Exhibition catalogue of Simon Kocjančič’s solo show “Hide and Seek” in Galleria Škuc.

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The publication of The Against, the book that documents the process, development and results of the homonymous exhibitions that simultaneously took place last Spring at multiple sites in New York.
The book not only displays the uncontrollable compulsion of graffiti bombing by 21 artists from different parts of the US, Canada and Mexico. This remarkable book focuses on those who are the exceptional graffiti bombers in the last decade. The objective was to take all of these artists, bring them together in one place, and see how they collaborate as a shared experience in New York, being the mecca of graffiti bombing. The main theme, the subject of the book, is the very work of these masters working together. In the realm of graffiti, it’s very hard to get the very top artists all the time, because some of them are either incarcerated, or they won’t relate to galleries’ projects. But the ones selected are the top bombers we could get now. Rooming together and sharing styles and techniques was a unique, collaborative experience for those involved; a graffiti bombing League; a gathering of talents; the dream team of graffiti. The book shows their singularities and differences in a remarkable display of strength and imagination, shapes, and colors.
The Martinez Gallery Books has published several books on graffiti, focusing on different themes, social and health issues, and a variety of topics related to our daily life. As the evolution of graffiti from the 90s to now has shown, you have to be more well-versed in art now, even as a bomber. We can say that the world of graffiti is ever-growing, and that, in this changing context, would be an ideal opportunity to discuss and assess what bombing is today in comparison. This book offers that opportunity and opens up the field to different alternatives and trends within graffiti culture.

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Catalogue published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition held at Malmö Konsthall from 22 March to 7 May, 1978.

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“I’m interested in the resonances, the re-habitualizations, and the echoes of that historical moment in the contemporary.”

For more than three decades, Tony Cokes (b. 1956, Richmond, USA; lives and works in Providence, USA) has been exploring in his work the ideology and affect politics of media and popular culture as well as their social impact. Starting from a fundamental critique of the representation and visual commodification of African-American communities in film, television, advertising, and music videos, Cokes has developed a unique form of video essay that radically rejects ­representational imagery. These fast-paced works consist of found text and sound material from diverse sources such as critical theory, online journalism, literature, and­ popular music.

The US artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany also marks the first ­comprehensive collaboration between Kunstverein München and Haus der Kunst. The thematic starting point for Cokes’s new productions is the ideological and propagandistic entanglements of both exhibition venues during the Nazi era as well as their cultural-political role in the context of the 20th Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.

The publication Fragments, or just Moments accompanies the eponymous exhibition and translates stills from the newly produced video essays into a book format while examining the significance of Cokes’s work in terms of a contemporary approach to institutional critique. The essays are written by Tina M. Campt and Tom Holert, with an introduction by Emma Enderby and Elena Setzer (Haus der Kunst) as well as Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, and Gina Merz (Kunstverein München).

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Catalogue from Patti Smith’s exhibition and poetry reading on the occasion of Arthur Rimbaud’s 123rd birthday (October 20, 1854) at the Galerie Veith Turske on October 20, 1977. The book contains images of Smith’s paintings and drawings as well as photographs and poetry, in English and German.

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Between 28 April 2020 and 3 September 2021, Giulia Casartelli painted and sent 111 watercolour postcards to as many selected recipients. Each postcard reproduced a fragment of the short story Clementina Butterfingers (Edizioni postali tigre, 2022), written by the artist from 2014 to 2020. On 26 September 2021, Giulia started a trip to visit the locations where the postcards are now displayed. She photographed (or has asked the addressees to photograph) these intimate spaces and reproduced them in watercolour. 111 stanze is an archive of this journey.

Texts by Giulia Casartelli, Camilla Pietrabissa, Elena M. R. Rizzi
Translation: Johanna Bishop
Book design: Federico Antonini

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With texts by Amy Sillman and Emily LaBarge

Exhibition catalogue with twenty color illustrations of paintings by the British painter Prunella Clough (1919–1999). Published to commemorate the first German presentation of the artist’s work at June gallery, Berlin, the book focuses on the artist’s late-career departure from the industrial figuration for which she was known into a wry, quietly influential approach to abstraction. Included works date from 1960–1993. Prunella Clough’s abstraction developed largely out of step with any artistic movement or milieu: impervious to the advent of Pop, she was more taken by the Minimalism of Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, which may have accentuated her sense of restraint. Amy Sillman calls Clough “a ‘conceptual painter’ avant la lettre,” while Merlin James emphasizes how she “anticipated many traits in post-modern painting.” Awarded the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1999 shortly before her death, and recognized with significant solo exhibitions at Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery (1989), the Camden Arts Center (1996), and a posthumous Tate Britain retrospective (2007), Clough’s legacy remains bogged down by emphasis on her early figurative works, tethering her innovative abstraction too tightly to an industrial origin story. This catalogue is a remedy to this situation.

