Contextual Essays Desperate Dreams – Thomas Lawson Subject Production and Political Art Practice – Marius Babias Artists Joan Jonas Get Rid of the Knots – Mark Kremer Joan Jonas: Images and Sounds in the Material of Time – Susan Morgan Michael Clark Cross Over – Suzanne Cotter Let Me Entertain You – Catherine Wood Marjetica Potr? Confessions of a Global Urbanist – Jan Verwoert Marjetica Potr?: The Politics of the Uninhabitable – Julieta González Los Carpinteros Los Carpinteros: Utopian Model Makers – Jorge Reynoso Pohlenz Los Carpinteros Updated – Marilyn Zeitlin Thomas Hirschhorn Reading Hirschhorn: A Problem of (His) Knowledge, or Weakness as a Virtue – Jan Estep Planes of Immanence, or the Form of Ideas: Notes on the (Anti-)Monuments of Thomas Hirschhorn – Simon Sheikh

Pioneer avant-garde filmmaker, poet and artist Jonas Mekas (b. 1922) was the barometer of the New York art scene in the 1960s and 1970s. His interviews with Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Susan Sontag, John Cassavetes, Carolee Schneemann, Yvonne Rainer and Claes Oldenberg, Kenneth Anger and Michael Snow, among many other avant-garde artists and filmmakers for his weekly column in the Village Voice between 1958 and 1977, are gathered here for the first time in this substantial publication. Originally recorded by Mekas using multiple mediums including film camera, still camera and tape recordings, 60 conversations have been transcribed. Peppered with photos or stills from his films, each interview is a record of the artistic vision of the late 20th century and also a wonderful scrapbook and visual document of these noted artists. Letters and extracts from related scripts and an index supplement the texts. Born in Lithuania, Mekas came to Brooklyn via Germany in 1949 and began shooting his first films there, developing a form of film diary to record his daily observations. This is Mekas s second publication with Spector Books following the acclaimed collection of his writings and reviews featured in Scrapbook of the Sixties. Mekas continues to produce interviews-over 70 years documenting and critiquing the reigning film and art scenes. Featured interviews include Jerome Hill, Vittorio De Seta, Gregory Markopoulos, Storm De Hirsch, George and Mike Kuchar, Mike Getz, Andy Warhol, Nico Papatakis, Taylor Mead, Claes Oldenburg, Shirley Clarke, Albert and David Maysles Tony Conrad, Peter Kubelka,Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ken Jacobs, Susan Sontag, John Cassavetes, Michael Snow, Kenneth Anger, Anna Karina, Hollis Frampton, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, et. al.

In 1968, Robert Smithson reacted to Michael Fried’s influential essay “Art and Objecthood” with a series of works called non-sites. While Fried described the spectator’s connection with a work of art as a momentary visual engagement, Smithson’s non-sites asked spectators to do something more: to take time looking, walking, seeing, reading, and thinking about the combination of objects, images, and texts installed in a gallery. In Beyond Objecthood, James Voorhies traces a genealogy of spectatorship through the rise of the exhibition as a critical form — and artistic medium. Artists like Smithson, Group Material, and Michael Asher sought to reconfigure and expand the exhibition and the museum into something more active, open, and democratic, by inviting spectators into new and unexpected encounters with works of art and institutions. This practice was sharply critical of the ingrained characteristics long associated with art institutions and conventional exhibition-making; and yet, Voorhies finds, over time the critique has been diluted by efforts of the very institutions that now gravitate to the “participatory.”

Beyond Objecthood focuses on innovative figures, artworks, and institutions that pioneered the exhibition as a critical form, tracing its evolution through the activities of curator Harald Szeemann, relational art, and New Institutionalism. Voorhies examines recent artistic and curatorial work by Liam Gillick, Thomas Hirschhorn, Carsten Hüller, Maria Lind, Apolonija Šušteršič, and others, at such institutions as Documenta, e-flux, Manifesta, and Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and he considers the continued potential of the exhibition as a critical form in a time when the differences between art and entertainment increasingly blur.

