Room for Reading features publications about and selected by exhibiting artists in our programme.
Throughout 2017, our Room for Reading selections feature publications chosen and inspired by Maria Fusco, Steven Claydon, Michael Stumpf, Vanessa Billy, Erin Shirreff and Edith Dekyndt, artists we are working with on current and upcoming projects.
Ben Marcus, ‘The Age of Wire and String, (1995); Simone Weil, ‘Gravity and Grace’ (1947); Giles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri, ‘Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia’ (1972)
To accompany Maria Fusco’s project, 'Dialecty’, she has selected some books for this month’s Room for Reading. The project was conceived Fusco to consider the critical uses of vernacular forms of speaking and writing and explored the occurrences and potential uses of dialect words, syntax and language within the field of contemporary art and question traditional orthodoxies of creative and critical writing within contemporary art. The texts that Fusco has selected explore ideas of language and dialect, both in their form and content.
Fusco’s first selection is ‘The Age of Wire and String’ (1995) by Ben Marcus. Described by Robert Coover as “the most audacious literary debut in decades,” ‘The Age of Wire and String’ welds together a new reality from the scrapheap of the past. Dogs, birds, horses, automobiles, and the weather are some of the recycled elements in Marcus’s first collection — part fiction, part handbook– as familiar objects take on markedly unfamiliar meanings. The book is composed of 8 sections, divided into 41 parts, which combine technical language with lyrical imagery to form a sort of Postmodern catalog by turns surreal, fantastic, and self-referential.
Consisting of various passages from Simone Weil’s writings, ‘Gravity and Grace’ (1947) was compiled posthumously after the author’s death in 1943. Weil wrote extensively about political movements of which she was a part in the 1930s and later about spiritual mysticism.
'Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia' by Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari (1972) was hailed both as a masterpiece by some and "a work of heretical madness" by others upon its publication. Examining the nature of free thinking, this influential text is a revolutionary analysis of the intertwining of desire, reality and capitalist society.
Listen to Ben Marcus discuss his writing practice here.
Read ‘Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia’ here.
Read ‘Gravity and Grace’ here.
Peter Adolphsen, ‘The Brummstein’(2003); Michael Newton ‘Savage Girls and Wild Boys'(2002); Alan Garner ‘The Stone Book Quartet’ (1976-1978)
‘The Brummstein’ (2003) by Peter Adolphsen tells the story of Josef Siedler, a science-fiction devotee, who ventures deep into a series of caves in search of an entrance to the underworld. Disappointed in his quest, he nonetheless returns with a peculiar souvenir: a small rock sample that is then passed down through generations. As the stone passes through the hands of a series of owners, it collects their experiences: from pre-World War I ambitions and inter-war anarchism to conditions during World War II, the bleakness of life in post-war East Germany, the German art scene of the 1960s, and more.
Michael Newton’s Savage Girls and Wild Boys (2002) traces the compelling history of children brought up in the wilderness, or locked up for long years in solitary confinement. In a poignant account, Newton explores both the lives of these children and of the adults who 'rescued', educated or abused them.
The Stone Book Quartet (1976-1978) is a set of four short novels by Alan Garner published from 1976 to 1978. Set in eastern Cheshire, they feature one day each in the life of four generations of Garner's family and span more than a century. While seemingly in modern English, the language of the book is poetic and draws on the patterns and rhythms of local Cheshire dialect.
Read ‘The Brummstein’ here.
Read an extract from ‘Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children’ here.
Lisa Robertson, ‘Nilling’ (2012); ‘Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture (2002); 3 Summers (2016)
As part of ‘Dialecty’, Maria Fusco invited Canadian poet Lisa Robertson for a public reading and discussion. Robertson discussed the construction of vernacular voice amidst the abolishment of a lyric culture and following the event, we have selected three of Robertson’s publications for this month’s Room for Reading.
