cura.#9
cura. is a magazine devoted to contemporary art, with texts in Italian and English. Inside issue #09, Fall

2011, you’ll find:
Cover by Benoît Maire

INSIDE THE COVER

Benoît Maire

words by vincent honoré

AROUND THE WORLD

Pontus Hultén. The Exhibition Machine

lorenzo benedetti

Female Power Pop

raimar stange

Judith Raum’s World of Things

marina sorbello

Marlon de Azambuja. Theorising Isolation

josé luis corazón ardura

There Are No Ruins Here

mirene arsanios

TALK

Doing It In The Periphery. A conversation
with Linn Pedersen and Thora Dolven Balke

marianne zamecznik

FOCUS

A Sense of Touching. Marlene Dumas

ulrich loock

ANDROID®

based in Berlin

riccardo previdi

LAB

Nico Vascellari

Bus de la Lum

words by filipa ramos

SPOTLIGHT

An Interview with Liudvikas Buklys

chris fitzpatrick

LAB

Deborah Ligorio

Paesaggio

words by christiane rekade

FASHION CURATING

Interview with Sabine Seymour

dobrila denegri

BOOKS

Participating Politically

felix vogel & morten paul

Myths, Ethics and Narrative

Strategies of Superhero Fiction

adrian tranquilli & marco arnaudo

AGENDA

edited by sara feola

D 7€

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II II V: Two And Two Makes Five. Maximilian Rossner.

A5 size
Hardcover
92 pages
77 images
Printed in duplex
First edition, 2010
500 copies

D 18€

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Metropolis M, #5: Survival.

For years, post-colonialism in art was dominated by a heavy, politically correct discourse, generally at a high intellectual level. The debate primarily took place in other countries, such as France and England, where important exhibitions were organized that played a large part in guiding how people think about their colonial past.

In the Netherlands, very little has been said about our colonial past, certainly in the visual arts, where museums and other institutions have seldom broached the issue with any seriousness. Only in the last few years does there seem to be a change in this, thanks to a new generation of artists and curators who have the courage to investigate the subject with a certain amount of lightness. Obtrusive moralizing is avoided, and although one is always still in search of confrontation, there is also space for keeping things in a different perspective.
This fall, De Appel and SMBA are devoting exhibitions and events to this question. Metropolis M also pauses to take a look. A society that is so imbued with its own past, as we are, cannot ignore the dubious side of its history.

This issue also includes a follow-up to the protests expressed in the previous issue. Where it loudly voiced objections to the decimated budgets in the cultural sector, we pause here under the title ‘Survival’ to examine the background of the cutbacks and look at how we can best respond to them. Strategic analyses are interspersed with tips about how to be stronger in moving forward, out of the crisis.

Finally, we are extremely pleased that Tirdad Zolghadr, an Iranian writer and curator based in New York, has agreed to write columns for us over the coming year. His beautiful first contribution immediately sets high expectations.
– Domeniek Ruyters

OPENING
dOCUMENTA (13) thinks ahead
by Domeniek Ruyters

COLUMN
Period Room
by Tirdad Zolghadr

SURVIVAL
Politicians without a party
Markus Miessen on ‘crossbench praxis’
by Domeniek Ruyters

Money isn’t everything
Interview with Matthew Slotover from Frieze
by JJ Charlesworth

FEATURES
The art of Wilfredo Prieto
by Inti Guerrero

The Netherlands in postcolonial perspective
by Alice Smits

‘Spectres’ by Sven Augustijnen
by Stefaan Vervoort

Discovery Channel
Kianoosh Motallebi, Maarten vanden Eynde, Edith Dekyndt
by Ilse van Rijn

Published by Stichting Metropolis M
Editor in Chief: Domeniek Ruyters

D 10€

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Self Publish, Be Naughty. Bruno Ceschel.

SPBN is a book about love/sex/desire/lust/intimacy created with the help of Self Publish, Be Happy’s extended network of contributors. In the spirit of SP,BH’s collective ethos, a call for submissions for “naughty” pictures was launched in March 2011. More than 5,000 photographs from around the world were submitted, by both established artists and young up-and-coming practitioners.