A personal encounter with 50 of the world’s most significant contemporary artists, “pressPlay” draws together the full texts of the complete Phaidon interviews with living artists, 1995-2005, originally appearing in “Phaidon’s Contemporary Artists” series and “Robert Mangold” monograph. Highlights include veteran painter Vija Celmins and noted sculptor Robert Gober (who represented the US at the 2001 Venice Biennale) in an intimate discussion on their differing art practices; longtime friends and fellow travellers for decades, Benjamin Buchloh and Lawrence Weiner recall 35 years of work, in the definitive, career-long interview for this key Conceptual artist; the late Sir Ernst Gombrich honoured the “Contemporary Artists” series in a discussion with the UK’s pre-eminent sculptor Antony Gormley – who confesses that it was Gombrich’ “Story of Art” that first inspired him to become an artist; the taciturn, legendary Raymond Pettibon muses on the evolution of his work with noted hip novelist Dennis Cooper; musician artist Christian Marclay is interviewed by Sonic Youth rockstar Kim Gordon. From highly established artists Louise Bourgeois and Alex Katz, to midcareer masters Richard Prince, Mike Kelley, Fischli and Weiss, Jenny Holzer, and Raymond Pettibon, to the most exciting artists of the current generation, including Maurizio Cattelan, Olafur Eliasson and Pipilotti Rist, pressPlay is a highly readable, comprehensive look at contemporary art today. Vito Acconci/Mark C Taylor; Doug Aitken/Amanda Sharp; Uta Barth/Matthew Higgs; Christian Boltanski/Tamar Garb; Louise Bourgeois/Paulo Herkenhoff; Cai Guo Qiang/Octavio Zaya; Maurizio Cattelan/Nancy Spector; Vija Celmins/Robert Gober; Richard Deacon/Pier Luigi Tazzi; Mark Dion/Miwon Kwon; Stan Douglas/Diana Thater; Marlene Dumas/Barbara Bloom; Jimmie Durham/Dirk Snauwaert; Olafur Eliasson/Daniel Birnbaum; Peter Fischli and David Weiss/Beate Soentgen; Tom Friedman/Dennis Cooper; Isa Genzken/Diedrich Diederichsen; Antony Gormley/Sir Ernst Gombrich; Dan Graham/Mark Francis; Paul Graham/Gillian Wearing; Hans Haacke/Molly Nesbit; Mona Hatoum/Michael Archer; Thomas Hirschhorn/Alison M Gingeras; Jenny Holzer/Joan Simon; Roni Horn/Lynne Cooke; Ilya Kabakov/David A Ross; Alex Katz/Robert Storr; Mary Kelly/Douglas Crimp; Mike Kelley/Isabelle Graw; William Kentridge/Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev; Yayoi Kusama/Akira Tatehata; Robert Mangold/Sylvia Plimack Mangold; Christian Marclay/Kim Gordon; Paul McCarthy/Kristine Stiles; Cildo Meireles/Gerardo Mosquera; Lucy Orta/Roberto Pinto; Raymond Pettibon/Dennis Cooper; Richard Prince/Jeff Rian; Pipilotti Rist/Hans Ulrich Obrist; Doris Salcedo/Carlos Basualdo; Thomas Schutte/James Lingwood; Lorna Simpson/Thelma Golden; Nancy Spero/Jo Anna Isaak; Jessica Stockholder/Lynne Tillman; Wolfgang Tillmans/Peter Halley; Luc Tuymans/Juan Vicente Aliaga; Jeff Wall/Arielle Pelenc; Gillian Wearing/Donna De Salvo; Lawrence Weiner/Benjamin H D Buchloh; Franz West/Bice Curiger.

