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elements from the Mundaneum Archives, excerpts of texts of Edouard Glissant, Raoul Vaneigem, Paul Lafargue, a.o., and unpublished material of Allan Sekula on the Borinage.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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Film as a Form of Writing

Film as a Form of Writing is published and distributed by Motto Books in collaboration with WIELS. The trilingual book, designed by Joris Kritis, centres around a recent in-depth interview conducted by critic Quinn Latimer with Akram Zaatari.

Akram Zaatari: ‘It is a film, a thought that took the form of an artwork. As with most of my work, it is made for time; it is both a testimony of where I come from and a mark I care to leave for the future—again as thought, not as data or records. Let’s call it alternative writing that uses the form of letters.’

Softcover, 170 x 220 mm, 72 pages, ill. b/w
Edited by Dirk Snauwaert and Caroline Dumalin
Texts by Dirk Snauwaert, Quinn Latimer and Akram Zaatari
Graphic design by Joris Kritis
Languages: English, French, Dutch
Published by WIELS & Motto Books
ISBN: 978-9-078937-22-7

€15.00

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The book Endless Andness is a dialogue with the work of Ann Veronica Janssens. It is the last volume of a trilogy on the question of political art. Mieke Bal seeks to understand and advocate art that is political without being about politics.

With: Mieke Bal, Bjorn Schmeltzer, Ann Veronica Janssens & Dirk Snauwaert.

20.09.2013, 19:00
Free entrance
Info & reservation: welcome@wiels.org

Über Peter Friedl. Dirk Snauwaert (Ed.). WIELS / Motto Books.

Vielgestaltig, heterogen und schwer zu fassen erscheint das künstlerische Werk von Peter Friedl (geb. 1960), einem der wichtigsten Künstler seiner Generation. Als konzeptuelle Akte und ästhetische Modelle sind seine Arbeiten beschrieben worden, die sich aus dem Fundus unterschiedlicher Formen, Genres und Denkfiguren bedienen. Wie kaum ein anderer Gegenwartskünstler lädt er dazu ein, den darin verborgenen und wirksamen Bezügen aus der Ideen- und Kulturgeschichte sowie ihren globalen Gegengeschichten, offenen Enden und Anschlüssen nachzuspüren. Die zehn hier erstmals auf Deutsch versammelten Essays sind zwischen 2001 und 2012 entstanden, vier davon eigens für diesen Reader. In ihren interdisziplinären Deutungen verorten die Autorinnen und Autoren Friedls Arbeit in der Kunst- und Mediengeschichte, in Literaturwissenschaft, politischer Theorie, Philosophie und kuratorischer Praxis.

Mit Essays von:
Mieke Bal, Roger M. Buergel, Jean-François Chevrier, Norman M. Klein, Bartomeu Mari, Maria Muhle, Eva Schmidt, Marco Scotini, Dirk Snauwaert, Hilde Van Gelder, Leire Vergara

Language: German
ISBN: 9782940524044
Pages: 230

D 19.80€

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The series of images Bruno Serralongue produces, explains critic Pascal Beausse, “are the result of protocols which lead him to confront the concrete conditions under which information is produced and disseminated. Breaking with the supposed self-sufficiency of art, he travels regularly to places where news is happening.” Working alongside photojournalists or on commissions, he uses these professional procedures to produce his work while at the same time readily abandoning some of the prerogatives and decisions that are usually attached to artistic activity. “His pronounced refusal,” says Beausse, “of his own signature effects, places him in a clear documentary lineage. His critical approach to the status of news images is that of a line of thinking deriving from Conceptual art and the interventionist strategies of the early 1990s.”

This publication offers an overview on Serralongue’s work, organized in series and by typologies. It is accompanied by a discussion between the artist and curators Marta Gili and Dirk Snauwaert, as well as with a new essay by Carles Guerra.

Published by JRP Ringier with Jeu de Paume, Paris; Wiels, Brussels; and La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona..

D 40€
Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com