Documenta11 consisted of five platforms. The first four platforms addressed specific issues at different venues in cooperation with various partners. The exhibition in Kassel was the fifth platform. The publications for Documenta11 are published by Hatje Cantz Publishers. They are comprised of four volumes of the collected platform lectures, a commissioned study of urban conditions in Latin America (edited by Armando Silva), the exhibition catalog, a photo documentation of the exhibition, and a short guide to the exhibition.
Politics and poetics, ethics and aesthetics: the continual crossing of these dimensions defines the forcefield in which the multimedia oeuvre of Vivan Sundaram (born 1943 in Simla, India) has taken shape over the last 50 years. His artistic beginnings coincide with an emblematic date in the second half of the twentieth century: 1968, synonymous with the international protest movements of students, workers and civil rights activists.This was the year in which Sundaram made an important set of paintings, soon after graduating from the Slade School of Art in London. It was a moment that crystallized his conviction that an engagement with the world in all its actuality was the fundamental reason for being an artist. All his endeavors since then, in whichever medium he has explored, have focused on finding the formal means appropriate to this commitment. The collage/montage principle that he adopted early on made for a disjunctive pictorial space which put the frame under considerable pressure. Both Pop Art and Minimalism paved the way towards a practice understood as situated in an expanded field, and Sundaram is the artist in India whose work has most keenly registered the political import of this deterritorialization.--Gallery website.
Over the course of his three-decade career, Thomas Ruff has taken up many approaches to photography in his investigation into the status of the image in contemporary culture. In Thomas Ruff, the artist presents new work that continues his ongoing probe into the history, processes, techniques, and technology of photography. One of the most influential photographers working today, Ruff has redefined photography’s conceptual possibilities, simultaneously capturing and challenging the essence of the medium as a means for visual experience. He has investigated various photographic genres, including portraiture, the nude, and landscape and architectural photography, using both analog and digital technologies, and culling imagery from scientific archives, print media, and the internet. Presented here is a selection of Ruff’s most well-known works, as well as the newer Tripe/Ruff series, begun in 2018, which draws on negatives of India and Burma taken in the 1850s by an officer in the East India Company army. Also included is a conversation between Ruff and Okwui Enwezor, which took place at Haus der Kunst in Munich, in connection with the artist’s retrospective then on view. The conversation, published here for the first time, has been edited for this volume and examines Ruff’s artistic practice and inspiration, serving as an engaging and dynamic introduction to the artist. Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong, in 2019, Thomas Ruff is available in both English-only and bilingual English/traditional Chinese editions.
« The third edition of the Bienal de La Habana, which took place in 1989, extended the global territory of contemporary art and redegined the biennial model. This book examines the project in its historical and international contexts ... Making art global (part 2) will focus on the Paris exhibition 'Magiciens de la Terre' of 1989 » --
This innovative new history examines in-depth how the growing popularity of large-scale international survey exhibitions, or 'biennials', has influenced global contemporary art since the 1950s. Provides a comprehensive global history of biennialization from the rise of the European star-curator in the 1970s to the emergence of mega-exhibitions in Asia in the 1990s Introduces a global array of case studies to illustrate the trajectory of biennials and their growing influence on artistic expression, from the Biennale de la Méditerranée in Alexandria, Egypt in 1955, the second Havana Biennial of 1986, New York’s Whitney Biennial in 1993, and the 2002 Documenta11 in Kassel, to the Gwangju Biennale of 2014 Explores the evolving curatorial approaches to biennials, including analysis of the roles of sponsors, philanthropists and biennial directors and their re-shaping of the contemporary art scene Uses the history of biennials as a means of illustrating and inciting further discussions of globalization in contemporary art
This striking book explores contemporary portraiture from the past decade. The selection features cutting-edge new work from the international art community and reflects an increasing interest in identity worldwide. Organised thematically, the book examines seven key strands of portraiture: The Body; The Self-Portrait; The Invented Portrait; The Anonymous Portrait; Social Identity; The Celebrity Portrait. With an essay by Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, that locates contemporary portraiture within a historic tradition, 21st Century Portraits examines current trends, showcasing the wide range of media today's artists are using. This book includes an extensive bibliography and is an essential reference work in the field of twenty-first-century portraiture. It will present many images to academic, curatorial and general audiences, including museum and gallery visitors and general art book buyers in the trade for the first time.
"Published in commemoration of Gramsci Monument, a work in public space by Thomas Hirschhorn, produced by Dia Art Foundation. Forest Houses, Bronx, New York, July 1-September 15, 2013."
This thesis argues that the contemporary artist's objective is the production of new social space and the institution of new cultural knowledge. It does this by drawing an unexpected parallel between the social and political expectations facing the contemporary artist and the deepest philosophic conception of the artist's function. It traces art's historical trajectory from 20th century modernism, post-modernism to post-colonialism, from a broad range of critical, theoretical and curatorial perspectives.