This publication brings together the proposals for monuments for the United States of America by the over 60 international artists invited to participate in the attendant exhibition. Freed from contextual, budgetary, or practical constraints, the proposals reflect each artist’s ideas about the type of monument the people of the United States currently need or deserve, and reexamine our notions of what monuments can be, and what role they can play in our civic and imaginative life. Featured Artists Allora & Calzadilla,Tariq Alvi,Janine Antoni,Edgar Arceneaux,Artemio,Robert Beck,Michel Blazy,Monica Bonvicini,Andrea Bowers,Fernando Bryce,Los Carpinteros,Paul Chan,Adam Chodzko,Martin Creed,Enrico David,Jeremy Deller,Thomas Demand,Jessica Diamond,Sam Durant,Shannon Ebner,Elmgreen & Dragset,Meschac Gaba,Anya Gallaccio,Hans Haacke,Susan Hiller,Thomas Hirschhorn,Chris Johanson & Kal Spelletich,Michael Joo,Ilya & Emilia Kabakov,Brad Kahlhamer,Barbara Kruger,Gabriel Kuri,Ken Lum,Jason Meadows,Aleksandra Mir,Liliana Moro,Mike Nelson,Paul Noble,Yoshua Okon,Jennifer Pastor,Kiersten Pieroth,Paola Pivi,Marjetica Potrc,Tobias Putrih,Qiu Zhijie,Rigo 23,Matthew Ronay,Michael Ross,Santiago Sierra,Gary Simmons,Yutaka Sone,Frances Stark,Michael Stevenson,Do-Ho Suh,Torolab,Shirley Tse,Jeffrey Vallance,Mark Wallinger,Olav Westphalen,Xu Zhen,Zhang Huan

If you let your fingers do the walking through these Yellow Pages, you won’t find that plumber you’re looking for, but you will plumb an inviting exercise in Conceptual art from Swiss artist, prankster, performer and teacher John Armleder. He and his class at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig, Germany, who call themselves Team404, solicited original graphic works made on A4 paper from over 500 artists (Corrie Colbert, Sylvie Fleury, Thomas Hirschhorn, Odili Donald Odita, Michael Snow)–“be it a text, sketch, drawing, picture, or whatever suits your mind,” the letter said. The works were displayed in a gallery, then each was randomly put together with another artist’s work to be reproduced as a black double print on yellow paper. Armleder, whose own prints and multiples were the subject of a retrospective exhibition at Geneva’s Cabinet des Estampes in 1995, dials a winner.

This reprint of the now classic and much sought-after 2005 volume celebrates the circle of the quintessential visual artist of the Beat era, Wallace Berman (1926-76), who remains one of the best-kept secrets of the postwar era. A crucial figure in California’s underground culture, Berman was a catalyst who traversed many different worlds, transferring ideas and dreams from one circle to the next. His larger community is the subject of Semina Culture, which includes previously unseen works by 52 artists. Anchoring this publication is Semina, a loose-leaf art and poetry journal that Berman published in nine issues between 1955 and 1964. Although printed in extremely short runs and distributed to only a handful of friends and sympathizers, Semina is a brilliant and beautifully made compendium of the most interesting artists and poets of its time, and is today a very rare collector’s item. Showcasing the individuals that defined a still-potent strand of postwar counterculture, Semina Culture outlines the energies and values of this fascinating circle. Also reproduced here are works by those who appear in Berman’s own photographs, approximately 100 of which were recently developed from vintage negatives, and which are seen here for the first time. These artists, actors, poets, curators, musicians and filmmakers include Robert Alexander, John Altoon, Toni Basil, Wallace Berman, Ray Bremser, Bonnie Bremser, Charles Britten, Joan Brown, Cameron, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, Diane DiPrima, Kirby Doyle, Bobby Driscoll, Robert Duncan, Joe Dunn, Llyn Foulkes, Ralph Gibson, Allen Ginsberg, George Herms, Jack Hirschman, Walter Hopps, Dennis Hopper, Billy Jahrmarkt, Jess, Lawrence Jordan, Patricia Jordan, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, William Margolis, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, Taylor Mead, Henry Miller, Stuart Perkoff, Jack Smith, Dean Stockwell, Ben Talbert, Russ Tamblyn, Aya (Tarlow), Alexander Trocchi, Edmund Teske, Zack Walsh, Lew Welch and John Wieners.

“L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980” is the first comprehensive pictorial showcase of the diverse universe of artists working in the Los Angeles area during the formative period of Los Angeles’ art history. Over 800 color and 100 black and white images of work by almost 500 artists illustrate the edited texts quoted from critical reviews of exhibitions and writings of the period. Special efforts have been made to include both recognized and heretofore unsung key players in the Los Angeles art world. The book acknowledges the legacy of a full range of artists whose lives and work in Los Angeles enabled the city to become the international contemporary art capital it is today.

