The natural landscape has provided inspiration for artists for centuries. As the landscapes surrounding us change (both as our doing and for natural reasons) so do our responses to it.
Book Hook: Traveling Without Leaving Home
This month I have selected a handful of books that cover the basic incentives for traveling so that you, reader, can avoid cramped red-eye flights, immunization shots, visa nightmares, and meat in your supposedly vegetarian meals. Maybe we can’t all afford the time and money to travel the world, so these books are the next best option.
Two months ago I was pining away for the NY Book Art Fair and wondering if I could scrape together enough money to visit NYC for the weekend. It didn’t happen, but fortunately, a book fair came to me in the form of Miss Read at KW. Although not as fancy or extensive as the New York fair, the quality of the publishers and books was just as impressive; all of the excitement was contained in one room instead of dispersed throughout the multiple floors of PS1, which made the browsing more manageable and less stressful (like Berlin itself).
I am sure that everyone had their fair share of Halloween activities this past weekend, so instead of a supernatural booklist, I have decided to go extraterrestrial. Maybe you are bored with, disappointed in, or ambivalent towards this planet, so this week’s list will at the outset take you elsewhere, but these selections will ultimately bring you back to Earth in order to reflect on what is happening down here.
Considering all of the occupations of cities that have spread worldwide, the books on this week’s list address the relationship between art and politics. Do not worry, there will be no discussion here of Rancière’s The Politics of Aesthetics; instead, these works are less theoretical and more tangible. As demonstrated by recent protesters, the 99% is fed up with corporate greed and the unequal distribution of wealth. Is this issue relevant to the art world? What about the 99% of artists that don’t “make it big” and possess a tiny fraction of the wealth within the art market?
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B Sides
Current Issue: Juliette Bonneviot -Cyborg Manifesto 2011
Attending by Witte Wartena
Strip it Down by Martin Skauen
