Manual / Issue 11 / Repair

Manual, a journal about art and its making. Repair. Can we find in the detail, in the stitch and the weave, an ecology of care, a model for activating new forms of life, ones that might reject or reimagine an economic and cultural order based on novelty, disposability, and the monadic self? Can they help us learn to live together in a broken world? —Brian Goldberg and Kate Irvin, from the preface to Issue 11 This volume complemented the exhibition Repair and Design Futures, on view at the RISD Museum October 5, 2018 through June 30, 2019. Softcover, 96 pages. Published 2018 by the RISD Museum. Manual 11 (Repair) contributors include Markus Berger, Gina Borromeo, Linda Catano, Thomas Denenberg, Daniel Eatock, Brian Goldberg, Ramiro Gomez, Kate Irvin, Anna Rose Keefe, Olivia Laing, Steven Lubar, Roberto Lugo, Lisa Z. Morgan, Maureen C. O’Brien, Barry Schwabsky, Sharma Shields, Jessica Urick, and Liliane Wong.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdmuseum_journals/1037/thumbnail.jp

Words for art : criticism, history, theory, practice

"In this volume of short essays, Barry Schwabsky reveals himself to be a critic of uncommon range and erudition. Walter Benjamin’s views on color, E. H. Gombrich’s theory of perception, Mel Bochner’s and Liz Kotz’s narratives of Conceptualism, and Sarah Thornton’s peregrinations in the “art world” are but a few of the topics explored in this volume. In an era of hyper-specialization and rigid academic protocols, Schwabsky revives a form of criticism one imagined barely existed— a criticism of varied interests and passionate opinions. —James Meyer, author of Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties By weaving together evocative and often uncharted episodes from art history, literature, and philosophy, a critical poetic emerges, and an offense of interference and reworked perspectives surfaces from Schwabsky’s essays. Unconcerned with categorical methodologies or totalizing approaches to criticism, Schwabsky writes with nonsequential energy that obliges both artists and critics to complexity, curiosity, and courage. —Michelle Grabner, artist and professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Like many of the best critics, Schwabsky has the ability to describe things so precisely that no explicit evaluation is necessary. Every time an idea is introduced, it is allowed to hold the reader’s attention for the time it takes to ground a judgment, and no longer. This gentle rhythm gives the essays an unillusioned clarity and undogmatic authority rarely found in writing about art. —Malcolm Bull, author of Anti-Nietzsche and University Lecturer in Fine Art at Oxford University " -- publisher's websit

Carrie Moyer : Pirate Jenny

"Carrie Moyer’s recent paintings and monoprints boldly merged propaganda, feminism, art history, abstraction, and unapologetic visual pleasure." -- Publisher's website

Gillian Wearing : Mass Observation

This publication accompanies the exhibition Gillian Wearing : Mass Observation organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Nicholas Krushenick : Electric Soup

"Nicholas Krushenick combined witty Pop sensibilities with a myriad of artistic inspirations to create dynamic, playful paintings. He was a prominent figure on the New York art scene throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Using the surrounding influences of this vibrant scene as a catalyst, he developed a distinct style that straddled the lines between Op, Pop, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Color Field painting." -- Publisher's website

Christine Davis : Projections

'' Image and reality interfuse, recalling Marcel Proust's evocative description in Swann's Way : '' Just as, in the transformation scene in a theater, a fold of the fairy's dress, a trembling of her little finger, betray the physical presence of the living actress, whereas we had not been sure if we were not looking at a simple projection of light.'' Where the awareness of the construction of image reinforces physical presence, the suggestion of something unconscious, the dream-state, is entirely in keeping with Christine Davis' slide dissolves. It is this dynamic that she makes so vivid, this interaction on the skin of the screen'' -- p. [4] of cover

The Archive, the Event and Its Architecture

“The Archive, the Event and Its Architecture” is both a documentation and a component of an interrelated body of work that seeks to provide a point of triangulation between the archive, a live event, and its architecture or site; in particular exploring whether any of these terms can exist as the other; e.g., can an event be a building, a building an archive. Based on the extraordinary literary archive housed by the Trust which provided a rich context for investigating the notion of archiving, the ambition of this project addressed theoretical concerns surrounding the archive, its relevance in contemporary art practice as a private system and in the public domain. Our key concern was how to accommodate discrepancy between the private and public within the archive, without excluding the personal. Research was undertaken over six months in Grasmere where, by invitation, I was a Wordsworth Trust Artist in Residence between November 2006 - May 2007. The outcome, evidenced by the book, comprised three interconnected events, together with the book itself. In the first, 'The Village Hall', a range of activities typically undertaken within the hall, occurred simultaneously alongside archival material associated with them, e.g., photographs from Grasmere’s Millenium Exhibition, originally sited in the hall. On the following day, 1st April 2007, passers-by joined three finite groups which, with mirrors strapped to members’ backs, walked to a different peak in Grasmere. Both events were documented. The final event, a symposium (26.5.07) comprised three papers each addressing the triad of archive, live event and architecture from a different viewpoint, i.e, event (Schwabsky), architecture (Gough) and archive (Melvin). Individually, and in relation to each other, the separate events offer new understanding of each and the relations between them