Contributors: Lyn Kienholz, Elizabeta Betinski, Corinne Nelson, Clinton Adams, Ron Adams, Bas Jan Ader, John Alberty, Lita Albuquerque, Anders Aldrin, Peter Alexander, Martha Alf, Neda Al-Hilali, Carlos Almaraz, John Altoon, Mabel Alvarez, Arthur Ames, Jean Goodwin Ames, Laura Anderson, Oliver Andrews, Eleanor Antin, Craig Antrim, Chuck Arnoldi, Michael Asher, David Askevold, Walter Askin, Ralph Bacerra, Don Bachardy, Jo Baer, Herman Kofi Bailey, George P. Baker, Michael Balog, John Baldessari, Jack Barth, Richmond Barthé, Joel Bass, Lynn Bassler, Robert C. Bassler, Wall Batterton, Herbert Bayer, Phoebe Beasley, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Karl Benjamin, Ed Bereal, Pat Berger, Tony Berlant, Ben Berlin, Eugene Berman, Wallace Berman, John Bernhardt, Gary Beydler, Edward Biberman, Natalie Bieser, Les Biller, Annette Bird, Streeter Blair, Sandy Bleifer, Bob and Bob, Gloria Cole Bohanen, Douglas Bond, Dorr Bothwell, David Bradford, Rex Brandt, Jerry Brane, Bettina Brendel, Michael Brewster, William Brice, Nicholas Brigante, Morris Broderson, William Theophilus Brown, Nancy Buchanan, Conrad Buff II, David Bungay, Jerry Burchfield, Jerrold Burchman, Chris Burden, Hans Burkhardt, Nathaniel Bustion, JoAnne Callis, Cameron, Greg S. Card, Elaine Carhartt, Harry Carmean, Jae Carmichael, Carol Caroompas, Barbara Carrasco, Eduardo Carrillo, Karen Carson , Bernie Casey, Elizabeth Catlett, Vija Celmins, Roberto Chavez, Carl Cheng, Judy Chicago, Grace Clements, Caron Colvin, Dan Concholar, Houston Conwill, Ron Cooper, Sister Mary Corita, Philip Cornelius, Mary Corse, Eileen Cowin, Robert Cremean, James L. Croak, Keith Crown, William Crutchfield, Robert Cumming, Darryl Curran, Dorit Cypis, Dan Cytron, Edie Danieli, Avery Danziger, Lowell Darling, Paul Darrow, Alonzo Davis, Dale B. Davis, Michael Davis, Ronald Davis, Woods Davy, Guy De Cointet, Francis de Erdely, Rupert Deese, Tony DeLap, Diane Destiny, Boris Deutsch, Charles Dickson, Richard Diebenkorn, Dietrich, Phil Dike, Guy Dill, Laddie John Dill, Paul Dillon, Morton Dimondstein, Sue Dirksen, John Divola, William Dole, James Doolin, Daniel Douke, Robert Dowd, Roy Dowell, Laurence Dreiband, Hildegarde Duane, Tom Eatherton, Bruce Edelstein, Jean Edelstein, Doug Edge, Leonard Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, Jules Engel, Marion Epting, Sam Erenberg, Merion Estes, Ned Evans, Bruce Everett, Fredericl Eversley, Connor Everts, Edgar Ewing, Martin Facey, Claire Falkenstein, Joe Fay, Lorser Feitelson, Lilly Fenichel, Jud Fine, Bruria Finkel, Max Finkelstein, Oskar Fischinger, Ethel Fisher, Judy Fiskin, Robbert Flick, Betty Davenport Ford, Llyn Foulkes, Sam Francis, Magdalena Frimkess, Michael Frimkess, Walter Gabrielson, Simone Gad, Charles Garabedian, John Garrett, Christopher Georgesco, George Geyer, James S. Gill, Shirl Goedike, Betty Gold, Judith Golden, Jack Goldstein, Joe Goode, John S. Gordon, Robert Graham, Mark Greenfield, Scott Grieger, Ron Griffin, Raul Guerrero, Allan Hacklin, Richard Haines, D.J. Hall, Frederick Hammersley, David Hammons, Lloyd Hamrol, Robert Hansen, Marvin Harden, June Harwood, Maren Hassinger, James Hayward, Wayne Alaniz Healy, Phillip Hefferton, Robert Heinecken, Victor Henderson, Maxwell Hendler, George Herms, Anthony Hernandez, Susan Lautman Hertel, Charles Christopher Hill, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Diana Hobson, David Hockney, Patrick Hogan, Tom Holste, Varnette Honeywood, Dennis Hopper, Channa Horwitz, Bruce Houston, Bernard Hoyes, Douglas Huebler, James Hueter, Robert Irwin, Sandra Jackman, Suzanne Jackson, James Jarvaise, Connie Jenkins, Tom Jenkins, Daniel Larue Johnson, Don Johnson, Wesley Johnson, Ynez Johnston, John Paul Jones, Mary Jones, Reuben Kadish, Steve Kahn, Matsumi Kanemitsu, Allan Kaprow, Barbara Kasten, Craig Kauffman, Claude Kent, Edward Kienholz, The Kipper Kids, Gloria Kisch, Tom Knechtel, Emil Kosa Jr., Peter Krasnow, Patsy Krebs, Roger Kuntz, Suzanne Lacy, Lili Lakich, Paul Landacre, Doyle Lane, William Leavitt, Rico Lebrun, John Lees, Harold Lehman, Mark Lere, Samella Lewis, Peter Liashkov, Joyce Lightbody, Ron Linden

