#Vincent van Gerven Oei

[antonia-gergely]

Artist Research - Martin Wong

Retrospective in the Stedelijk, Amsterdam.

Exhibition description: Wong’s multi-layered universe as seen through his early paintings, poems and sculptures made in the euphoric 1960s and early 1970s environments of San Francisco and Eureka, California, where he grew up as the only son of American-born Chinese parents; his iconic 1980s and 1990s paintings of a dilapidated New York City, made during his time on the Lower East Side; as well as his reminiscences on the imagery of the East and West Coast Chinatowns, made prior to his premature death from an HIV/AIDS-related illness.

an essay on wong's later work in the exhibition

sewer goddess 1967

tibetan porky

divine, 1979

clear example of his connection with the counterculture movement of the 1960s, with divine being a well-known drag queen at the time.

eureka theatre, 1974-5

slightly surrealist sensibility, futuristic dystopian colourful

lower east side valentine, 1983

began to incorporate american sign language as typography, similar in my mind to the alphabets of khmer or sanskrit.

everything must go, 1983

Nocture at Ridge Street and Stanton, 1987

and here was an example of poetry or text as art, very simple and legible, but still really evocative in its contents

wong's work presented to me a new perspective and intimate look at the counterculture movement of the 1960s. his work is visually easy to digest and pleasant to look at, there's a poignancy in the closed shop fronts he painted, marking a decline in inner city prosperity. his paintings don't shy away from the AIDS epidemic, by which he was heavily affected.

the 1960s movement was massive, creatively. it saw the emergence of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Beat generation like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady (who drove the merry pranksters bus for a time), the Acid Tests, free jazz, festivals, blues and rock, Frisbee for some reason, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Situationists International, Fluxus, Guy Debord, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Michel Foucault, Janis Joplin, Richard Pryor, Andy Warhol and countless other visionaries that changed my outlook, and that of many others, on the world.

side note: so upset i didn't get to see nan goldin when i was at the stedelijk. time slots were sold out, i didn't even know the show was on 🥲

[qqueenofhades]

Feeling confused, why slavjan people = etymologically slaves. Why would people accept that as their identity, to be slaves? Back in linguistics i remember reading that there two words while similar do not share the same origin.

Okay, buckle in, kiddos. We're about to go on a long and VERY nerdy tangent about historiography, linguistics, imperialism, and how categories and identities are constructed, perceived, and perpetuated both by formal historic narrative and by the people themselves. I'll try to make this as clear (and, uh, succinct) as I can, but yes.

First off: yes, there is debate about this, as there is debate about literally everything (especially on a topic as contentious as this). However, the most generally accepted hypothesis is that the word "slave" entered English as a series of evolutions and mutations deriving from the Latin word "sclavus." This word, as Anna Kłosowska puts it in her recent exploration of medieval slavery, has connotations both of "unfree person" and "person of Slavic origin," and this isn't necessarily a "family" of separate but closely related words, but just the same word in different contexts. All of the following cites are from her book chapter (Anna Kłosowska, "The Etymology of "Slave", in Disturbing Times: Medieval Pasts, Reimagined Futures, ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Anna Kłosowska, and Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Punctum Books, 2020. You can read the whole book -- online for free, as a PDF! -- here. This chapter starts on page 151).

Therefore, the words that sound like the word slave in Latin vs. French, Occitan, and Italian are less a family of words than a similar word in dramatically different contexts. (p. 155) [...] This section focuses on various words used to describe enslaved people, presents some summary facts on slavery, discussed in detail in a later section concerning who was enslaved where and in what proportion to the general population, and comments on the indistinctions between the medieval words slave and serf, and slave and Slav. Indeed, one of the challenges of the topic is that in Latin servus means a free person, an unfree person, or both. Similarly, Latin sclavus and related words in other languages (French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, etc.) means an enslaved person, a person of Slavic origin, or both. And, servus often designates an enslaved person of Slavic origin as well. (p. 160).