SPBN showcases 122 of these photographs by 75 different artists. The photographs, presented in a continuous flux, offer a powerful and uncompromising exploration of contemporary approaches to the themes of sex, desires and taboos within photography. From the surreal to the mundane, from the allusive to the graphic, the images challenge the tradition of erotic photobooks and their very ghettoised approach to desires.

Printed in a limited edition of 1,000, each copy of SPBN is unique; art director Antonio de Luca has designed a beautiful ever-changing book, a collection of A4 posters (in the manner of Playboy centrefolds), bound together with a removable elastic band. Each copy will have an accidental sequence of pages, an echo of the fragmented and subversive nature of desire. SPBN will also include a selection of texts (from Plato’s Phaedrus to erotic stories anonymously posted online), and, like an old porn newsletter, will come in a discreet black envelope.

Contributors: Joseph Akel, Morten Andersen, Brendan Baker, Corey Bartle-Sanderson, Ilya Batrakov, Lucas Blalock, Anna Bogutskaya, Parker Bright, Jake Brooks, Victor Cobo, Martina Corà, Christopher Day, Michael J. DeMeo, Bobby Doherty, Laëtitia Donval, Daniel Evans, Dora Fobert, Hannah Godley, Dana Goldstein, Roberto Greco, Tomas Hein, Åsa Johannesson, Ellen Jong, Ellen Jong and Kate Ruth, Jake Kenny, Paul Knight, Paul Kooiker, Paul Kwiatkowski, Alexander Kurmaz, Collin LaFleche, Mathieu Lambert, Bertrand Le Pluard, Nicole Lesser, Carrie Levy, Thomas Mailaender, Tommy Malekoff, Jennilee Marigomen, Aaron McElroy, Michael Max McLeod, Leah Meltzer, Matthew Mili, Ania Mokrzycka, Kristie Muller, Francesco Nazardo, Luke Norman and Nik Adam, Florian Oellers, Sean Orena, Witek Orski, Oliver Poddar and Andrew Ferguson, Angga Pratama, Karol Radziszewski, Pedro Ramos, Tobias Rose, Davi Russo, Corinna Sauer, Kirill Savchenkov, David Schoerner, Alexander Sedelnikov, Ben Seeley, Oliver Sieber, Pacifico Silano, Marija Strajnic, RJ Shaughnessy, Matthew Tammaro, Aram Tanis, Agnes Thor, Scott Treleaven, Sophie van der Perre, Erik van der Weijde, Marnix van Uum, Peter Voelker, Alex Wein, Harley Weir, Emily Yost, Irina Yulieva.

Published by Self Publish, Be Happy
Editor: Bruno Ceschel
Design: Antonio DeLuca
Project Manager: Andrew Moynehan
Text Editor: Lena Aliper
Ephemera selected by: Bryan Dooley
Softcover
29×22 cm
132p.

D 30€

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Vanessa Safavi. Blind Traveller.

Published on the occasion of the exhibitions:

Vanessa Safavi “Resorts”, Kunsthaus Glarus, August-October 2011 and “Between the Tree and a Plastic Chair”, Vanessa Safavi solo exhibition at Chert, Berlin, September-October 2010.

Published by Kunsthaus Glarus and Chert 2011

With texts by Jennifer Chert, Sabine Rusterholz Petko, Vanessa Safavi

Graphic design: Nils Reinke-Dieker

30 pages

19.5 x 29.5 cm

D 11€

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Never Odd Or Even, volume II. Mariana Castillo Deball.

An anthology of 30 dust jackets of non-existing books. A compilation of 30 titles in one single publication! Join us in this literary journey throughout different topics and subject matters ranging from: unpublished memories, tropical manifestations, intragenealogy, Why the letter E is everywhere?, the taste of truth, the aroma of existence, contemporary ruins, conversations between a cardinal and a roadrunner bird, and more!

