A few years after the “digital turn”. the change from analog to digital production and storage of images. asks the Fotomuseum Winterthur in the exhibition Status – 24 documents from today about the current status. the status and value of the photographic document and the documentary. The term “status” used to have a positive connotation and marked a self-confident display of one’s own stand. one’s own state of mind. so today we sometimes almost anxiously ask about the “state of affairs”; knowing. that this is often uncertain. precarious and mostly in flux. This driving uncertainty is also widespread in the field of photography. The rapid distribution and availability of images and videos in the print media. on the Internet. on social platforms like Facebook. Google. Twitter or Flickr. have led to new forms of communication with documentary images. Often we do not know the authors of the pictures. don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment? don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment? don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment?

Featuring: Sammy Baloji, Jules Spinatsch, Trevor Paglen, Willem Popelier, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Walead Beshty, Lukas Einsele, Alfredo Jaar, Ursula Biemann, Dmitry Astakhov, Fernando Brito, Erica Overmeer, Jonas Unger, Lidwien Van de Ven, Lara Almarcegui, Fiona Tan, Unknown Taliban, Moyra Davey, Jérôme Leuba, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Eisenring & Julier, Philip Ursprung, Rory Bester, Alain Servais, Martha Rosler, Juri Steiner, Christoph Ribbat, Meredith Haaf, Elisabeth Bronfen, Philipp Sarasin, Michael Wetzel, Thomas Macho, Reinhard Braun, Andrey Parshikov, Alfonso Morales Carillo, Mirelle Thijsen, Moritz Leunenberger, Heribert Prantl, Bettina Lockemann, Kai Van Hasselt, Kim Barker, Adrian Rifkin, Lukas Bärfuss, Nadine Barth, Reto Thuering.

Order here

I See / You Mean is an experimental novel about mirrors, maps, relationships, the ocean, elusive success, and possible happiness. Through a collage of verbal photographs, overheard dialogue, sexual encounters, found material, and self identi­fication devices (astrology, the I Ching, palmistry, Tarot), it charts from past to future the changing currents between two women and two men­: a writer, a model/stockbroker/maybe dictator, a photographer, and an actor. A lot happens between the lines. Art critic Lucy Lippard wrote this novel in 1970 and became a feminist in the process: “I started writing and realized I was ashamed to be a woman. Then I had to find out why. Then I got very angry. The fragmented visual form came out of contemporary art and the conflicting emotions of 1960s political confrontation; they suggested a new way to put things back together—an open-ended, female way that didn’t pretend conclusions.”

Lucy R. Lippard is a writer, activist, and curator. She is the author of twenty-five books on contemporary art and cultural criticism and has curated some fifty exhibitions in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

Afterword by Susana Torre
Edited by Jeff Khonsary

First Edition (2021)

Order here

The book comprises 52 imaginary masks made in veneer wood cut technique and was printed from the original plates in 500 numbered copies. It was published by Dfus Golem, a small print shop and bindery that works with letterpress machines and specializes in art books and special-edition prints.

Edition of 500, numbered

Tel Aviv, 2018

Order here

Matt Brand’s second book could not be more of a departure from his first. To embrace the value of incompletion and observing works in progress, the author has published his “Free Writing” note from the Notes app on his phone, where he would capture lines and fragments whenever they came to him between the dates of 9/4/18 and 12/08/20. Some entries are only 2 or 3 words, whereas others are entire poems and paragraphs of thought.

Most published books can only provide a reader with an obscured vantage of the text’s origin, after having taken it through countless rounds of edits and revisions prior to release. Notes App aims to eliminate these confounding factors and hauntological smudges by instead showcasing creative writing ideas and fragments in their original state. The book offers readers the linguistic equivalent of a fine artist’s sketchbook or a recording artist’s draft folder. Here entries may be just as likely to stimulate inspiration as they are to spur reflection on the nature and lifespan of creative ideas.

Order here

A collective effort from a vital scene in Kampala, KIKOMMANDO takes its name from Ugandan street food of flat bread and beans. As a ‘food of soldiers’ offering maximum energy for minimum funds, the eponymous mixtape, video series and book project is an equally nourishing and ambitious proposition. It all began in the East African summer of 2018, during a two-month residency at the Nyege Nyege label and collective’s villa, in collaboration with their sublabel Hakuna Kulala. Producer and PAN artist Simone Trabucchi (aka STILL) opened the door to his temporary studio in the city and a crucial cross-cultural collaboration was born.

“The intention was to record as much as possible,” Trabucchi says about KIKOMMANDO’s musical showcase of eight Kampala-based artists, coming from the spectrum of musical influences, crossing trap, drill, cut ups, kuduro, electro, smooth jams—the list goes on. In creating a sonic space to support the expression of its featured singers, poets and emcees, the mixtape ties countless styles and flows into a single snapshot of a particular part of the Kampala music scene, at a particular point in time. The invective of rapper and street legend Blaq Bandana’s “Nkwaata” is laid over a spare and brooding ambient. Kampala Unit trumpet player and first-time singer, Florence, rolls a thick melodic texture through the organic clicks, knocks and atmospherics of “Bae Tasanze”. Jahcity’s unique lyricism combines a personal take on traditional music and soulful-reggae with a jerky, wobbly collection of drops and donks.

Meanwhile, Ecko Bazz applies his grimey vocals and rhythmic, introspective words to lead single ‘Ntabala (Rolex Riddim) at a particularly pertinent moment of self-reflection. “I was trying to listen to the voice inside myself and wanted to achieve a higher level of understanding of things, life,” he says about the themes that he felt inspired to explore with Trabucchi at the recording desk. The accompanying video, shot on a rooftop in the Kampala neighborhood of Ggaba, is one of a series of slick and high-definition films complementing each one of the KIKOMMANDO tracks. These also include contributions from Ugandan emcee and key Hakuna Kulala member Biga Yut, don dada of the GabaGaza gang Swordman Kitala (with Omutaba on percussion) and South Sudanese poet and singer Winnie Lado.

