Clément Rosset, Joyful Cruelty: Toward a Philosophy of the Real
Softcover, 160 pp., offset 2/2, 5 x 8 inches
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9796121-1-4
Published by Free Association
$25.00 ·
This classic collection of essays by French philosopher and essayist Clément Rosset follows another Free Association title in the same format, Werner Herzog’s travel journal, Of Walking on Ice. The publisher is dedicated to finding worthy essays and other texts that have either been out of print or were never made available in English — especially seeking out works that have remained popular, at least among a small, devoted group, over the years. This work, out of print for 20 years, is the first and only work by the Paris-based Rosset (born 1939) to be translated into English. Rosset has written some 30 short books, many of which reference his important influence, Schopenhauer. “Joy is the necessary condition,” writes Rosset, “if not of life in general at least of life lived consciously and with full awareness.”
Clement Rosset, Free Association, Harsh Patel, RAM, Theory
Werner Herzog, Of Walking in Ice
Softcover, 112 pp., offset 2/2, 5 x 8 inches
Edition of 2500
ISBN 978-0-9796121-0-7
Published by Free Association
$25.00 · out of stock
Munich — Paris 23
November — 14 December 1974
In the winter of 1974, filmmaker Werner Herzog made a three week solo journey from Munich to Paris on foot. He believed it was the only way his close friend, film historian Lotte Eisner, would survive a horrible sickness that had overtaken her. During this monumental odyssey through a seemingly endless blizzard, Herzog documented everything he saw and felt with intense sincerity. This diary is dotted with a pastiche of rants about the extreme cold and utter loneliness, notes on Herzog’s films and travels, poetic descriptions of the snowy countryside, and personal philosophizing. What is most remarkable is that the reading of the book is in continuity with the experience of watching his films; it’s as if, through this walk, we witness the process in which images are born. Although he received a literary award for it, this introspective masterpiece has lingered out of print since 1979. Beautifully designed and emotionally impressive, Of Walking in Ice is the first in a color-coded series of remarkable yet long-forgotten titles being republished by Free Association.
Carl Hanser Verlag, Culture, Film, Free Association, Harsh Patel, RAM, Werner Herzog
Carol A. Stakenas, LACE: Living the Archive
Hardcover, 108 pp., offset 1/1, 8.75 x 11 inches
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-937335-21-5
Published by LACE
$30.00 ·
Selected Publications & Print Ephemera from the LACE Archives 1978–2008.
From its founding in 1978, LACE — Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions — was a pivotal, artist-run organization committed to presenting the work of Southern California artists and highlighting bleeding-edge work. Both a treasure-trove and a grab-bag, this book reproduces a wealth of archival material from LACE’s first three decades. Flyers, postcards, memoirs, catalogs, posters, invitations: the editors have chosen an engrossing selection, including well-known names like Lita Albuquerque, Paul McCarthy, Red Grooms and Mike Kelley, and lesser-known but equally worthy artists. As Liz Kotz writes in her introduction, for a new generation of art historians, movements like Minimalism, Happenings and Conceptual Art are just names; the archive allows them to experience the history first-hand. And if you were around at the time, this book is as deeply satisfying as going through that box of stuff you have kept since college days.
Anne Libby, Art, Carol A Stakenas, Culture, Design, Graphics, Ingrid Cruz, Joanne Mitchell, LACE, Lisa Carlson, Lita Albuquerque, Liz Kotz, Mark Owens, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, RAM, Red Grooms, Zemula Barr
Robert Holyhead, Robert Holyhead Paintings
Softcover, 48 pp., offset 4/1, 210 x 260 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-905464-35-7
Published by Ridinghouse
$25.00 ·
This exhibition catalog celebrates British artist Robert Holyhead’s precise application and removal of paint, his colorful abstract forms and complex compositions. Full-page illustrations of each of the eight paintings from 2010 are accompanied by detailed photographs of the edge of the paintings and places where the paint has been wiped away. Includes a conversation between the artist and Anthony Spira, director of the Milton Keynes Gallery, in which Holyhead says, “I pick up on things that are a little bit peculiar and that exist awkwardly in the world, that are already abstract … My painting presents both a type of personal language and some familiarity with the world.” With several full-color installation views.
Anthony Spira, Art, Doro Globus, Karsten Schubert, Mark Thomson, Matthew Hollow, Peter White, RAM, Ridinghouse, Robert Holyhead
John Kelsey, Rich Texts: Selected Writing for Art
Softcover, 248 pp., offset 2/1, 120 x 190 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-934105-23-8
Published by Sternberg Press
$20.00 · out of stock
Compiled for the first time here, essays by American critic, artist, gallerist and dealer John Kelsey convey some of the most poignant challenges in the art world and in the many social roles it creates. “When the critic chooses to become a smuggler, a hack, a cook, or an artist,” Kelsey said, “it’s maybe because criticism as such remains tied to an outmoded social relation.” Kelsey’s “rich texts” play the double role of explaining the art world and actively participating in it; they close the distance between the work of art and how we talk about it. These playful, elegant writings — many originally published in Artforum — embody a timelessness that strikes at the core of the contemporary art world. The newest edition from the terrific Institut fur Kunstkritik series.
