Shahryar Nashat inserts his art in the pages of this new artist’s book, which takes the form of a catalogue-turned-manual: but instead of explaining its meaning, he strips it of its aura, flaunts its nature as an object and describes step-by-step how to create it.
Martin Heidegger, Glenn Gould, Jacques-Louis David, Cy Twombly, Paul Engelmann and Ludwig Wittgenstein: characters that Francesco Arena has chosen or rediscovered in multiple contexts over the time recur in this book. Ranging from philosophy, to music, to visual arts, they embrace the whole world of knowledge.
This first institutional monograph on the multimedia practice of artist and director Ali Cherri aims to highlight the themes and formal concerns running through his most recent, highly significant projects at GAMeC, Bergamo; Frac Bretagne, Rennes; Swiss Institute, New York; Biennale Arte 2022, Venice; and the National Gallery, London.
The book highlights the main characteristics of the collective trauma that gave rise to Rachel Whiteread’s project for GAMeC. The psychoanalysts Angelo Antonio Moroni and Pietro Roberto Goisis map out a composite picture, starting from the sense of vulnerability and collective loss associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
This book, with follows the eponymous exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg, is constructed as a story, with a prologue, four acts, and an epilogue: an intuitive journey through the voices of thirty-four artists from different generations who are experimenting with the idea of the performative.
Dreaming Alcestis is an artist’s book by artist and filmmaker Beatrice Gibson, conceived as an accompaniment to her holographic film installation of the same name. It features a commissioned essay by poet and translator Allison Grimaldi Donahue, as well as a reprint of the American poet Alice Notley’s 1991 essay What Can Be Learned From Dreams?
Conceived by Philip Pilekjær, Samuel Haitz, Paolo Baggi and Tobias Kaspar.
Design by Pascal Storz and Lucas Manser
2024, English, softcover, 15 x 20.5 cm, 200 pages
ISBN: 979-12-80579-41-6
PROVENCE was founded in 2009 in Nice, France, and has since shape-shifted through a variety of constellations. Today, PROVENCE operates as a collectively run publishing house and agency for contemporary art.
The ambition of PROVENCE has always been to question and challenge its own format by conceiving exhibitions, artworks, and merchandise in parallel with its publishing and agency activities. This includes exhibitions at Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg; Artists Space, New York; an off-site Hannah Villiger exhibition in Basel; and participation in numerous group exhibitions. Also worth mentioning are a hair salon (never realized), numerous art fair booths, a collection of driftwood, a temporary casino hosted by Etablissement d’en face in Brussels, 215 very real press passes, media partnerships, a travel guide for Nice rated no. 1 in Vogue US, stickers, handbags, and plenty of dinners.
On the occasion of PROVENCE’s 15th anniversary, the reader My Alphabet presents 26 texts published by PROVENCE between 2009 and 2024, either in print or digitally in the weekly newsletter. These texts are sorted alphabetically, ranging from A for Amphetamine to N for Ne travaillez jamais to Z for Gen Z.
My Alphabet compiles selected contributions from the PROVENCE archive by Andrea Legiehn, Anonymous, Artists Space, castillo / corrales, Contemporary Art Writing Daily, Edgars Gluhovs, Enzo Camacho & Amy Lien, Felix Vogel, Huysmans Ringheim, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Karl Holmqvist, Mariuccia Casadio, Olga Hohmann & Sophia Eisenhut, PROVENCE, Raphael Gygax, Robert Walser, Sylvie Fleury, Tom Holert, Tyler Dobson, Ulf Wuggenig, and Yugoexport. The book also features Lucie Kolb’s essay “The Potential and Limits of Hobby Criticism,” which illuminates the history and conceptual intentions of PROVENCE and was commissioned specifically for this publication.
Additionally, My Alphabet is accompanied by a poster by Daniele Buetti hidden in the dust jacket and 26 postcards, each sporting a letter sponsored by institutions, galleries, artists, and friends.