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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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

“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

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.