Apartamento #8

Featuring: Marcelo Krasilcic, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Beda Achermann, Faye Toogood,Rafael de Cardenas, Brian Janusiak and Elizabeth Beer, Pilar Benitez Vibart, Cosimo Bizzarri Michael Stipe, David John, Victoria Camblin, Julie Cirelli, Thea Slotover, Ben Rivers,Patrick Parrish, Athena Currey, Alexander Heminway, Makoto Orui, Valentine Fillol-Cordier Plus: everyday life kids supplement with Olaf Breuning, Phillipe Parreno, Javier Mariscal and Mike Meiré

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Bauhaus #2: Israel

Issue 2 is all about Israel, reconstructing the migration and transformation of an idea, supported by fomer Bauhaus students who became the most important architects of the emerging state.

Tel Aviv is more closely associated with the Bauhaus name than any other city outside Germany. But this myth does not stand up to historical inspection. As Sharon Rotbard points out in this magazine, the modern architecture of the ‘White City’ has little to do with the Bauhaus. The myth of the ‘Bauhaus City’ would appear to owe more to the Israelis’ desire to see also, between everything else, the positive in Germany.
But why, then, a magazine on the Bauhaus and Israel? Freed from the myth, the Bauhaus in Israel may be revealed in an entirely new light. In the homes of German-speaking immigrants, or Jeckes, one can find, for example, material vestiges of migration that refer to European modernism and sometimes even to the Bauhaus itself. Admittedly, far more influence was exerted by the work of over two dozen erstwhile Bauhaus students in Palestine, then later in Israel, including photographers and filmmakers, sculptors and weavers, graphic designers and toy makers and, above all else, the renowned architects and town planners. Having migrated from the Bauhaus Dessau to Palestine or vice versa in the 1930s, they influenced the formation of the new State of Israel in the critical phases before and after its foundation in 1948. This embraced the reformation of the state’s leading art school, the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, by the Weimar Bauhaus student Mordecai Ardon to the master plan for the settlement of the entire state which came about under the direction of Arieh Sharon. But the Bauhaus students Shmuel Mestechkin, Arieh Sharon and Munio Weinraub made the most significant contribution with their work on the design of the kibbutzim from the 1930s to the 1970s. The main exhibition at the Bauhaus Dessau, the opening of which coincides with the publication of this magazine, is dedicated to these built utopian societies. In these fundamentally democratically organised socialist settlements, Jewish migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, together with the Bauhaus students, realised key ideas and ideals of European Modernism. Their common goal was the creation of the ‘Neue Menschen’ (the new people) and the functional organisation of their living environment. In the process, they adhered to a functional understanding of architecture which had, most notably, been informed by the second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer. These visions were most clearly manifested in the kibbutzim – where they demonstrated their cogency as well as their weaknesses. The nationwide protests in the Israeli cities this past summer showed how topical Meyer’s motto “Volksbedarf statt Luxusbedarf” (the needs of the people instead of the need for luxury) still is, even if entirely different solutions are being sought today. However, the Jewish resettlement of Palestine in the spirit of modernism also raises questionable aspects: here, the projects of the avant-garde did not impinge on unclaimed dunes, but on the local Arab population. Solutions to the resulting tensions, which were evident at the time have yet to be found.

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Catecismo. Sophie Nys, Richard Venlet.

production: Grotto publications
text: Dieter Roelstraete

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May #7

Olivier Zahm, “I think it’s time to break off…” / Hervé Legros, Preface (Documents sur l’art, no 2, 1993) / interview with Olivier Zahm / Stephan Geene, Wishing to be in Paris, led to be in Berlin or different ways to escape the nineties / Axel Huber, visual insert / Catherine Chevalier, interview with Roberto Ohrt / Maija Timonen, Looking the part – The Empty Plan by Anja Kirschner and David Panos / Clara Schulman, Gerard Byrne, “In San Francisco they say, “Flash on it”” / Karl Holmqvist, Ken Okiishi, (Goodbye to) Manhattan / François Aubard, Richard Prince, American Prayer / Rob MacKenzie, Emily Sundblad / Elisabeth Lebovici Henrik Olesen, La maculée conception Henrik Olesen, The Immaculate Conception Karl Holmqvist Rirkrit Tiravanija, The days of this society is numbered / Vincent Romagny, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, The duplication of Dedobbeleer / Scott Portnoy Christopher d’Archangelo, Contrary to Intuition, Let’s Begin with an Image / limited edition: UNITED BROTHERS (Ei Arakawa & Tomoo Arakawa).

Conceived as a collective space in which to develop thoughts and confront positions on artistic production, May magazine examines, quaterly, contemporary art practice and theory in direct engagement with the issues, contexts and strategies that construct these two fields. An approach that could be summed up as critique at work – or as critique actively performed in text and art forms alike.
Featuring essays, interviews, art works and reviews by artists, writers and diverse practitioners of the arts, the magazine also intends to address the economy of the production of knowledge – the starting point of this reflection being the space of indistinction between information and advertisment typical of our time. This implies a dialogue with forms of critique produced in other fields.

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Someone Cuts My Hair While I Sleep. Todd Fisher.

