Page Not Found, 2018
Metropolis M Boekenclub – Vier boekentips van San Serriffe, Printroom, Page Not Found en WALTER books – Boekenweek 2019
Wat te lezen? Op onze uitnodiging geven kunstboekhandels uit Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam en Arnhem hun leestips voor deze boekenweek.
[h1]Page Not Found
[h1]recommends Communism for Kids by Bini Adamczak & Marécage by Lagon Revue
Sébastien Tien: “We chose two very different publications, each at the periphery of contemporary art. Communism for Kids adopts the elegant and joyful terms of a children’s story to recount the historical attempts to realise the communist ideals. This book celebrates utopian models based on Marx’s idea of the common good — a refreshing take when withdrawing into identities has become the norm. What is relevant for its author, artist and social theorist Bini Adamczak, is the method: a failed experiment is the seed for the next one, and each is a pertinent critique of capitalism, as she points out in the epilogue. The volume, published in English by the MIT Press, with its illustrations of queer revolutionaries, created an uproar: alt-right and conservative circles vehemently protested against this attempt to corrupt America’s youth.”
“Marécage, the fifth chapter of Lagon Revue, offers a peek at the vibrant scene of experimental illustration, whose influence on contemporary art and graphic design is undeniable. This French initiative is the echo chamber of a group of young illustrators favouring sequences of drawings with a geometric and minimalist style, heralded as a new school of abstract formalism. The editors, Alexis Beauclair and Sammy Stein, spared no visual risk, proposing celebrated artists and obscure zine ethos. The publication, combining silkscreen, riso, and offset printing, is gorgeous.”
San Serriffe
recommends Seasonal Associate by Heike Geissler
Pieter Verbeke: “About a week ago a regular customer passed by San Serriffe to purchase a couple of books, including Seasonal Associate by Heike Geissler. Not later than 36 hours she texted it had been an enjoyable 240 pages, which impressed me considering her busy life, and I felt obliged to finally read the book myself last week. Seasonal Associate is the personal account of Heike Geissler, an unemployed journalist, who’s forced to take up a job at the Amazon distribution facility in Leipzig in order to financially maintain her family. The book gives first hand insight to the extreme working conditions at the Amazon center, Geissler’s struggle to keep her family life in balance with an exhausting working week, and her reflections on her own professional career as a writer. Seasonal Associate is partly written in a commanding second person, making the reader an obedient experiencer of Geissler’s activities and Amazon’s policies. We have all heard stories about the extreme conditions of Amazon’s modern slavery but to follow an employee’s first-hand experience makes this book an essential read during the Boekenweek.”
WALTER books
recommends Also-Space, From Hot to Something Else: How Indonesian Art Initiatives Have Reinvented Networking by reinaart vanhoe
Krista Jantowski: “When it comes to books about art, right now, especially now, I am drawn to reinaart vanhoe’s Also-Space, From Hot to Something Else: How Indonesian Art Initiatives Have Reinvented Networking. Published in 2016, vanhoe’s research interest is in an alternative, or should I say also-, way of doing, thinking, acting and producing as art workers. His main example is ruangrupa, the newly appointed curator collective of the upcoming documenta, so hopefully the book will receive a renewed interest. But more so because it explores the idea of an also-space which operates alongside dominant centres of (neoliberal) culture, which the art world is a part of, there is no outside. In the words of vanhoe: ‘One thing we can learn from the examples from Indonesia is that critical (citizen-related) art practice doesn’t necessarily start from critique, or from an individualist independent (‘autonomous’) position. The Indonesian activist artist doesn’t begin with critique, but works from an acceptance of a given starting position. Though an individual’s thoughts and intentions are often a leading force in realising things, in the end the goal of these thoughts is always to generate content, to develop interesting ideas, with individual authorship being ultimately irrelevant.’ Art workers, let’s get organized.”
PrintRoom
tipt What Problems Can Artist Publishers Solve? door Temporary Services en PrintRoom
Karin de Jong: “Dit is publicatie 118 van Temporary Services. Waar het maken van publicaties ooit ter ondersteuning diende van tentoonstellingen, zien ze publishing inmiddels als een belangrijke poot van hun praktijk en een manier om direct contact te leggen met gelijkgestemden. ‘We spend far more time talking to people when we visit cities for book fairs and a lot less time installing our work in exhibition spaces.’ In de aanloop naar de residency van Temporary Services, die hun Self Reliance Library installeerden, ontwikkelden we samen deze publicatie, waarvoor we aan zeventien kunstenaars en uitgevers uit Europa, de VS en de Filipijnen vroegen om te reflecteren op het belang van independent publishing voor kunstenaars en andere artistieke denkers en makers op dit moment. Er zijn bijdragen van Journal of Aesthetics and Protest (Leipzig, DE), Josh MacPhee (Brooklyn, VS), AND Publishing (London, VK), Clara Balaguer, HardWorking Goodlooking (Rotterdam/Manilla) en nog vele andere. Andere favoriete TS titels zijn: Against Competition, Why the Exhibit Was Canceled by [Artist], Self Reliance Library, Public Phenomena, Publishing Zines for Prisoners en At Work with Thomas Kong, om er maar een paar te noemen. Kijk voor meer informatie op www.temporaryservices.org waar het boekje ook als pdf te vinden is.”
Page Not Found, Boekhorststraat 126, 2512 CL Den Haag. For more info & agenda: https://page-not-found.nl/
PrintRoom, Schietbaanstraat 17, 3014 ZV Rotterdam. For more info & agenda: http://www.printroom.org/
San Serriffe, Sint Annenstraat 30, 1012 HE Amsterdam. For more info & agenda: https://www.san-serriffe.com/
WALTER books, Looierstraat 43, 6811 AV Arnhem. For more info & agenda: http://www.walterinarnhem.nl/