My Great Arab Melancholy is a beautiful, tragic and award-winning book from Lebanese writer and illustrator Lamia Ziadé. Blending the author’s years of research, personal memoir and more than 300 illustrations, this compelling history of the modern Arab world explores the major thinkers, struggles and turning points that have shaped the Middle East as we know it today.

Ziadé begins in South Lebanon, ‘land of martyrs, ruins and passion’, before taking the reader further afield, to Beirut, Jerusalem, Cairo and Baghdad. The book moves from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, tracing the Arab world’s tragedies and the derailing of dreams and possibilities caused in large part by Western imperialism and the conquest of Palestine.

Within these pages there are the blasts of explosions, blood, tears and tragedy, cemeteries, wreaths and ribbons, martyrs and paradise. Ziadé unearths the buried memory of resistance fighters and their lost ideals. In haunting prose and unforgettable images she celebrates the progressive, bold, revolutionary moments and figures of the Arab world’s recent past.

Lamia Ziadé is a Lebanese author, illustrator and visual artist. Born in Beirut in 1968 and raised during the Lebanese Civil War, she moved to Paris at 18 to study graphic arts. She then worked as a designer for Jean-Paul Gaultier, exhibited her art in numerous galleries internationally, and went on to publish several illustrated books, including My Port of Beirut, Ma très grande mélancolie arabe which won the Prix France-Liban, Ô nuit, ô mes yeux and Bye bye Babylone.

Emma Ramadan is an educator and literary translator from French. She is the recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, two NEA Fellowships, and a Fulbright. Her translations include A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa, Zabor, or the Psalms by Kamel Daoud, Panics by Barbara Molinard, and The Easy Life by Marguerite Duras.

Award-winning illustrated chronicle of the modern Arab world, combining travelogue, memoir, history and gorgeous full-colour art

Author: Lamia Ziadé

Publisher: Pluto Press

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“Screening Exercises” is a cycle of screenings, meetings and seminars that looks at film projection as the focus of the research of some contemporary artists and as its specific and structural element, revealing the performative aspect of cinema. The first edition happened in Venice between October and December 2022.

“Screening Exercises – Quaderni (I-IV)” collects the proceedings of the meetings with the artists and essays on theoretical insights. The protagonists of the first four exercises are the artists Helga Fanderl, Sílvia Das Fadas, Jan Kulka and the scholar Rinaldo Censi.

“Screening Exercises” and their “Quaderni” are curated by Flavia Mazzarino and Filippo Perfetti.

“Screening Exercises” è un ciclo di proiezioni, incontri e seminari che guarda alla proiezione cinematografica come fulcro della ricerca di alcuni artisti contemporanei e come suo elemento specifico e strutturale, mostrando l’aspetto performativo del cinema. La prima edizione si è svolta a Venezia tra ottobre e dicembre 2022.

“Screening Exercises – Quaderni (I-IV)” raccoglie gli atti degli incontri con gli artisti e saggi di approfondimento teorico. I protagonisti dei primi quattro esercizi sono gli artisti Helga Fanderl, Sílvia Das Fadas, Jan Kulka e il ricercatore Rinaldo Censi.

“Screening Exercises” e i relativi “Quaderni” sono curati da Flavia Mazzarino e Filippo Perfetti.

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Auditing Intimacy catalogues the last five years of O.J.A.I.’s postcard correspondence. In addition to over 80 images, the publication contains a specially commissioned essay by curator Alicja Melzacka dealing with self-institutionalization – the performing of the self as an institution – as an approach to artistic research and performance. There is a lexicon disambiguating the invented bureaucratic jargon O.J.A.I. produces and circulates around their practice.

Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence is the collaborative practice of artists Chris Dreier (DE) and Gary Farrelly (IRE/BE) since 2015. The work is fueled by a recurring obsession with architecture, infrastructure, finance, conspiracy theory, institutional power and magic. O.J.A.I. pursues a strategy of self-institutionalization where tools and codified rules of engagement are appropriated from economic and political infrastructures. The work meets the public as performance, sound art, installation, cartography, publications, and a radio show (transmitted on Dublin Digital Radio and Cashmere Radio, Berlin). O.J.A.I. has performed and exhibited work at AAIR Antwerpen, Damien and the Love Guru, ISELP (Brussels), Laura Mars Gallery (Berlin), Grölle Pass Projects, Gold and Beton, University of Texas, Marres Center for Contemporary Culture (Maastricht) and Horst Festival (Villevord).

