The Joke of the Great Nothing
07/01/10 Merijn Oudenampsen
After the proclamation of the end of history, now the future is in crisis as well. How do we escape this stalemate?
Design for the New Citizen
01/12/09 Guus Beumer
If we are to believe the polls, the political age of Harry Potter Senior will soon be coming to an end and a bleached-blonde half-blood will be assuming the throne. Who ever imagined that the drama of the multicultural society would reach such an apotheosis? What does it say about the idea of assimilation, represented in such exemplary fashion by our Indonesian compatriots?
Read more..Feeling It in Your Guts
01/12/09 Nat Muller
Imagine a high-end supermarket: you stroll by with your trolley whilst enjoying a cup of fair trade espresso, examining the goods, checking expiry dates, ingredient composition and place of origin and production. Your enjoyment of your shopping experience is partly derived from ‘being on the right end of things’, a moral sense of wellbeing. This is a useful imaginary exercise and the analogy with the art world (or art market) is not entirely far-fetched.
Read more..On the Wall/Off the Wall
01/12/09 Nasrin Tabatabai
In the recent post-election uprisings in Iran, all the forgotten slogans from the revolution of 1979 were shouted by a generation that had not experienced that revolution. They were appropriating them for the greater glory of their own political desires.
Read more..Walls of Distrust
01/12/09 Régine Debatty
In November this year the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The very mediatized destruction of the barrier that separated East Berliners from their Western neighbours has been regarded ever since as a powerful symbol of freedom and hope.
Read more..Forty-One Years Later in Paris
01/12/09 Claire Fontaine
Museifcation is a composite process. One of its aspects is the deactivation of the living potential of an object or an event. But recently there is also another force: the petrifaction that occurs when an event, object or artwork is declared iconic.
Read more..The Third World War
01/12/09 Marlene Dumas
(Or, How ‘Postwar Art’ Has Become a Contradiction in Terms)
We have to stop the Second World War so we can stop the Third World War.
(Or, How the Language of the Second World War Blocks a Clear Vision on the Present War(s).)