Medieval Latin did this on several levels, not just with "Slav/slave." It also began to use the name of other ethnic groups as words meaning "unfree person," "slave," or "other":

In medieval Latin vocabulary, various words now translated as slave, including sclavus, sarracenus, maurus, denote the origin or appearance of the enslaved person. (p. 162)

"Sarracenus," or "Saracen," was one of the most common words used to describe someone of non-Christian, non-European identity; it had some correlates with "sodomite [homosexual]", which it is often found in company with. Eventually, however, "Saracen" came to mean most commonly "Muslim." But since it was also used as a word for "slave," in this case it would denote an enslaved person of Muslim origin, rather than an enslaved person of Slavic origin. The same with "maurus," or "Moor," which would probably signify an enslaved person from Iberia. This chapter explores the broad variety of words used for "slave" in medieval Latin, and the semantic shifts that all of them underwent to get there, so it's worth checking out. However, the linguistic association of "slave" and "Slav" was not confined to medieval Latin, as it was also present in Arabic. See mention of:

tens of thousands of sqâliba (the word is synonymous with enslaved person, a Slav, and a eunuch, and may have signified any one or any combination of them). (p.158)

So in other words, yes: the medieval association of "Slav = slave" was well established in both the Christian (Latin) and Islamic (Arabic) historiographical narrative traditions. But there were many other words that also meant "slave" and which referred to enslaved people of different backgrounds; there was, in fact, a whole family of words used to describe slaves from various parts of the world. However, because Latin "sclavus" was imported into French as "esclave," and from there into Middle/Modern English as "slave," we only have one remaining word for "slave" from that entire grouping, and it happens to be the one that also meant "Slav." Etc. etc., linguistic change and transformation retains the original stems long past when people actually know where the words come from or what they refer to.

So, okay, if "slave" in modern English does derive from a Latinate root also used for "Slavic," why do people still call themselves Slavs, and why do we talk about "Slavic" people and "Slavic" history? Isn't that equivalent to calling them slaves? Well, once again, the answer is complicated. Let's think of it this way. The word "Russian" comes from the word "Rus'". This name for the lands that are now generally part of modern-day Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine was given by the Viking rulers of early Rus’, and is generally believed to derive from the old Swedish word ‘Ruotsi’, or ‘men who row’.[1] The word "Rus'" originally applied only to the Scandinavian ruling princes, but eventually acquired a broader semantic connotation, expanding to first the people and then the land where they lived. In the eleventh century, it also became interchangeable with ‘Slav’.

So... the name that Russians call themselves is actually Swedish, originally given by Vikings, and referred only to the ruling class of men who rowed (i.e. were seafarers who traveled on ships) and weren't ACTUALLY Russian (in the modern sense of the word) at all. Yet nobody thinks about this original connotation or thinks that they're also calling Russians sea-faring Vikings, even if that's where the word originally came from. So people who call themselves "Slavs" aren't necessarily (or even at all) also calling themselves "people from eastern and southern Europe who became slaves in the medieval era," since "sclavus" referred to both "Slav" AND "slave." It just so happens that it became imported as one word into English, and indeed, we've now semantically re-distinguished it, since the modern English words "Slav" and "slave" are spelled differently, capitalized differently, and obviously have different meanings, despite deriving from the same word and once being essentially interchangeable. That's no longer the case, but that process is still preserved in how the word got here, and how it was selected out of a number of others.

[1] Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2021), p. 25.

[weirdletter]

Diseases of the Head: Essays on the Horrors of Speculative Philosophy, edited by Matt Rosen, Punctum Books, 2020. Cover design by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, info and freeebook version: punctumbooks.com.

Diseases of the Head is an anthology of essays from contemporary philosophers, artists, and writers working at the crossroads of speculative philosophy and speculative horror. At once a compendium of multivocal endeavors, a breviary of supposedly illicit ponderings, and a travelogue of philosophical exploration, this collection centers itself on the place at which philosophy and horror meet. Employing rigorous analysis, incisive experimentation, and novel invention, this anthology asks about the use that speculation can make of horror and horror of speculation, about whether philosophy is fictional or fiction philosophical, and about the relationship between horror, the exigencies of our world and time, and the future developments that may await us in philosophy itself. From philosophers working on horrific themes, to horror writers influenced by heresies in the wake of post-Kantianism, to artists engaged in projects that address monstrosity and alienation, Diseases of the Head aims at nothing less than a speculative coup d’état. Refusing both total negation and absolute affirmation, refusing to deny everything or account for everything, refusing the posture of critique and the posture of all-encompassing unification, this collection of essays aims at exposition and construction, analysis and creation – it desires to fight for some thing, but not everything, and not nothing. And it desires, most of all, to speak from the position of its own insufficiency, its own partiality, its own under-determinacy, which is always indicative of the practice of thinking, of speculation. Considering themes of anonymity, otherness and alterity, the gothic, extinction and the world without us, the end times, the apocalypse, the ancient and the world before us, and the uncanny or unheimlich, among other motifs, this anthology seeks to articulate the cutting edge which can be found at the intersection of speculative philosophy and speculative horror.

