Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia features 22 artists and artist groups from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. As strategies for incorporating cultural and artistic genealogies in their work, these practitioners variously access traditional materials and techniques, established philosophical underpinnings, and behaviors surrounding the production and use of material culture. The region’s cultural hybridization is asserted in their declaration that East and West are not separate and that the one is embedded in the other. Art historical interdependencies within the region, in relationship to current systems of global connectivity, supply a dynamic framework for understanding these works of art. Yet the artists reveal new views on cu093826236X

The chance situation or random eventówhether as a strategy or as a subject of investigationóhas been central to many artists’ practices across a multiplicity of forms, including expressionism, automatism, the readymade, collage, surrealist and conceptual photography, fluxus event scores, film, audio and video, performance, and participatory artworks. But whyóa century after Dada and Surrealism’s first systematic enquiriesódoes chance remain a key strategy in artists’ investigations into the contemporary world?

The writings in this anthology examine the gap between intention and outcome, showing it to be crucial to the meaning of chance in art. The book provides a new critical context for chance procedures in art since 1900 and aims to answer such questions as why artists deliberately set up such a gap in their practice; what new possibilities this suggests; and why the viewer finds the art so engaging.

Artists surveyed include: Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alys, William Anastasi, John Baldessari, Walead Beshty, Mark Boyle, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Sophie Calle, Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas, Marcel Duchamp, Brian Eno, Fischli & Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Huang Yong Ping, Douglas Huebler, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Jiri Kovanda, Jorge Macchi, Christian Marclay, Cildo Meireles, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco, Cornelia Parker, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Daniel Spoerri, Wolfgang Tillmans, Keith Tyson, Jennifer West, Ceryth Wyn Evans, La Monte Young

Writers include: Paul Auster, Jacquelynn Baas, Georges Bataille, Daniel Birnbaum, Claire Bishop, Guy Brett, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Stanley Cavell, Lynne Cooke, Fei Dawei, Gilles Deleuze, Anna Dezeuze, Russell Ferguson, Branden W. Joseph, Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Lacan, Susan Laxton, Sarat Maharaj, Midori Matsui, John Miller, Alexandra Munroe, Gabriel Perez Barreiro, Jasia Reichardt, Julia Robinson, Eric L. Santner, Sarah Valdez, Katharina Vossenkuhl

Documents of Contemporary Art series
Copublished with Whitechapel Gallery, London

Ryan Gander: Catalogue Raisonnable Vol. 1″ was conceived by Åbäke as a “reasonable alternative” to a catalogue raisonné for the artist (i.e. a monograph giving a comprehensive and exhaustive catalogue of artworks by an artist). Documenting over 500 works made during a ten-year period, the “Catalogue Raisonnable” is intended to be navigated freely and illogically, in a non-linear fashion by its reader, echoing the “para-possible thinking” and “associative methodologies” on which much of Gander’s practice is based. For those readers who wish to draw some logic from its content, it is suggested that the book is navigated through its index. The “Catalogue Raisonnable” consists of two sections. The first is a complete index/catalogue of the artist’s practice, while the second is made up from a collage of by-products, off-cuts, transcriptions, scripts, conversations, and material related to the works in the index. The publication includes texts by Douglas Fogle, Dan Fox, Christophe Gallois, Ian Gander, Emily King, Raimundas Malašauskas, Midori Matsui, Hans Ulrich Obrist, François Piron, Dorothea Strauss, and Bedwyr Williams, among others. The publication “Ryan Gander: Catalogue Raisonnable Vol. 1” has been co-published by Westreich/Wagner Publications on the occasion of the exhibition “Ryan Gander—Zurich Art Prize Winner 2009” at Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich.

Psycho Buildings: Artists and Architecture marks the fortieth anniversary of London’s Hayward gallery–itself an architectural icon, and one of the few remaining examples of the 1960s Brutalist style. The exhibition brings together the work of artists–including Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Beutler, Los Carpinteros, Gelitin, Mike Nelson, Ernesto Neto, Tobias Putrih, Tomas Saraceno, Do-Ho Suh and Rachel Whiteread–who create habitat-like structures and architectural environments that are mental and perceptual spaces as much as physical ones. The works in this book revisit and reanimate the history of Modernist design while reminding us that built spaces can be defined in social, political, psychological, physical and aesthetic terms. An invaluable exploration of this contemporary trend, the volume includes essays by Hayward Director Ralph Rugoff, Jane Rendell and Brian Dillon. In addition, each artist profile includes a text by a different author, including Francis McKee, Tumelo Mosaka, Midori Matsui, Brian Dillon, Paulo Herkenhoff, David Greene, Francesco Manacorda, Tom Morton, Miwon Kwon and Iain Sinclair.

Parkett No. 59 presents collaborations with Maurizio Cattelan, Yayoi Kusama and Kara Walker, as well as essays by Francesco Bonami on Cattelan; Midori Matsui on Kusama; and Hamza Walker and Elizabeth Janus on Walker, among others. Also featured are articles on Anna Gaskell and Annette Messager.

With the hotly discussed resurgence of painting at the dawn of the new century, it is clear that reports of the medium’s death have been greatly exaggerated. “Painting at the Edge of the World” explores the possibilities of a redefinition and ”hybridization” of painting begun in the 1960s, examining the manifestations of these new artistic vistas in the present day. This full-color catalogue features illustrations and a variety of critical texts by some of the most exciting established and emerging critical voices working today, in addition to work by an international and intergenerational group of artists hailing from places as diverse as Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, South Africa, Scotland, Japan, Belgium, Iran, Italy, and the United States. Designed in two sections–a gatefold plate section containing reproductions of the work, and a french-folded section containing critical essays–the book brings together a wide range of contemporary views on painting from a diverse array of disciplines, including the visual arts, film, architecture, design, and music in an attempt to assess the relevance of painting in the contemporary global context. In addition, “Painting at the Edge of the World” includes documentation of each artist’s work and an examination of their artistic methodology. Essays by: Daniel Birnbaum, Paulo Herkenhoff, Midori Matsui, Jorg Heiser, Frances Stark, Andrew Blauvelt, Reindaldo Laddaga, Yves-Alain Bois, Helio Oiticica, Takashi Murakami, Mike Kelley, and Cuauhtemoc Medina. Introduction by Douglas Fogle. Featuring artworks by: Franz Ackerman, Haluk Akakçe, Francis Alÿs, Kevin Appel, Marcel Broodthaers, John Currin, Marlene Dumas, Andreas Gursky, Eberhard Havekost, Arturo Herrera, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Udomsak Krisanamis, Jim Labie, Margherita Manzelli, Paul McCarthy, Lucy McKenzie, Julie Mehretu, Takashi Murakami, Nader, Chris Ofili, Helio Oiticica, Michael Raedecker, Thomas Scheibitz, Rudolph Stingel, Hiroshi Sugito, Paul Thek, and Richard Wright.