Never odd or Even is a project by Mariana Castillo Deball with contributions by Mario Bellatin, Koen Brams, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Santiago da Silva, Tim Etchells, Carla Faesler, Dario Gamboni, Dora García, Moosje Goosen, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pascale Montandon, Irene Kopelman, Adriana Lara, Pablo León de la Barra, Jesse Lerner, Juana Lomeli, Valeria Luiselli, Raimundas Malašauskas, Antoni Muntadas, Sophie Nys, Manuel Raeder, Eran Schaerf and Eva Meyer, Sergio Taborda and Heriberto Yépez

Published on the occasion of the exhibition
Never Odd or Even at Grimmuseum, Berlin
and Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen and
co-produced by Grimmuseum, Berlin

Published by Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite
Size varies, max. 170 × 240 mm
30 Covers, 24 b/w, 6 color
English/Spanish/Portuguese/French
ISBN 978-3-00-035970-5

D 24€

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Basso Magazin #8: The Rest Is Revolution.

A compilation of text and images with contributions by Adi Khalif, Adrian Hermanides, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Baltazar Castor, Benjamin Alexander Huseby, Berglind & Funi, Billy Miller amongst others.

Ideas, redaction, layout: Yusuf Etiman

D 8€

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Books On Books. Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié.

This book project ensued from discussions between Christoph Schifferli,Christophe Daviet-Thery and Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié.
The conversation between Jonathan Monk and Yann Sérandour took place on March 10, 2011.

Published by Christophe Daviet-Thery
Sofcover
11,5 x 16 cm
260 pages
Edition of 750 copies

D 22€

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Susanne M. Winterling. Susanne M. Winterling.

That the film projection is essentially a trick of the light is a fact embraced by Susanne Winterling. Her 16mm films are tight phenomenological articulations in which the subjects double back on themselves to articulate the conditions of the medium itself. …the flickering light of the pictured fire, flame or sparkler simulates the flicker of the projected light…..Drifting bubbles, flickering candles, fizzling sparklers are all inevitably destined to burst or burn out, but here they become eternal in this short- looped filmic life.

Despite the phenomenological questions they pose, and their self-reflexive propositions about the nature of film, Winterling’s works are not entirely hermetic. They may use the propensities of film to suggest a kind of looking-glass alternative reality, but the tricks of perception she employs also reflect other reversals of a more social leaning. In Untitled (the pressure behind your nailcolour my dear), 2009, the wrestling arms are unexpectedly pale and hairless and while one the skin of one is decorated with graphic tattoos, the wrist of the other is wrapped with pearls. The masculine strength test is transposed to female protagonists, each with opposing personal styles. Winterling brings in lace, accessories, jewelry, trinkets and such inconsequential fripperies as unorthodox talisman to shed light not only on questions of a perceptual nature, but also about personal identity, gender inequalities, and the lopsided power relations between men and women. Often focusing on that precarious moment of change in a young woman’s life from girlhood to womanhood, Winterling opens up a space for possibility, where hopes and expectations are still unfettered and not stifled by the reality of social possibilities limited by gender. While Winterling does not depict a parallel world, perhaps it is true to call it a parallel vision, a de-centered view that sidles along the centerfield masculine outlook to suggest an alternative to the social authority it proscribes.
Kirsty Bell

Published by Pork Salad Press
96 pages
700 copies

D 18€

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Correspondences. Matt Connors.

Correspondences is Matt Connors’ first artist book. Taking its inspiration from 1960’s poetry paperback covers, the book acts as a kind of “themes and variations” / exercise de style, deploying a psychedelic template and reiterating it through a limited number of colors and formal iterations. The saturated colors and delicate play of formal repetition and variation create both a series of linked discreet images as well as an autonomous art object, with color and form creating a narrative rather than text.
Printed in stunning offset spot color, Correspondences becomes a sort of abstract flip book, with color and formal information spilling from the cover, to the interior and onto the spine and edges of the book.

In addition, each copy has been individually collated by the artist, so that every book has a unique sequence of colors/images, and is unique. Printed and bound in New York City.

Published by Ooga Booga
Softcover
Perfect bound
Offset printed in 5 spot colors on 100 lb paper stock, with a linen-textured coated cover
Edition of 500, 2011

D 26€

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