Author: Gary Farrelly, Chris Dreier

Publisher: Zero Desk

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This text is an attempt to explain the importance of comfort regulation, through sensory stimulation. Whether that be from fidgeting, through masturbation to cuddling and other activities. This thesis is about self-regulation and the objects which visualise that need. From the Freudian psychoanalysis idea of child development through transitional objects introduced by Donald Winnicot to Dakimakura phenomena in otaku culture in a Japanese society that seeks closeness to cute pastelle vibrators which are overflowing the sex toys market. The attempt to answer this question: “Why do hoodie strings taste so good?” seeks to answer the overarching need for constant adjustment to the environment we live in.

I’m intrigued by the need for biting, sucking, and tapping random objects. The fidgeting era is here! We are overwhelmed by all kinds of spinners, popping toys, anti-stress devices, dopamine booster, etc. What is it all about and why have fidget spinners became such a hype in the recent years? Have you ever considered why your hoodie strings taste so good? Have you caught yourself while compulsively sucking them in the metro or at the bus stop? This thesis will endeavour to answer these questions. The answer might be much easier and more pragmatic than we think. In contradiction to my deep analysis in the following sections, one of the reddit users wrote in response to the above question: Why do hoodie strings taste so good?

“Just don’t do it! After sucking them a few times, they become bacteria factories/colonies, so taste (and probably smell) evolves over time. Don’t suck and chew them!! They do, however, work as good, reachable things to practise finger dexterity – to tie knots into and practice rope binding”.

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Fruit de longues recherches dans les archives des artistes, l’ouvrage sera doté d’une riche documentation et offrira une relecture inédite de la production artistique italienne entre 1960 et 1975. Apparu dans les années 1960 en Italie, l’Arte Povera est une démarche artistique ; davantage une attitude qu’un mouvement. Théorisé par Germano Celant en 1966, l’Arte Povera s’inscrit dans une volonté de défiance à l’égard des industries culturelles, portée par une nouvelle génération d’artistes incarnant des manières inédites d’appréhender l’art et la création.
S’opposant à la consommation de masse et réhabilitant la place de l’homme et de la nature dans l’art, l’Arte Povera en renouvelle les thématiques (l’homme, la nature, le corps, le temps), les matériaux (naturels, de récupération, périssables), les techniques (artisanales), les gestes et l’intention. Il s’agit de repenser les critères d’esthétisme, de se défaire des artifices, de revenir à l’immédiateté des émotions et des sensations.
A travers la production de livres, d’affiches, de projections et d’impressions sur toile, les artistes italiens de cette époque se sont appropriés le pouvoir narratif de l’image photographique et filmique afin d’explorer de nouveaux possibles de l’art. Transdisciplinaires, mêlant photographies, films, vidéos, affiches, livres, objets, sculptures et peintures, l’ouvrage, qui l’accompagnera l’exposition, présentera plus de 300 oeuvres de figures majeures de l’Arte Povera, parmi lesquelles Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Luigi Ghirri, Jannis Kounellis, Piero Manzoni, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto…
Conçu comme un livre d’art et non comme un catalogue d’exposition, il donnera à voir l’extraordinaire richesse d’une période où les artistes italiens ont compté parmi les plus importants interprètes de la transformation des langages visuels. Ce nouveau regard sur une démarche artistique majeure des avant-gardes du XXe siècle proposera également une immersion visuelle dans le contexte politique et culturel de l’époque avec des portfolios dédiés au cinéma, théâtre, soirées littéraires, extraits de presse présentant les grands enjeux socioculturels d’alors.

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in medias res is an ongoing selective collection of seemingly random online images as well as self-taken screenshots and photography. Featuring a selection of over 1200 pictures out of the personal archive, it deals with patterns of recognition, appropriation and contextualization of (popular) cultures. By reproduction through means of hard copy a shift of attention shall be provoked (in favor of THE IMAGE).