Contents: Introduction: On Diseases of the Head – Matt Rosen Outgrown Purpose, Outlived Use: On Parasitic Teleology – Ben Woodard Death of Horror – Amanda Beech Those Who Are Not Counted: For a Theory of Generic Affliction – Matt Rosen Horror of the Real: H.P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones and Contemporary Speculative Philosophy – David Peak Triangulorum – Sara Rich Race and Its Far-Reaching Contemporary Ontological and Epistemological Implications – Marina Gržinić and Jovita Pristovšek Absolute Xenogenesis: Speculations on an Unnatural History of Life – Eckardt Lindner Survival Strategies for Weird Times – Helen Marshall Matrix pavoris: Material Dislocation in House of Leaves – Luka Bekavac Encountering Weird Objects: Lovecraft, LARP, and Speculative Philosophy – Chloé Germaine Buckley Sublime Horror in the Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann” – Hamad Al-Rayes When the Monstrous Object Becomes a Tremendous Non-Event: Rudolf Otto’s Monster-Gods, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, and Graham Harman’s Theory of Everything – Eric Wilson Reproducing It: Speculative Horror and the Limits of the Inhuman – John Cunningham Horror vacui (“That nothing is what there is”) – Julia Hölzl Contributors

[tkwc]

Solution Communism

21 January 2017

A one-day symposium organized by iLiana Fokianaki, Ingo Nierman and Joshua Simon, held at State of Concept Athens, 21 January 2017, 11am-6pm.

This was the first gathering, meant to be followed by further exchanges towards a book, Solution 275 - ...: Communism (Sternberg Press), scheduled for late 2017. The symposium and book are part of the constellation of activities of The Kids Want Communism (TKWC), marking 99 years to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Contributors were invited to the symposium to provide new propositions for a concept that was supposed to be a solution, but in reality proved to be a problem: communism.

A previous post on Solution Communism can be found here.

See below for recordings of the programme from the first gathering:

Part 1 - Introductions, "Communism: a solution and a problem," Joshua Simon

Part 2 - “Communism and the Enigma of Social Reproduction,” Angela Dimitrakaki

Part 3 - “Assemblism,” Jonas Staal

Part 4 - “The New Dark Age,” James Bridle

Part 5 - Discussion

Part 6 - “Recycling communist Heritage,” Vincent van Gerven Oei

Part 7 - “Neo-identitarianism as communism,” iLiana Fokianaki

Part 8 - “An antihumanist under the table part 2,” Kostis Stafylakis

Part 9 - “Discussion with audience and conclusions”

See below for the full programme of the day:

11:00 Gathering and coffee 11:20 Introductions 11:30 Joshua Simon -- Communism: a solution to a problem that was supposed to be a solution 11:50 Angela Dimitrakaki -- Communism and the Enigma of Social Reproduction 12:20 Coffee break 12:50 Jonas Staal -- Assemblism 13:10 James Bridle -- The New Dark Age 13:40 Discussion

14:00 Lunch break

15:20 Ingo Niermann -- How could Marx forget about Sex and Love? 15:40 iLiana Fokianaki -- Neo-identitarianism as communism 16:00 Vincent van Gerven Oei -- Recycling communist Heritage 16:20 Coffee break 16:40 Irena Haiduk -- Aesthetoconomics 17:00 Kostis Stafylakis -- An antihumanist under the table part 2: The kids want communism and they will get it. 17:20 Round table discussion with participants 17:40 Discussion with audience and Conclusions

Also see here for the second gathering of Solution Communism.

[slobodanstosic]

“Nothing will happen to you. You’ll be a very happy citizen”

Diagram, pencil drawing, installation of various dimension, 2017.