Also accompanying a ‘visual mixtape’ of moving images for each song on KIKOMMANDO is a recording diary of sorts, where Trabucchi compiles a vibrant collection of pictures, colours and textures reflecting the its heterogeneous sonic palette into a book. Together this multifaceted, interdisciplinary project showcases, what Lamin Fofana’s liner notes describe as, “amazing originality, complexity”, while “embracing dissonance”.

Trabucchi’s personal take on a kind of ‘digital dancehall’ defined the sound of his ground-breaking rumination on Italy’s colonial history on debut STILL album, I, in 2017. KIKOMMANDO is a different proposition entirely, where he finds new ways to complement the personality and skills of its contributors sprung from a constant stream of visitors arriving at the Nyege Nyege Villa’s makeshift studio. “It was a dialogue,” stresses Trabucchi, who has always preferred collaboration as a means to escape branded and stereotypical identities, while creating something new. “I created the musical platform to make the singers confident, and challenged them at the same time. Working together accelerates ideas and reveals that nothing is your invention alone. That’s why KIKOMMANDO is a mixtape to me, and not an album.”

Includes a set of stickers & mixtape download code.

The mixtape is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring artwork by NMR. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11 & 12 mixed by Ville Haimala. Tracks 5, 6 & 8 mixed by Lorenzo Dal Ri.

Order here

Authors: Amina Lawal Agoro, Dulcie Abrahams Altass, Yemisi Aribisala, Eva Barois De Caevel, Mamadou Diallo, Carine Doumit, Ayesha Hameed, Ava Hess, Sandrine Honliasso, Marinette Jeannerod, Koyo Kouoh, Ariane Leblanc, Dominique Malaquais, Lionel Manga, Zen Marie, Jenny Mbaye, Thierno Niang, Julie Peghini, Marie Helene Pereira, Esther Poppe, farid rakun, Frida Robles Ponce, Sumesh Manoj Sharma, Marion Louisgrand Sylla, Maya Tounta, Margrethe Troensegaard, Ibrahima Wane, Peter Webb, Syham Weigant

RAW Académie was developed in Dakar to create a space of experimental teaching and collaboration, of deconstruction and exposure, of knowledge and nourishment. Koyo Kouoh, founder of RAW Material Company, wished for curatorial inquiry and critical writing to join artistic thinking at this site of international encounters. During these two-month long sessions that take place twice a year, young artists and curators—the Académie fellows—come from all over the world to be accompanied by faculty members with whom they exchange and experiment around particular discursive practices or thematic foci. The commitment to create a community that did not previously exist has led to an ever expanding RAW Académie family of Pan-African and global orientation. This thriving and stimulating meeting ground of pedagogy and art has cultivated the emergence of many provocations, reflections and new possibilities, some of which are shared in Breathing Out of School—a volume of diverse texts that slowly constructs an invitation to ruminate upon what it means to share the table of curiosity and creativity with others, as well as think about what feeds our own earnest dreams.

La RAW Académie a été créée à Dakar afin de proposer un espace d’enseignement expérimental et de collaboration ; de déconstruction et d’exposition ; de connaissance et de substance. Koyo Kouoh, fondatrice de RAW Material Company, a souhaité que la recherche curatoriale et l’écriture critique se joignent à la pensée artistique sur ce lieu de rencontres internationales. Lors de ces sessions d’une durée de deux mois qui ont lieu deux fois par an, de jeunes artistes et curateur·rice·s — les fellows de l’Académie — arrivent du monde entier pour y être accompagné·e·s par le corps professoral avec lequel elles·ils échangent et expérimentent autour de pratiques discursives ou de thématiques particulières. La volonté de constituer une communauté qui n’existait pas auparavant a permis à la RAW Académie d’élargir sans cesse sa famille panafricaine et mondiale. Ce lieu de rencontre florissant et stimulant de la pédagogie et de l’art a cultivé l’emergence de nombreuses provocations, réflexions et possibilités nouvelles, dont certaines sont partagées dans Respirer hors école — un volume de textes diversifiés qui forme peu à peu une invitation à méditer sur ce que signifie de partager la table de la curiosité et de la créativité avec d’autres, ainsi qu’à réfléchir à ce qui nourrit nos rêves ardents.

Order here

A miniseries on drawing

This enticing series of little books approaches drawing in its most specific acceptation, i.e. as a peremptory gesture that is gradually revealed, a tool at the service of thought and a primary form of representation. The pages feature both real and imaginary objects along with the caprices, secrets and flights of fancy of the artists involved. With all the speed and immediacy of a snack, browsing through this finger-lickin’ collection – jam-packed full of mouth-watering tasty tit bits – will certainly whet your appetite. And once you try one, you will keep coming back for more.

Order here

In his third book this year, Matt Brand explores themes of ephemerality and reflection, turning a book of poems into an exhibition space of impressionistic tableaus. As in the author’s prior collections, time and our relationship to it still take center stage here. However, in these poems, Brand paints with a palette of emotions untypical for his prior work—joy, epiphany, celebration, contentment. This book-sized art exhibition makes pitstops in a James Benning film, Walter Benjamin’s critical theory, a wine fair in France, a first date in Berlin, a Jane’s Addiction music video, a long-distance COVID film club, and a Bernie Sanders meme. The outcome is a text that highlights the richness of our finite passing moments and the gratitude that can be found therein.

Order here