Robertson’s 2012 collection ‘Nilling’ is a sequence of 5 loosely linked prose essays about noise, pornography, the codex, melancholy, Lucretius, folds, cities and related aporias; 'Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture' (2003) is a collection of essays – many originally published as catalogue texts by art galleries – on the syntax of the suburban home, Vancouver fountains, Value Village, the joy of synthetics, scaffolding and the persistence of the Himalayan blackberry ; In 3 Summers (2016) Lisa Robertson takes up her earlier concerns with form and literary precedent, and turns toward the timeliness of embodiment, invoking a history of textural voices including Lucretius, Marx, Aby Warburg, Deleuze and the Sogdian Sutras
Read Mia You on Lisa Robertson’s book ‘3 Summers’ in Artforum here:
Read an excerpt from ‘Nilling’ here.
Blake Morrison, ‘The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper’ (1987)'; Knut Hamsun ‘Growth of the Soil’ (1917); Flann O’Brien ‘The Poor Mouth’ (1941).
Written in Yorkshire dialect and spoken by an unnamed narrator, the long title poem the collection ‘The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper’ (1987) takes its name from excited controversy when it first appeared as it told the story of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe. A central theme in the collection is misogyny and Blake Morrison uses both the Yorkshire dialect he grew up with and the horrifying tale of the Yorkshire Ripper to explore this.
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun (1917) is a classic of European literature, one of the seminal novels of the twentieth century. It is the story of Isak, a worker of the land, with its roots in man's deepest myths about the struggle to cultivate the land and make it fertile. Published in 1917, The novel employed literary techniques new to the time such as stream of consciousness.
‘The Poor Mouth’ (1941) by Flann O’Brien is a satire of the traditional Irish peasant novel. Books of this genre were part of the Irish language syllabus in the Irish school system and so were mandatory reading for generations of children from independence in 1921. The book uses humour to grapple with Irish language and national identity.
Listen to Blake Morrison read ‘The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper’ here.
Read ‘Growth of the Soil’ here.
Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, ‘British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet (2010), The Persistence of Objects (2015), Culpable Earth (2012).
The following publications about and selected by Steven Claydon were part of Room For Reading during his exhibition 'The Archipelago of Contented Peoples: Endurance Groups'.
The first selection is the catalogue of British Art Show 7, titled ‘British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet’ which took place in 2010. The show was curated by Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton and Claydon’s work was included in this survey exhibition.
‘The Persistence of Objects’ (2015) is a 50-page publication produced to accompany The Common Guild's project 'The Persistence of Objects' at Lismore Castle Arts, which included the work of Carol Bove, Gerard Byrne, Duncan Campbell, Steven Claydon, Gabriel Kuri, Basim Magdy, Wolfgang Tillmans and Hayley Tompkins.
Culpable Earth (2012) is a monographic publication about Claydon’s work, published by firstsite on the occasion of Claydon’s solo exhibition by the same name at Firstsite, Colchester. The 144 page book features over 300 illustrations and previously unpublished texts about and by the artist, alongside an extended interview between Claydon and Martin Clark, Artistic Director, Tate St Ives.
Ed. Andrea Bellini ‘Steven Claydon’ (2015) and Tiffany Jenkins ‘Keeping Their Marbles’ (2016)
The first major monograph on British artist Steven Claydon, this book was published on the occasion of the artist’s 2015 exhibition at Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève , bringing together visual documentation, texts addressing the artist’s multifarious practice over recent years, and a comprehensive chronology spanning his twenty-year career.
In Keeping Their Marbles (2016) Tiffany Jenkins tells the bloody story of how western museums came to acquire the objects they hold. She investigates why repatriation claims have soared in recent decades and demonstrates how it is the guilt and insecurity of the museums themselves that have stoked the demands for return. Contrary to the arguments of campaigners, she shows that sending artefacts back will not achieve the desired social change nor repair the wounds of history.
Read ‘Keeping Their Marbles’ here.