Criticism, Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw, John Kelsey, Markus Weisbeck, Matthew Evans, Miriam Rech, RAM, Sternberg Press, Theory
Detlev Gretenkort and Karsten Schubert, Georg Baselitz: Collected Writings and Interviews
Softcover, 300 pp., offset 4/1, 145 x 215 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-905464-23-4
Published by Ridinghouse
$49.00 ·
The outstanding British publisher Ridinghouse brings out the most comprehensive look into the life and work of German abstract expressionist Georg Baselitz. The book is divided into four sections: personal images; a record of Baselitz’s artworks; the artist’s own writings (some published for the first time, many never before translated into English); and interviews with the artist by noted writers and art historians. Known for his rebellious approach to painting, Baselitz discusses the act of painting, his biography and much more. The artist’s writings cover topics from his first trip abroad to other painters he’s admired. Though not a catalogue raisonné, this copiously illustrated book gives the most complete picture ever of a seminal artist.
Art, Criticism, Detlev Gretenkort, Fiona Elliott, Georg Baselitz, Interviews, Jill Lloyd, Karsten Schubert, Louisa Green, Mark Thomson, RAM, Ridinghouse, Theory, Writings
Craig Krull, Photographing the L.A. Art Scene 1955-1975
Softcover, 92 pp., offset 1/1, 9 x 9 inches
Edition of 2000
ISBN 1-889195-02-2
Published by Smart Art Press
$25.00 · out of stock
Photographing the L.A. Art Scene is a catalogue celebrating the legendary artists, dealers, and friends who comprised the nucleus of the L.A. art scene during this seminal time period. Includes photography by: Charles Britton, Dennis Hopper, William Claxton, Jerry McMillan, Clytie Alexander, Gary Krugier, Ken Price, Peggy Moffitt, Jan Webb, Pat Beer, Ed Moses, Edmund Teske, Wallace Berman, Patricia Faure, Julian Wasser, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, Malcolm Lubliner and John Waggaman. Introduction by Craig Krull.
Art, Charles Britton, Clytie Alexander, Craig Krull, Dennis Hopper, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha, Edmund Teske, Gary Krugier, Jan Webb, Jerry McMillan, Joe Goode, John Waggaman, Julian Wasser, Ken Price, Los Angeles, Malcolm Lubliner, Pat Beer, Patricia Faure, Peggy Moffitt, Photography, RAM, Smart Art Press, Wallace Berman, William Claxton
Josephine Meckseper, The Josephine Meckseper Catalogue No. 2
Softcover, 48 pp., offset 4/4, 240 x 240 mm
English and German
Edition of 1000
ISBN: 1-933128-14-3
Published by Sternberg Press
$24.00 ·
“Politics and aesthetics morph seamlessly in a world where politics confuses itself with representation, where all attention is swallowed in the communication of a message rather than in the intensity of an event. … In Meckseper’s gallery installation, where fashion images share space with protest documentation, where an idea of relational space rubs shoulders with an idea of lifestyle or boutique design, where an idea of the social morphs into an idea of the commodity relation, many of the elements on display also double as mechanisms of display: shelves, rugs, windows, magazine covers, and wallpaper are the products here. Here, display displays itself. Covers and wrappings conceal nothing, they only reveal themselves. And, reappropriating the very mechanisms of commodity transmission in this way, and in particular by conflating politicized symbols with such functions … , by relocating non-art in art and vice versa, by this orgiastic displacement, this diabolical Feng Shui of signifying forms and materials, the artist also goes to work (like the peasant in her field, the posing model) in the production of her anti-world.”
—John Kelsey
Art, Elizabeth Dee, Fashion, Josephine Meckseper, RAM, Sternberg Press, Sylvere Lotringer
Josephine Meckseper, The Josephine Meckseper Catalogue No. 1
Softcover, 64 pp., offset 4/4, 240 x 240 mm
English and German
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-933128-00-9
Published by Sternberg Press
$24.00 · out of stock
“Politics and aesthetics morph seamlessly in a world where politics confuses itself with representation, where all attention is swallowed in the communication of a message rather than in the intensity of an event. … In Meckseper’s gallery installation, where fashion images share space with protest documentation, where an idea of relational space rubs shoulders with an idea of lifestyle or boutique design, where an idea of the social morphs into an idea of the commodity relation, many of the elements on display also double as mechanisms of display: shelves, rugs, windows, magazine covers, and wallpaper are the products here. Here, display displays itself. Covers and wrappings conceal nothing, they only reveal themselves. And, reappropriating the very mechanisms of commodity transmission in this way, and in particular by conflating politicized symbols with such functions… , by relocating non-art in art and vice versa, by this orgiastic displacement, this diabolical Feng Shui of signifying forms and materials, the artist also goes to work (like the peasant in her field, the posing model) in the production of her anti-world.”
