Museum of the Near Future I

Publication launch
Sat 14 January, 2012, 2.30–4.30 pm
at Motto in Markthalle, Eisenbahnstraße 42/43, Berlin
by OK Do (Helsinki/Paris) with Anna Mikkola (Berlin)

Museum of the Near Future (MNF) is an apparatus for looking sideways at and intervening in cities and cultural systems. It presents itself as social installations—such as literary circles or other temporary communities—which are set up within institutional premises. Producing spaces for imagination and discourse, these parasitic arrangements attempt to destabilise perceptions of what is possible and desirable, between the now and the next, challenging traditional hierarchies and power relations.

The first iteration of Museum of the Near Future took place at the Museum of Finnish Architecture’s dormant villa in Helsinki during autumn 2011 and in collaboration with Motto Distribution. It explored micro-political participation in a city undergoing grand urban transformations, such as its rapid expansion to centrally located former harbour areas or the recent identity-defining missions. Setting up a thematic book society/shop in an underused institutional facility, and organising activities such as readings, a narrated field trip and publishing around it, the installation attempted to converge personal and public space, while proposing literature as a tool for making or shaping places.

www.ok-do.eu / www.mottodistribution.com / www.markthalle9.de

2HB #12

Now in its third year, 2HB is a quarterly publication dedicated to creative and experimental writing in contemporary art. 2HB was edited by Louise Shelley, Participatory Projects Co-ordinator, The Showroom, London and Francis McKee, Director, CCA.

D 3€

Buy

It’s Nice That #7.

It’s Nice That No.7 features profiles of celebrated photographer Martin Parr and the brilliant Taryn Simon; interviews with i-D founder Terry Jones, Nieves editor-in-chief Benjamin Sommerhalder and hyper-cool duo Lernert & Sander; a free comic by the very talented illustrator Sophy Hollington, and much, much more. Out now.

D 15€

Buy

HORST #01

»Havin’ a dick is pretty fuckin’ awesome«

It’s time to be brave! Multitalented photographer Armin Morbach and a group of creative artists, including Ingo Nahrwold (TUSH, HERO, INDIE, GQ Style) as Fashion Director, famous graphic designer Mirko Borsche (DIE ZEIT) as Art Director and big-name contributors from New York, Paris and London, decided that these days there’s only one legitimate reason to start a new magazine:

Pushing bounderies!!!

The project will be focused on the lifestyle of modern gay men who don’t define themselves on the basis of their sexual orientation. It’s about being a man, being at ease with your body, with your desires, with your needs, with your habits, with your sexuality.

The visuals will be breathtaking high-end images incorporating expressive, mind-blowing and sometimes even shocking subjects. Sex sells, we all know that. Many big campaigns set new standards when they’re published. Sex is a huge part of professional advertising; sex is success. Inspired by this fact, we’re convinced that our magazine is an ideal platform for awakening desires. The readers will not just flick through the pages, but they will be captivated by the artistic impressions and the content. The magazine addresses a highly financially significant target group. It’s a perfect platform to showcasing the latest »must-haves« and for representing the lifestyle of the modern gay man.

D 33,99€

Buy

Alina Szapocznikow: Awkward Objects. Agata Jakubowska.

Seen as a great artist in Poland, elsewhere Alina Szapocznikow has remained relatively unknown. Today she enjoys the status of a discovery, her sculpture entering museum collections worldwide, an interesting challenge to art historians and curators.

An artist who always put herself in the difficult position of pioneer heading towards the new and unknown, in 1972, near the end of her life, she confessed: As for me, I produce awkward objects. Here that life and work is addressed by participants in the conference organized by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw: Manuela Ammer, Marta Dziewańska, Jola Gola, Agata Jakubowska, Anke Kempkes, Paweł Leszkowicz, Griselda Pollock, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Anda Rottenberg, Sarah Wilson, and Ernst van Alphen. The photographs of Szapocznikow’s sculptures and visual archival materials construct an important part of the book.

D 23€

Buy

Two New Books – ROMA Publications
With Marc Nagtzaam and Jan Kempenaers
And an exhibition of new drawings from Marc Nagtzaam and pictures from Jan Kempenaers’ book “Picturesque”.

Launch @ Motto Zürich on the 19th of January, 7pm.
The exhibition will be on from 19th to 21st of January 2012.
In collaboration with Corner College.

Where Do We Migrate To? is a book published in conjunction with the traveling exhibition of the same title, which explores diverging ways in which forms of migration, experiences of displacement, and questions of belonging have been addressed by artists in recent years. For the book, four prominent international writers were invited to reflect on the themes from the exhibition. Ranging from the playful to the theoretical, from the poetic to the philosophical, their essays call for an increasingly complex understanding of the contemporary migrant experience. The book also includes nineteen postcards by the artists participating in the exhibition, designed specifically for the publication and presenting multiple visual interpretations of migratory encounters.

Publication editor Niels Van Tomme invites essayist Aaron Schuster for his presentation The Atopia of Philosophy, in which he asks how the figure of the exile, outcast, and migrant has become such a powerful metaphor for subjectivity in the contemporary imagination.

Aaron Schuster is a writer based in Berlin, where he is a fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry. He has lectured and published widely on psychoanalysis and contemporary philosophy, and his writings on art have appeared in The Believer, Cabinet, Frieze, Frog, Metropolis M, and De Witte Raaf. He coauthored the libretto for Cellar Door: An Opera in Almost One Act (JRP Ringier, 2008), and his The Philosophy of Schizophrenia will appear as a book from M.I.T. Press in 2012.