Elaine Morgan, ‘The Descent of Woman’ (1972); Lissant Bolton ‘Melanesia: Art and encounter’ (2013)'; Tobias Schneebaum ‘Wild Man’ (1979).
For the last of Steven Claydon’s selections, he has chosen three books relating to human history and anthropology.
'The Descent of Woman' (1972) by Elaine Morgan is a pioneering work, the first to argue for the equal role of women in human evolution. On its first publication in 1972 it created an international debate and became a rallying-point for feminism, changing the terminology of anthropologists forever. Starting with her demolition of the Biblical myth that woman was an afterthought to the creation of man, Elaine Morgan rewrites human history and evolution.
'Melanesia: Art and encounter' is a companion volume to one of the richest collections of Melanesian art: that of the British Museum.This book surveys and responds to the collection from the point of view not only of the anthropologist but also of the people responsible for its creation, with contributions from a wide range of international scholars, anthropologists, indigenous peoples and artists.
Part autobiographical journal, part social-historical novel, Wild Man (1979) is the memoir of artist, writer and anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum. Schneebaum travelled through South America, India, Tibet, Africa, Borneo, New Guinea, and Southeast Asia living among isolated forest peoples in regions where few white men had ever been.
Read ‘Melanesia: Art and encounter’ here.
Michael Stumpf
Kim Stanley Robinson, ‘Green Earth’(2015)'; Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’ (2015); Ursula K. Le Guin ‘Finding My Elegy’(2012).
This selection of books was made by Michael Stumpf, in advance of his project 'We are more-dimensional' presented by The Common Guild at Viborg Kunsthal, as part of Aarhus City of Culture 2017.
Stumpf selects Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Green Earth’ (2015), a revised version of The Science In The Capital-trilogy, a near future series on climate change, American politics and science. Through the lens of a government scientist, the novel explores the impact climate change will have on America and the world more widely.
‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’ (2015) by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing uses the matsutake mushroom as a focal point for exploring what Tsing describes as the end of capitalist progress as ecological degradation and economic precarity proliferate in the twenty-first century. By investigating one of the world’s most sought-after fungi, ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’' presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.
Though internationally known and honoured for her imaginative fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin started out as a poet, and published poems throughout her long career. ‘Finding My Elegy’ (2012) distills her life’s work, offering a selection of the best from her six earlier volumes of poetry and introducing a powerful group of poems, at once earthy and transcendent, written in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Watch Kim Stanley Robinson speak about Science Fiction as Realism here.
Read ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’ here.
Watch Ursula K. Le Guin reading her poetry here.
‘Vanessa Billy (Collection Cahiers d’Artistes’, Pro Helvetia (2010); Vanessa Billy ‘Why Shapes What’ (2010); Vanessa Billy, ‘No Visible Means of Support’ (2006).
These publications were chosen by Vanessa Billy to accompany the exhibition 'Slow Objects' at The Common Guild with Edith Dekyndt and Erin Shirreff.
The “Collection Cahiers d’Artistes” was introduced in 1984 by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. It is a promotional tool to support promising Swiss artists from the field of visual arts who have not yet been presented in a monographic publication. 'Vanessa Billy (Collection Cahiers d'Artistes 2010)’ is a monograph on the work of the Swiss contemporary artist Vanessa Billy.
‘Why Shapes What’ is an artist’s book published on the occasion of Vanessa Billy’s exhibition ‘Who Shapes What’ at Limoncello, London in 2010. The exhibition drew upon Francis Ponge’s enquiry of ‘Sliding With Things’ (1942) and his approach towards symbolism.
‘No Visible Means of Support’ (2006) is a book of photo-montages by Vanessa Billy. The book is comprised of a number of collages by Billy, using a mixture of found images to create a picture book.
Francis Ponge, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic, ‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’, (2008); Ed. Tom McCartan. ‘Kurt Vonnegut: The Last Interview and Other Conversations’ (2011).