Stošić’s work is titled “Nothing Will Happen to You. You’ll Be a Very Happy Citizen.” The two sentences were lifted (“recycled,” if you will) from an answer that Edi Rama gave to Albanian curator Eriola Pira when she critically interrogated him during an event at Marian Goodman Gallery last year in New York. Stošić unpacks this short quote, with its implicit threat, into a huge pencil-drawn mind map detailing the historical, artistic, and political implications of Rama’s appropriation of artistic discourse and the “culture” of the contemporary art world as a facade behind which he is a rather vulgar, talentless, and power-hungry politician. What is especially important in the work is that makes explicit the contemporary art network that lends Rama’s “artisthood” credibility: artists such as Philippe Parreno, Liam Gillick, Anri Sala, Thomas Demand, and Rirkrit Tiravanija ought to be held responsible for indulging the whims of an autocrat.

Vincent W.J van Gerven Oei

[worldfoodbooks]

IN THE BOOKSHOP: but also now totally out of print, last copies of "ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE PAINTING" from last year are in the bookshop. Edited by Mihnea Mircan & Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and with contributions by Haseeb Ahmed, Ignacio Chapela, Justin Clemens, Georges Didi-Huberman, Jonathan Dronsfield, Christopher Fynsk, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Natasha Ginwala & Vivian Ziherl, Adam Staley Groves, Sean Gurd, Adam Jasper, Susanne Kriemann, Brenda Machosky, Mihnea Mircan, Alexander Nagel, Rosalind Nashashibi, Tom Nicholson, Jack Pettigrew, Raphaël Pirenne, Susan Schuppli, Lucy Steeds, Jonas Leonard Tinius, Marina Vishmidt, Christopher Witmore, and Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll. A 2010 archeological study found that the prehistoric Gwion Gwion paintings in Australia, whose chromatic vividness contrasts with their age and their exposure to sun and rain, are inhabited by “living pigments.” A symbiotic biofilm of red cyanobacteria and black fungi sustains a process of permanent self-painting, while also etching the pictures deeper into the quartz wall. The texts commissioned for the reader respond, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, to an idiosyncratic temporality and economy—or ecology—of signification. Descending from an inscrutable past to the same extent that they are made now, in a radical contemporaneity, the Gwion Gwion are examined as an allegorical metabolism that generates new articulations of “art” and “life,” contamination and purity, prehistory and modernity, bacterial and human colonies, lost knowledge and scientific advancement—collaborative relations between antonyms, altered schemas of “origin” and “identity.” A very interesting volume that has quickly disappeared from print too soon. Available via our website now. 10% off web orders today! #worldfoodbooks #allegoryofthecavepainting (at WORLD FOOD BOOKS)

[xhemilbeharaj]

Maskimi i 15 kushteve të BE nga zyrtarët e Brukselit

Maskimi i 15 kushteve të BE nga zyrtarët e Brukselit

Nga Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei/ Ditët e fundit kemi shënuar një shfaqje të jashtëzakonshme të gjuhës së dyfishtë dhe akrobacive mendore të Komisionit Evropian, rezultati i vetëm i të cilave ka qenë mundësimi i qeverisë Rama për të propaganduar se “nuk ka kushte” për hapjen e negociatave me BE-në.

Si fillim, le të sqarojmë faktet.

Më 25 mars, Këshilli Evropian, i përbërë nga krerët e…

[rrjetat-online]

EURALIUS dhe kandidati për gjyqtar kushtetues Rado i propozojnë KLGJ-së të shkelë Kushtetutën Nga Vincent Van Gerven Oei

EURALIUS dhe kandidati për gjyqtar kushtetues Rado i propozojnë KLGJ-së të shkelë Kushtetutën Nga Vincent Van Gerven Oei

Në një rast që duhet denoncuar me zë të lartë si konflikt i hapur dhe i papranueshëm interesi, eksperti i misionit EURALIUS V Klodian Rado ka këshilluar Këshillin e Lartë Gjyqësor (KLGJ) që të anashkalojë Kushtetutën duke “deleguar” përkohësisht gjyqtarë në Gjykatën e Lartë të mbetur bosh.