Todd Fisher´s photography originates from everyday life. He draws inspiration from his immediate surroundings and shoots just at the right moment to capture the mystical momentum rather than the narrative. His motives are of unknown protagonists at non-places. In the moment of taking a picture the situations seem to arise spontaneously, which in combination with his working methods makes Fisher´s photography authentic. Their documentary character is undeniable. Yet there is a clear distinction from photojournalism, because Fisher’s photographs incorporate artistic composition with a shifted and often non-linear focus. Where the street has a clear narrative, his personal view is more abstract and even opaque at times. Context is deliberately absent or left vague, allowing the viewer to create their own reality. His protagonists behave remarkably uniform, staring into nothingness or seem to be engaged in a strange relationship with structural features of their immediate environment. Following Todd Fishers photography is always fascinating, his work is intimate, mysterious, spontaneous, witty, and sad at the same time.

D € 22

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W – Artist Songs Volume 2. Art Critics Orchestra.

Das Art Critics Orchestra begreift Musik als dialektischen Prozess. Dieser Begriff, der in so postkommunistischen wie postdemokratischen Zeiten auf dem Abstellgleis des Diskurses zu verrotten droht, beschreibt präzise die Arbeit des fünfköpfigen Ensembles, etwa bei der Konzeption ihrer bisher erschienenen CDs: Den „Artists’ Songs“, 2009, und der ein Jahr später folgenden CD „Das Summen der Teile“. Die Logik dieser Abfolge ist die eines dialektischen Umschlages auf mehreren Ebenen. So finden sich auf „Artists’ Songs“ Stücke, die Künstler/Innen der Band geschrieben haben. Z. B. Annika Stroem und Elke Krystufek, die Band setzte deren, meist mit englischen Texten versehenen Vorlagen dann musikalisch um. „Das Summen der Teile“ dagegen addiert sich aus von ACO selbst geschriebenen Liedern, zudem sind die Texte jetzt durchgängig in Deutsch. Die aktuelle Single „W“ präsentiert wiederum Artist-Songs, diesmal von Tom Wesselmann, Peter Weibel und Lawrence Weiner/Peter Gordon. Schon Dietrich Diedrichsen betonte den „konzeptionellen Charakter“ von Popmusik – ACO nimmt den Mann beim Wort.

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Rollo Press™

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Agma Magazine # 5

FEATURES
STUDIO Pino Pascali in his studio in Boccea, Rome, as never seen before
ARCHIVE Mark Rothko’s landmark exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1961
COLLECTION Gian Ferrari Collection in Villa Necchi Campiglio
ADVERTISE Dwan Gallery at its best
DEPICTION Maurizio Cattelan’s pigeons seen through Maurizio Cattelan’s eyes

EXHIBITIONS
SOL LEWITT A Wall Drawing Retrospective, MASS MoCA, Massachussetts
DAMIÁN ORTEGA, Kurimanzutto Gallery, Mexico City
JEFF WALL The Crooked Path, The Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels
BILL BOLLINGER The Retrospective, ZKM, Karlsruhe
OLIVER LARIC Kopienkritik, Skulpturhalle Basel
IGNACIO URIARTE Works, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao
SYSTEMS, ACTIONS AND PROCESSES 1965–75, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires
ROY LICHTENSTEIN Entablatures, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

€ 15

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Commerce By Artists

Commerce by Artists documents a fascinating and sweeping range of artists’ projects produced since the 1950s by Canadian and international artists who have sought to engage, rather than merely represent, the commercial world of which they are a part.

Encompassing canonical works such as Yves Klein’s Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility (1958), Seth Siegelaub’s Artist’s Contract (1971), and Lee Lozano’s Strike Piece (1969) — as well as innovative and rarely-documented works like Keith Obadike’s Blackness for Sale (2001), Kelly Mark’s In & Out (1997-ongoing until 2032), and Ben Kinmont’s Sometimes a Nicer Sculpture Is to Be Able to Provide a Living for Your Family (1998-ongoing) — Commerce by Artists is a comprehensive document of artworks that take the form of transactions and exchanges of value.

Edited by Luis Jacob

Includes contributions by:
agent.NASDAQ aka Reinhold Grether, Zeigam Azizov, Clegg & Guttmann, Carole Condé & Karl Beveridge, Isabelle De Baets and Hendrik Tratsaert, Jorge di Paola, Hu Fang, Elizabeth Ferrell, Gerald Ferguson, Andrea Fraser, Coco Fusco, Hans Haacke, Jens Hoffmann, Luis Jacob, Mary Kelly, Yves Klein, Jeffrey Kastner, Sina Najafi, Jane Crawford, Frances Richard, Richard Manning, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Helen Molesworth, Keith Obadike, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Beatrix Ruf, Andrea Rosen, Martha Rosler, Reid Shier, Julian Stallabrass, Julia Steinmetz, Heather Cassils, Clover Leary, Neil Thomas, Calvin Tomkins, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cédric Villate

2011
Art Metropole Toronto Canada
386 pp.
26.5 x 20.5 x 3 cm.
1.674 Kg
softcover
ISBN 978-0-9809184-4-1

€ 58.50

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