Following musical techniques of plunderphonics, the mode of situating and framing finds manifestation from 15th century renaissance art (emblem) through to present operating principles of the social media online platform instagram (hashtags). 
Focusing on reciprocal influence and interference between text and image, the project aims to intentionally subvert cultural codes of visual content and wording by allegory and metaphor. 
Associated figures of thought, socio-political terms, new slang, ambiguous terms of marketing and connotated phrases are addressed to expand (semiotic) nuances and undertones of modern day society (consumer culture, mainstream-noise, fashion-dynamics, politics / environmental issues), thus to challenge ways of perception of cultural sets of phenomena (meme).. 
Of course, a certain sense of humor is a substantial attitude of indifference to ride the jittering stream that shapes contours of global scenes of references and re-production of “meaning” through poor images.

in medias res is a context bundle. 
in medias res is a deep learning process. 
in medias res is highly subjective.

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“Healing The Museum” is a mid-career monograph looking at Grace Ndiritu’s diverse practice over the last twenty years, which encompasses performance, film, shamanism, social actions, painting, publications, textile work, and collection research. The large selection of artworks included in the publication are in a dialogue with each other, further enriched by in-depth conversations with Brook Andrew, Gareth Bell-Jones, and Philippe Van Cauteren, and written contributions from Ifeanyi Awachie, Ann Hoste, and Hammad Nasar. The monograph’s publication coincides with the eponymous exhibition at S.M.A.K.–Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent.

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This special issue is the cataLog for Model Behavior, a group exhibition of models, architectural and otherwise, curated by the Anyone Corporation and presented by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union in New York City. The exhibition, which ran October 4–November 18, 2022, questioned the role of the model in projecting or eliciting social behavior. In addition to documenting the 55 exhibited works with four-color images and project descriptions, the 160-page cataLog includes essays by curator Cynthia Davidson; by architecture theorists Jörg H. Gleiter, Kiel Moe, and Christophe Van Gerrewey; and by art historian Annabel Jane Wharton.

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MODEL BEHAVIOR

OCTOBER 4 – NOVEMBER 18, 2022

A GROUP EXHIBITION CURATED BY THE ANYONE CORPORATION AND PRESENTED BY THE IRWIN S. CHANIN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE OF THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART

Models, whether physical or digital, are intrinsic to architecture. Just as science, mathematics, politics, economics, and other fields use models to visualize, reflect, and predict behaviors, so do architectural models. Model Behavior, a group exhibition curated by Log editor Cynthia Davidson, designed by New Affiliates (Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb), considered how architectural models contribute to shaping social behaviors. Model Behavior featured 70 works and objects by 45 artists and architects including artists Olafur Eliasson, Isamu Noguchi, Ekow Nimako, and Thomas Demand, and architects Peter Eisenman, Darell Wayne Fields, Greg Lynn, Forensic Architects (Eyal Weizman), First Office (Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood), MALL (Jennifer Bonner), Ensamble (Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril), and Höweler and Yoon (Eric Höweler and Meejin Yoon).

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ca. 100 Hundetüten gesammelt von Simon Freund, kuratiert von Leonie Herweg, gesetzt von Paul Jürgens, mit Texten von Sophia Eisenhut und Olga Hohmann. Jedes Buch ist ein Unikat, die Anordnung der Bilder variiert.

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Experiments in architectural education in the post–World War II era that challenged and transformed architectural discourse and practice.

In the decades after World War II, new forms of learning transformed architectural education. These radical experiments sought to upend disciplinary foundations and conventional assumptions about the nature of architecture as much as they challenged modernist and colonial norms, decentered building, imagined new roles for the architect, and envisioned participatory forms of practice. Although many of the experimental programs were subsequently abandoned, terminated, or assimilated, they nevertheless helped shape and in some sense define architectural discourse and practice. This book explores and documents these radical pedagogies and efforts to defy architecture’s status quo.

The experiments include the adaptation of Bauhaus pedagogy as a means of “unlearning” under the conditions of decolonization in Africa; a movement to design for “every body,” including the disabled, by architecture students and faculty at the University of California, Berkeley; the founding of a support network for women interested in the built environment, regardless of their academic backgrounds; and a design studio in the USSR that offered an alternative to the widespread functionalist approach in Soviet design. Viewed through their dissolution and afterlife as well as through their founding stories, these projects from the last century raise provocative questions about architecture’s role in the new century.

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