Rado është njëkohësisht kandidat për anëtar të Gjykatën Kushtetuese dhe për Inspektor të Lartë të Drejtësisë…

[talmidimblogging]

To Berlin for a "marble inscription from Soba" - a trip and a blog post by Vincent van Gerven Oei

To Berlin for a “marble inscription from Soba” – a trip and a blog post by Vincent van Gerven Oei

[poetryasartisticpractice]

Alessandro De Francesco, Marco Mazzi, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei at Un an sans images - Poetry as Artistic Practice, September 16th - October 16th 2017, Anima Ludens, Brussels. 

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: Thursday Links: Fascist Prime Minister and Famed Doodler Gets Art World Pass

Edi Rama

Today, May 18th, is apparently International Museum Day, organized by the International Council of Museums (ICOM)  and Art Museum Day, organized by the Association of Art Museum Directors. I (Michael) had never heard of either of these designations until this year. Museums worldwide will be offering free or reduced admission, and here in the USA, many are using the day as a rallying cry to save museum and arts funding from the conservatives. [Hyperallergic]

Olly Gibbs has been using Face App to make artworks in the Rijksmuseum smile. These are cute. And much less creepy than seeing your friends as old people on Instagram, the app’s usual function. [The Poke]

Christina Ruiz seems to agree with Paddy’s takedown of the Venice Biennale. The review is packed with hilarious snippets like this:

“A video documents the US choreographer Anna Halprin’s ‘Planetary Dance’, a gathering of middle-class white people on a hilltop in Marin County, California, where they chant, run around in circles and express their horror for all war and violence. Halprin staged this performance in 1981 to “reclaim” Mount Tamalpais from the clutches of a serial killer who was targeting female hikers in the area. People were “gripped by terror” the video informs us. But then Halprin staged her Planetary Dance and the killer was caught! Amazing. It may be fun, even life-changing, to take part in a Planetary Dance. I don’t know because I’ve never done it. What I do know is that it is neither fun nor life-changing to sit through a video of one.”

[The Art Newspaper]

Adrian Searle doesn’t care for the biennale but finds quite a bit to like in the pavilions. Anne Imholf’s “Faust” gets a lot of attention, as it should. [The Guardian]

And on the subject of Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albana and an artist included in the Biennale, critic Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei writes, “We are still waiting for the moment the international art press will shift its attention from Rama’s wallpaper and doodles to the actual “political canvas” this man has been painting in Albania, which has included landscapes of weed plantations, concrete-covered archeological treasures, natural reserves exploited by oligarchs for enormous profits, and a stunning portrait of a collapsing political system.” The catalogue mostly talks about how Rama transformed the city of Tirana into a color field painting as mayor and how his doodles draw from the tradition of surrealists. [Exit, via Walter Robinson]

In Slate’s new podcast series on working, in which they ask “What Do You Do All Day?” musician Dan Deacon gives a tour of his studio and talks about his process. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but it’s worthwhile and humorously relatable to anyone who works from home/in a creative field. [Slate]

Does the world really need this many words to let us know Jimmy Fallon isn’t relevant? [The New York Times]

I’m unclear on why exactly Cabinet Gallery was invited to build their new, extremely ugly brick-and-mortar location (financed by including luxury residential units above the gallery) inside Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a public park in London. I suppose it’s a public benefit that they included an artist residency, but this seems like an inappropriate (and mostly ugly) use of public land set aside for green space. There are plenty of examples of creatively-massed architecture that creates street-facing retail spaces while actually improving the public space it backs on to (the recent Lincoln Center plaza overhaul, for example). [Dezeen]

Hmm. The first trailer for Star Trek: Discovery is here and it’s not very promising. The production quality looks like a low budget flick on the SyFy network and I suspect I’m not alone in prequels-nobody-asked-for fatigue. (When can we get a new post-DS9 movie or series?) I’ll definitely watch it somewhere, but it’s absurd of CBS to expect people to pay for a streaming subscription based on this trailer. [io9]

Headline of the day: “Going to Art School Could Help Save Your Job From the Robots” [artnet News]

SoundGarden frontman Chris Cornell and Fox News Founder Roger Ailes have both died of unrelated causes. Cornell was 52, and Ailes 77. [The Internet]

