be/nl/activiteit/congoville