Publication Studio. Carl Skoggard @ Motto Berlin 14.11.2015

Posted in Events on November 10th, 2015

Sonnets 1

Publication Studio. Carl Skoggard @ Motto Berlin 14.11.2015
from 7pm

Presentation of Walter Benjamin’s Sonnets by translator Carl Skoggard

The presentation will include an introduction to Benjamin’s sonnet writing, a reading of a selection of sonnets in English (Carl Skoggard) and German (Ursula Tax), and a discussion at the end.

Walter Benjamin’s sonnets, written to mourn his friend Fritz Heinle, constitute an important though little-known part of the philosopher’s literary achievement and a unique contribution to the history of the German sonnet. Benjamin would add to their number over a decade, having begun his project soon after the outbreak of World War I and the suicide of his friend. They were among the writings that Benjamin, forced to flee France, entrusted to Georges Bataille in 1940 for safekeeping. Here, for the first time, readers of English are offered translations of all 73 “Heinle sonnets” along with the original German text and an extensive commentary.

Carl Skoggard is the translator of Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood circa 1900 and The “Berlin Chronicle” Notices, both Publication Studio. Previously Skoggard served as the staff writer of Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors. His translation of Ein Jahr in Arkadien, a 1805 gay fiction by Duke August of Saxe-Gotha an Altenburg, appeared in 1999 as Year in Arcadia.

Stan Douglas. The Secret Agent. Ludion, Wiels

Posted in Exhibition catalogue on November 5th, 2015
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Stan Douglas’s The Secret Agent explores the turbulent Seventies and the history of Portugal, which was shaking off a dictatorship and losing its colonies in those years.

The book contains three works by the Canadian artist. The video installation The Secret Agent (première in WIELS in October 2015) tells a story originally written by Joseph Conrad in 1907. Douglas has retained the characters and the plot, but transferred them to the turmoil of Lisbon soon after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. The book contains the original script and an extensive collection of stills and production images.

The second work in the book is Disco Angola, a series of eight staged historical photographs – four in New York, four in Angola – that show the parallels between two more or less simultaneous moments: the hedonistic glam culture of New York nightlife in the Seventies and the civil war in Angola.

The third work, Luanda–Kinshasa, is a 6-hour jazz film set in 1974. It contains eleven songs recorded in the legendary 30th Street Studio, where Miles Davis, Glenn Gould and others have worked.

Stan Douglas is an artist. His films, videos and photographs have been shown internationally since 1970 at events such as Documenta ix, x and xi (1992, 1997, 2002) and three Venice biennials (1990, 2001, 2005). He has had solo exhibitions in leading museums in Europe and North America. Douglas lives and works in Vancouver.

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition INTERREGNUM at Wiels, 9 October 2015 – 10 January 2016.

€39.90

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Atopolis. (sic), Wiels

Posted in Exhibition catalogue on November 5th, 2015
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This book is published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition produced by the Wiels and curated by Dirk Snauwaert and Charlotte Friling. It held at the Manège de Sury, Mons (European Capital of Culture), from June to October 2015.

This project takes as its starting point the history of Mons and the Borinage, comparing it with the history of the modern age on an international scale, and relating it to the present time through the voices of some twenty artists questioning our times and our environment.

What we generally call “modernity,” that history of multiple conquests targeting control over reality through technology and science, also refers to the exploration through art of the hidden dimensions of our behaviour, our ideas and our subjectivity.

Atopolis proposes to rediscover models of social and cultural utopia developed by personalities from our region, but the exhibition also unveils captivating works created by artists who are watchful and critical of the era of globalisation in which we are living, that of uniform channels of information and free trade, leading both to an unprecedented connectivity and to a loss of frames of reference.

Atopolis, a title which echoes the ideas of Edouard Glissant, a writer who has philosophised about identities and migratory movements, seems an excellent metaphor of our digital era, given the importance it grants to the development of models of cohabiting and coexistence which seem to hark back to the social utopias that have emerged from our region.

This publication is composed of two interdepedent parts: one with the texts of four different authors on all the works at show; the second one with visual and textual elements from the Mundaneum Archives, excerpts of texts of Edouard Glissant, Raoul Vaneigem, Paul Lafargue, a.o., and unpublished material of Allan Sekula on the Borinage.

With Saâdane Afif, Nevin Aladağ, Francis Alÿs, Danai Anesiadou, El Anatsui, Yto Barrada, Huma Bhabha, Vincen Beeckman, Vlassis Caniaris, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Meschac Gaba, Jef Geys, Thomas Hirschhorn, David Medalla, Adrian Melis, Benoit Platéus, Walter Swennen, Diego Tonus, Jack Whitten…

Edited Sébastien Biset and Raphaël Pirenne (sic)

Textes by Jan Baetens, Sébastien Biset, Yves Citton, Charlotte Friling, Raphaël Pirenne, Dirk Snauwaert, Yoann Van Parys, Elvan Zabunyan.

 

€39.00

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Peter Downsbrough. Collection of Publications Now Available at Motto

Posted in Uncategorized on November 4th, 2015
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A collection of Peter Downsbrough publications ranging from 1975 to 2015 is now available at Motto. The collection includes ‘Position’, an inclusive monograph on the work of Peter Downsbrough.

Available on our online shop

foundprints books 002 (set). Soichi Suzuki

Posted in Japan on November 3rd, 2015
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foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_1  foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_2 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_3 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_4 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_5 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_6 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_7 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_8 foundprints_books_002_Set_Soichi_Suzuki_motto_distribution_9

A set of four leporellos by Soichi Suzuki

10 x 8 x 3.8 cm

 

€18.00

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