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Curator and Editorial Advisor: Amit Kumar Jain
Translation: Kadamboor Neeraj

Stranded in Najibabad (Uttar Pradesh) during the lockdown, Ahmadzai like others was uncertain about what the future held, and if she would be able to visit Kabul to be with her husband. It was during this time, confined in her barsati (terrace) studio room at her parents home that Ahmadzai delved into a practice of writing letters to her husband, revealing to him in a one-sided communication her anxieties, daily routine, loss of loved ones and their marriage.

Titled Nafas, or the Isolation Diaries, the letters include references from poetry and writings of Rabia Basri, Jalauddin Rumi Balkhi, Bedil Shanaz, Jaun Elia, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ghalib, T.S.Elliot, Virginia Woolf, Hermann Hesse, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, each having their own impact on Ahmadzai’s life and her thought process as a contemporary artist.

These letters highlight the concerns of a woman, who is unable to come to terms with her life in flux- one with its roots in a country where religious isolation, propaganda and intolerance have become a norm, and the uncertainty of life and political instability in the other. The series, as well as an earlier series titled Lihaaf, comments on the state of the marginalized societies, such as Muslim women, where many such voices are never heard or spoken of.

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Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai’s (b. 1988) works are deeply connected to the experiences of women that rarely find a voice and are subdued under societal and political pressures or are bound within religious orthodoxies. Her works, though narrate a personal experience, are inspired by a much larger community of women who have been marginalized in history. Working within a disciplined studio practice and through collaborative community projects such as Lihaaf (Quilt), Arshi has struck a powerful chord with contemporary feminist art theory.

Her prolific art practice finds its foundation in the history of stitching by rafoogars (darners) of Najibabad. Surrounded by a large community of women who share their embroidery over songs, compassion and sisterhood, it was only natural for Arshi to turn to the fabric as her canvas. These exchanges have led to large scrolls as well as smaller works, where she juxtaposes image and text to comment on women and their roles, their sexuality, their freedom and their desires- some in love and some victims to political terrorism. An avid reader of poetry and philosophy, she not only questions patriarchy, but demands that her voice is heard and accepted.

Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Art from the Aligarh Muslim University, 2011 and a Masters in Fine Art from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2013. Her first solo titled Nafas (Isolation Diaries) was held at Blueprint12, New Delhi, 2021. Her group exhibitions include ‘May we meet again’, a collaborative project for Noor Riyadh light festival, Saudi National Museum, 2021; ‘Head in the Clouds’ at Chatterjee & Lal, 2021; ‘Seeds are being sown’ at Shrine Empire Gallery, 2020; The India Art Fair, 2020; ‘Out of your shadow’ by Blueprint12 at Gallery Espace, 2019 and a solo presentation at 1Shanthi Road Gallery in 2019. She is one of the recipients of the Five Million Incidents grant from the Goethe-Institut, New Delhi and the Inlaks Fine Arts Award in 2019.

She lives between Kabul and New Delhi.

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Published for the exhibition Hunting & Collecting, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium, cur. Sammy Baloji, Philip Van den Bossche and Anouck Clissen (3 August 2014 – 21 September 2014).

Whatever can hunting wild animals in colonial Congo and the exploitation of Congolese mines in the present have in common with a collection of modern and contemporary art in a museum in the Belgian coastal city of Ostend? In 2014 Sammy Baloji initiated an ambitious research exhibition bringing together historical documents, pictures by Congolese photographer Chrispin Mvano, works of Belgian artists from the 19th and 20th century included in the collection , contributions by contemporary artists dealing with the exploitation of Congo and finally his own acrimonious collages. This book transforms the numerous layers of the exhibition into a experimental visual essay. The seemingly distant realities f art history and global economies appears as closely intermingled.

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Exhibition catalogue for the group exhibition “Ask Yo Mama” 2011 curated by Ina Wudtke at Kunstraum Niederösterreich Vienna. With texts by Ina Wudtke and Dieter Lesage, as well as an editorial by Christiane Krejs and 49 illustrations in 4-colour print. Available from Kunstraum Niederösterreich.

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