Neue Welt (New World) documents a group show which investigates the political and, most importantly, the social restructuring of recent years. Going beyond one-dimensional statements, the texts discuss the redefinition of public space, the position of the individual in a society obsessed with spectacle, and the effects of a globalized economy. The catalogue documents works by Haluk Akakçe, Pawel Althamer, Kai Althoff, Michael Elmgreen/Ingar Dragset, Paul Graham, Rodney Graham, Fabrice Gygi, Nikolaus Hirsch, Laura Horelli, Runa Islam, Mike Kelley, Anna Klamroth, Ken Lum, Kenny MacLeod, Seamus Nicolson, Henrik Olesen, Philippe Parreno, Stephen Prina, Gerhard Richter, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, Roth/Stauffenberg, Anri Sala, Anne Tallentire, Wolfgang Tillmans, Barbara Visser, et al.

A visual essay of 19th and 20th century painting relating to the concept of portaling along with a piece of reportage concerning a writer named Eleanor Norwich. Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with show held jointly at Kent Fine Art and Curt Marcus Gallery, New York, November 17 – December 31, 1987. Curated by Douglas Blau, with essay by Blau. Includes works by Troy Brauntuch, Ralph Albert Blakelock, Thomas Moran, Charles Wilson Peale, Johannes Vermeer, William Merritt Chase, Randy Dudley, Chesley Bonestell, Norman Rockwell, John Bowman, Thornton Oakley, Caspar David Friedrich, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Cindy Sherman, Hans W. Hannau, Stanford Gifford, William Cameron Menzies, Richard Bergh, Winslow Homer, Joseph M. Newman, Stanley Kubrick, Hugh Ferriss, Arnold Genthe, Mark Innerst, Eugene Medard, Eugene Chaperon, Joseph Wright of Derby, David Deutsch, Thomas Eakins, Charles West Cope, Charles Lewis Fusell, C.E. Swaye, Thomas Anshutz, George Pal, Virgil Mirano, Howard Hawkes, Jack Conway, Charles H. Stephens, Johann Zoffany, John Ferguson Weir, Walter Dorwin Teague, Thomas Cole, Jan Christiaensz, Jack Goldstein, Komar & Melamid, William L. Sonntag, Hubert Robert, Bonfils, Elihu Vedder, Edwin Dickinson, William Bradford, Jospeh Mallord, William Turner, Frederic Edwin Church, Michael Zwack, Arnold Böcklin, Alain Resnais, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Joseph Hirsch, Fernand Khnopff, James Rosenquist, Giuseppe Pellizza Da Volpedo, Chuck Rogers, Angelo Morbelli, Gustave Caillebotte, Michele Zalopany, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and Rembrandt van Rijn.