Art, every month.
"Interview
Channelling Ghosts
Hardeep Pandhal interviewed by Jamie Sutcliffe
Recreating the self is a natural product of cultural memory, it is not something that is stored like a permanent cache. Remembering is imagining, so every time one forms a memory, one is just recreating it to form one’s selfhood, to give oneself a narrative.
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Paul Pfeiffer, ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, 2003–18
Interview
In the Maze
Paul Pfeiffer interviewed by Adam Heardman
The term ‘in media res’ – entering into a situation in the middle of it – to me describes any first-person-shooter game, learning the game by being in it. In media res becomes a new kind of narrative structure in which one wakes up in the maze and then learns the dimensions of the maze from within.
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Gillian Wearing, I signed on and they would not give me nothing, from the series ‘Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say’, 1992–93
Feature
The Letter of the Law
Is it possible, Chris Townsend asks, for contemporary artists to rescue language from the clutches of commodity culture
Gillian Wearing’s photographic series ‘Signs that Say…’ restores the word to subjects whose lives are almost entirely structured by the language of the administrative state and capital.
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Vinca Petersen, Speaker Man, 1996
Feature
Rave and Resist
Ben Burbridge considers the countercultural history of rave culture in the UK as an unfulfilled promise for a new politics of the left
Far from being the final nail in the coffin for Britain’s countercultural imaginary, the draconian Criminal Justice Act was another expression of neoliberal anxiety regarding experiments in unalienated creativity and collective joy.
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Stanley Schtinter, Important Books (or, Manifestos Read by Children), 2021–22
Profile
Stanley Schtinter
Morgan Quaintance
Stanley Schtinter’s new film will, according to the artist, ‘only ever show in its analogue format, so it will always be an event to travel to and never streaming or screening digitally’. For Schtinter, the political power of collective viewing is something worth fighting for.
Editorial
Forged in Fire
LA’s wildfires, driven by the climate crisis, left more than just ash in their wake: they revealed a sense of solidarity and a collective desire to help that we all will need in the coming years.
While firefighters battled the blaze, the rest of the world watched in horror as the events unfolded on their screens, like a Hollywood disaster movie but in real time, a hellish vision of the future of the planet.
Artnotes
California Burning
The LA art world is caught up in the devastating urban wildfires; artists and galleries count the cost of storm recovery; former DCMS minister Margaret Hodge is appointed to lead the government review of ACE; New Contemporaries artists protest against the show’s sponsorship; Candida Gertler resigns from all UK arts institutions following Turner Prize artists’ protest against Tate’s links to the Outset art charity she co-founded; Argentina’s far-right government closes the Haraldo Conti Centre; Outpost Studios artists are evicted by Norwich Council; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.
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Hans Haacke, Germania, 1993
Exhibitions
Hans Haacke: Retrospective
Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
George Macbeth
Hamad Butt: Apprehensions
IMMA, Dublin
Chris McCormack
Maud Sulter: You are my kindred spirit
Tramway, Glasgow
Amna Malik
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet
Tate Modern, London
Tom Seymour
Alex Margo Arden: Safety Curtain
Auto Italia, London
Cherry Smyth
Özgür Kar: HEAVY GROUND
Emalin, London
Maria Walsh
Philippe Parreno: Voices
Haus der Kunst, Munich
Michael Kurtz
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Not Going It Alone
Books
Not Going It Alone: Collective Curatorial Curating
Pablo Luis Alvarez
While ‘curatorial authority’ still finds a niche for survival, a less macho and more self-effacing understanding of curating is increasingly prevalent today.
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John Smith, Being John Smith, 2023
Film
John Smith: Being John Smith
Erika Balsom
Every second of the film is as sharp as a diamond, with no trace of the confessional narcissism that is so prevalent elsewhere today.
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Jean-Luc Godard, Scénarios, 2024
Film
Jean-Luc Godard: Scénario(s)
Alex Fletcher
In his comments, Jean-Luc Godard is both direct, offering practical advice to his collaborators about what images to include in certain sequences, but also intentionally oblique – he quips about the final image that it ‘doesn’t mean anything’.
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No Other Land, 2024, dir by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor"