—John Kelsey
Andrew Ross, Art, Fashion, John Kelsey, Josephine Meckseper, RAM, Sternberg Press
Contra Mundum I-VII
Softcover, 224 pp., offset 1/1, 140 x 220 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9830773-0-5
Published by Oslo Editions
$18.00 · out of stock
The inaugural volume from
Oslo Editions,
Contra Mundum I-VII, documents a series of talks held at the Mandrake in Los Angeles on the theme of “contra mundum” or “against the world.” Taking its cue from Evelyn Waugh’s novel
Brideshead Revisited, Contra Mundum posits the world-making potential of (anti)sociality as a subject position and the value of a notion of collectivity grounded in “association without relation.” So doing, the book considers a diverse range of topics, including the furniture of Donald Judd, Private Issue New Age music, animal subjectivity, misanthropy and the trope of self-banishment in Shakespeare, apocalypticism and the zombie film, pirates from Blackbeard to Somalia, and the post-punk vocalist Mark E. Smith. Featuring contributions from artists Rupert Deese, Elad Lassry, Anthony Pearson, and Frances Stark, and critics Aaron Kunin, Matthew Taylor Raffety, and Evan Calder Williams.
Artforum 500 Words.
Aaron Kunin, Alex Klein, Animals, Anthony Pearson, Architecture, Art, Artforum, Aurele Sack, Dallas Acid, Donald Judd, Elad Lassry, Evan Calder Williams, Evelyn Waugh, Frances Stark, Furniture, Grigory Perelman, Jan Tumlir, Jon Pestoni, Mandrake, Mark E Smith, Mark Owens, Matt Anderson, Matthew Taylor Raffety, Michael Metzger, Music, New Age, Oslo Editions, Piper Wynn Severance, RAM, Rupert Deese, The Fall, Wendy Yao
Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr, Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie
Softcover, 180 pp., offset 4/1, 170 x 240 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-933128-88-7
Published by Sternberg Press
$25.00 ·
Class inevitably raises awkward questions for the protagonists of contemporary art — about their backgrounds, patrons and ideological proclivities. Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie investigates this latent yet easily overlooked issue, which has been historically eclipsed by gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality. This book creates a conversation on a sensitive subject, bringing together essays by art-world types including artists, curators and critics. On one hand, the ideas here raise the question of whether a given socio-economic background still helps define an artistic career — and to which point this career might reflect or consolidate the hierarchies in question. On the other hand, the project asks whether the traditional ways of analyzing class structure are actually helpful in an examination of who makes art today.
Amanda Beech, Annika Eriksson, Anup Mathew Thomas, Arnolfini, Art, Charlotte Bydler, Chris Evans, Criticism, Dirk Fleischmann, Fatham Adel, Gasworks, Hassan Khan, Karim Abo El Fath, Liam Gillick, Malcolm Quinn, Marion von Osten, Michele di Menna, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Neil Cummings, Platform Garanti, RAM, San Keller, Sternberg Press, Suhail Malik, Tensta Konsthall, Townhouse Gallery, Wessal Abd El Aziz, Zak Kyes
Agnieszka Brzezanska, L’artiste, Le Modèle et La Peinture
Softcover, 120 pp., offset 4/1, 185 x 235 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-933128-98-6
Published by Sternberg Press
$25.00 ·
The first monograph for Polish-born Agnieszka Brzezanska, this artist book offers a compelling compilation of her mysterious, subtle and deeply felt photographs, paintings and videos. The book’s title was taken from a poster for a Picasso exhibition that the artist photographed and used as the poster for her own show — creating a ready-made accentuating the rain-smudged lettering of the original poster. The peach-colored cover of this soft-cover book — with its image of a kinked heart referring to her heart paintings and her musical video, Heart Play — makes the book seem like something discovered at a kiosk on the banks of the Seine. The monograph was developed while Brzezanska was a guest of the Berlin DAAD artist-in-residence program. With a compelling essay by Andrew Renton.
Agnieszka Brzezanska, Andrew Renton, April Lamm, Ariane Beyn, Art, Franz Stauffenberg, Janek Bersz, Kasha Bittner, Katrin Sauerlander, Melinda Braathen, Photography, RAM, Sternberg Press, Tadeusz Mirosz, Tatjana Gunthner
Tirdad Zolghadr, Solution 168-185: America
Softcover, 112 pp., offset 2/1, 110 x 180 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-933128-90-0
Published by Sternberg Press
$19.00 ·
Solution 168–185: America is the fourth book in the Solution series. Opting for the United States of America, “still the most proficiently colonial place I know,” Zolghadr provides a compilation of highly entertaining “solutions,” where the objective is not the education of America so much as the pleasure of a text that purports to be just that. Tirdad Zolghadr is a writer/curator based in Berlin. He is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. He organized the United Arab Emirates pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009, and the long-term project Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie (with Nav Haq). Zolghadr teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Art, Criticism, Ingo Niermann, Kari Rittenbach, Matthew Evans, RAM, Solution, Sternberg Press, Theory, Tirdad Zolghadr, Zak Kyes