The first selection is ‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’ (2008) by Francis Ponge, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic. Francis Ponge was a French essayist and poet who was influenced by surrealism. He developed a form of prose poem, minutely examining everyday objects. In this edition, translator Beverley Bie Brahic, translates a collection of Ponge’s work, spanning the period from 1942 to 1971.
Six weeks before American novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s death in 2007, he gave his last interview. In ‘The Last Interview: And Other Conversations’ (2011), the author’s last interview is brought together with conversations from throughout his life. Giving his views on politics, war, books and writers, Vonnegut also reflects on what drove him to write and how he viewed his work at the end of his life.
Read ‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’ here.
Edith Dekyndt
Edith Dekyndt, ‘Mer Sans Rivage II’(2016); ‘They Shoot Horses (Part Two)’(2017); ‘Ombre indigène’ (2016).
Edith Dekyndt chose a selection of books to accompany her exhibition 'Slow Objects' at The Common Guild with Vanessa Billy and Erin Shirreff.
The publication ‘Mer Sans Rivages II’ (2016) was produced to chart the process of creating an art project rather than showing ready-made pieces. Made in conjunction with Félix Taulelle, Dekyndt’s assistant, and Mytil Ducomet, graphic designer at the studio Muesli, they have chosen to chart the route of a work-in-progress. The publication and exhibition of this work was supported by Musee de L’Abbaye Saintcroix Les Sables D’Olonne.
'They Shoot Horses (Part Two)’ (2017) was produced to accompany Dekyndt’s exhibition of the same name in 2017 presented by Konrad Fischer Galerie in Berlin. The exhibition refers to the novel They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy, written in 1935 and reaching wider fame with Sydney Pollack’s 1968 film adaptation of the book starring Jane Fonda.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous double exhibition at Le Consortium, Dijon and at Wiels, Brussels, ‘Ombre indigène’ (2016) features texts by Florence Meyssonnier, Gretchen Wagner, Kitty Scott, Jane Bennett and Anne Pontégnie.
Read ‘Mer Sans Rivages II’ here.
Read ‘They Shoot Horses (Part Two) here.
Read ‘Ombre indigène’ here.
In ‘Vibrant Matter’ (2010) the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognising the active participation of nonhuman forces in events.
Read an excerpt from ‘Vibrant Matter’ here.
Erin Shirreff
We have a selection of books about and chosen by Erin Shirreff in advance of her upcoming exhibition 'Slow Objects' at The Common Guild with Vanessa Billy and Edith Dekyndt.
Cathleen Chaffee and Jenelle Porter, ‘Erin Shirreff’ (2015); Jan Allen, Sandra Dyck and Jenifer Papararo, ‘Erin Shirreff’ (2013)
This catalogue and artist's book was published on the occasion of the exhibition "Erin Shirreff," on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and held at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in 2015, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 2016. Accompanying the first large-scale museum survey of Erin Shirreff’s work in the United States, this publication contains essays by the exhibition’s organizers, Albright-Knox Art Gallery Senior Curator Dr. Cathleen Chaffee and Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Mannion Family Senior Curator Jenelle Porter.
In the monograph ‘Erin Shirreff’ (2013), the artist riffs on the great traditions of Minimalism to interrogate time and materiality. Designed by Connie Purtill, this first monograph on the work of the Brooklyn-based Canadian artist identifies the motives and means that underpin her practice in sculpture, photography and video.
Sam Shpard, ‘Motel Chronicles’ (1982).
In his autobiography ‘Motel Chronicles’ (1982), playwright Sam Shepard chronicles his own life. Starting from his birth in Illinois, the multihyphenate waiter, musician, dramatist, and film actor, details childhood memories in Guam and Southern California. Scenes from this book form the basis of his play Superstitions, which was adapted into the film Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders.
Watch Sam Shepard read at Trinity College Dublin here.
Details
Room for Reading is a space to engage with research related to our programme as recommended by the artists and collaborators we work with at The Common Guild.
Books are suggested in conjunction with our exhibitions and projects.