Niels Van Tomme is a New York based curator, researcher, and critic. His exhibition Where Do We Migrate To? opened at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in Baltimore in 2011and will travel to Parsons The New School of Design in New York, the CAC in New Orleans, and the Rubin Center for Visual Arts in El Paso in 2012 and 2013. He is a Contributing Editor of Art Papers and publishes internationally in journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogues. Van Tomme is currently co-editing the book Aesthetic Justice, forthcoming from Antennae Series by Valiz, Amsterdam, in 2012.

Where Do We Migrate To?

Edited by Niels Van Tomme

Contributions by Svetlana Boym, Amitava Kumar, Aaron Schuster, and Niels Van Tomme

Artworks by Acconci Studio, Svetlana Boym, Blane De St. Croix, Lara Dhondt, Brendan Fernandes, Claire Fontaine, Nicole Franchy, Andrea Geyer, Isola and Norzi, Kimsooja, Pedro Lasch, Adrian Piper, Raqs Media Collective, Société Réaliste, Julika Rudelius, Xaviera Simmons, Fereshteh Toosi, Philippe Vandenberg, and Eric Van Hove

Published by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, Baltimore, 2011

Available from D.A.P. | Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.

ISBN: 9781890761141

Wortwuchs #6.

Herbst 2011

Mit Beiträgen von Richard Duraj, Michael Friedrich, Clio Alyssa Voß, Stephan Reich, Uschi Schmidt, Andreas Henze, Peter Neumann, Andrea Miesenböck, Clemens Schittko, Yevgeniy Breyger und einem Interview mit Anke Heelemann.

D 4€

Buy

Notizen zu Berlin. Jérôme Knebuch.

Gelesenes, Gehörtes, Gefundenes, Erfundenes, Erlebtes & Gelogenes / Ein Buch von Jérôme Knebusch

»Diese Stadt, dieses brausende Verkehrszentrum, dieser prachtvolle Irrwitz von Lichtern, Motoren, Dynamos und Betonklötzen, diese großartige Mischung von Dieben, Kommerzienräten, Diplomaten, Hausbesitzern und Schrebergärtenanwärtern hat keine eigentliche Tradition. Sie zieht Dich nicht in sich hinein wie Paris, sie nagelt Dich nicht fest wie Moskau, sie frißt Dich nicht auf wie New York und Shanghai. Berlin ist eine Bewegung ohne Mittelpunkt.« [Auszug N° 73]

Notizen zu Berlin dokumentiert eine vergebliche Suche nach der Identität der Stadt. Das Buch mischt und projiziert in 221 Kapiteln verschiedene Quellen, die Jérôme Knebusch während seines Aufenthaltes aufgesucht hat. Die 20er Jahre schließen sich an die heutige Zeit an, voller Irrwege und anderer Gedanken. Berlin erscheint schwebend und »jedesmal nicht ganz die Gleiche, nicht ganz eine Andere«. Passend zu den Texten hat der Autor die Schrift gezeichnet, welche Zeichen aus den Straßenschildern integriert wie das typische ß oder y.

Zweisprachige Ausgabe [Deutsch-Französisch] • 112 Seiten, 12,5 x 20 cm • Silber Offsetdruck auf Ispira Mistero Papier von Fedrigoni • Faden- und Klebebindung • gefalteter Umschlag • Konzept, Redaktion, Satz, Schriftgestaltung: Jérôme Knebusch • Aus dem Deutschen übersetzt von Aida Kaboré • Lektorat Hélène Doub • Gefördert vom Conseil Général de la Moselle • Limitierte Ausgabe : 10 numerierte & signierte Exemplare + originaler Druckbogen, beidseitig, 100 x 70 cm

/

Choses lues, entendues, trouvées, inventées, vécues & autres mensonges / Un livre de Jérôme Knebusch

«Cette ville, ce nœud bruyant du trafic, cette merveilleuse absurdité de lumières, de moteurs, de dynamos et de blocs de béton, ce formidable mélange de voleurs, de grossistes, de diplomates, de propriétaires immobiliers et d’aspirants aux jardins ouvriers n’a pas de véritable tradition. Elle ne t’avale pas comme Paris, elle ne te retient pas comme Moscou, elle ne te dévore pas comme New York et Shanghai. Berlin est un mouvement sans centre. » [Extrait N° 73]

Notizen zu Berlin procède d’une quête impossible de l’identité de la ville. Le livre compulse et tresse en 221 chapitres divers sources consultées durant la résidence de Jérôme Knebusch à Berlin. Les années 1920 rejoignent l’époque contemporaine, dans une errance qui suit le cheminement de la pensée. Berlin apparaît en suspens et n’est chaque fois, ni tout à fait la même ni tout à fait une autre». Pour accompagner ces textes, l’auteur a dessiné le caractère typographique en y intégrant des signes que l’on trouve dans les panneaux de rues comme le ß typique ou le y.

Édition bilingue [Français-Allemand] • 112 pages, 12,5 x 20 cm • impression offset argentée sur papier Ispira Mistero de Fedrigoni • reliure cousu collé • jaquette dépliable • conception, rédaction, mise en pages, dessin de caractères: Jérôme Knebusch • traduction vers le français par Aida Kaboré • relecture Hélène Doub • avec le soutien du Conseil Général de la Moselle • Édition limitée : 10 exemplaires numérotés & signés + bon à tirer original recto/verso, 70 x 100 cm

D 18€

Buy

127th@StNick. Nadja Groux.

Stuck in New York for almost two years due to one of life’s accidents and often closeted in her home, Nadja Groux photographed practically everything in her apartment…including the view of the street, in particular from one of her windows looking out over the intersection of 127th Street and St Nicholas Terrace in Harlem. The pictures, presented in contact sheet format, document the nerve centre of a micro-society, in the likeness of a storyboard.

Edition of 300

D 20€

Buy