Christie’s Post-War auction was through the roof, by ARTnews’s account. Josh Baer said it felt a little ho-hum even though it performed perfectly—perhaps because the expectations were so high. [ARTnews, BAER FAXT]

from Art F City http://ift.tt/2pXkRpA via IFTTT

[tkwc]

Solution Communism

A one day symposium organized by iLiana Fokianaki, Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon    

21 January 2017, 11am-6pm

Location:

State of Concept, Athens

Tousa Botsari 19, 11742, Athens, Greece

---------

Solution Communism is a one-day symposium to be held at State of Concept Athens. This is the first gathering, meant to be followed by further exchanges towards a book, Solution 275 - ...: Communism (Sternberg Press), scheduled for late 2017.

The symposium and book are part of the constellation of activities titled The Kids Want Communism (TKWC), marking 99 years to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

We invite contributors to the symposium to provide new propositions for a concept that was supposed to be a solution, but in reality proved to be a problem: communism.

As the highest expression of social and political change ("the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property," wrote Marx and Engels in the Manifesto), communism also represents the circumstances in which the exploration of just and equal societies fail (for example real-existing socialism in certain periods). Still, in our current reality of anti-communisms fighting each other all over the world (fundamentalists, neo-cons, neo-liberals, nationalists) the question of communism as a solution and how to solve communism becomes ever more pressing. More than any other word, “communism” expresses the opposite of a reality that champions and celebrates exploitation and inequality. But wherever capitalism goes, it brings communism with it, as a possibility for its radical negation. Yet communism is not contented with merely describing the power relations and resulting class division of “us versus them”, but offers an additional axis – one where we become the future. This axis has one guiding principle, that being-together precedes being, any being; biological, political, psychological, familial, social and so on. Under the doctrine of the End of History, we have experienced the future as simply "more of now". As history is reawakening, sometimes in the most horrific ways, in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, in the US and Britain, in Russia and Turkey, in Greece and Germany - the future will again suggest radically different realities, and with them communism will re-emerge.

The Kids Want Communism is an ongoing clandestine and public series of events (February 2016 - August 2017) marking ninety-nine years to the Bolshevik Revolution. A joint project of numerous individuals and organizations hosting exhibitions, screenings, discussions, seminars and publications throughout 2016, The Kids Want Communism takes place in a variety of locations. Among them tranzit, Prague, The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Free/Slow University Warsaw, State of Concept, Athens, Skuc gallery, Ljubljana, and MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam.

The The Kids Want Communism, Installment Three will open this spring 2017 due to a delay caused by weather conditions. More details on MoBY’s reopening to be announced soon!

We’re excited to share a recap of the widespread happenings with The Kids Want Communism project that have taken place thus far:

The Museums of Bat Yam - MoBY, Israel:

The Kids Want Communism, Installment One

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Two

Ekaterina Degot: Shockworkers of the Mobile Image

“The Future Is Ours,” Reunion of The Young Communist League of Israel

The 10th Marx Forum in Israel: “Imperialism Then and Now”

As Radical As Reality Itself 

The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine:

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 1

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 2

tranzit, Prague, Czech Republic:

First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists/ painting symposium and exhibition

Also see here. 

Škuc gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia:

Nikita Kadan: Above the pedestal the air condenses in a dark cloud

Also see here and here.

Free/Slow University Warsaw, Poland:

Summer camp hosted by the Free/Slow University of Warsaw

State of Concept, Athens, Greece:

Programme 11:00 Gathering and coffee 11:20 Introductions 11:30 Joshua Simon -- Communism: a solution to a problem that was supposed to be a solution 11:50 Angela Dimitrakaki -- Communism and the Enigma of Social Reproduction 12:20 Coffee break 12:50 Jonas Staal -- Assemblism 13:10 James Bridle -- The New Dark Age 13:40 Discussion 14:00 Lunch break 15:20 Ingo Niermann -- How could Marx forget about Sex and Love? 15:40 iLiana Fokianaki -- Neo-identitarianism as communism 16:00 Vincent van Gerven Oei -- Recycling communist Heritage 16:20 Coffee break 16:40 Irena Haiduk -- Aesthetoconomics 17:00 Kostis Stafylakis -- An antihumanist under the table part 2: The kids want communism and they will get it. 17:20 Round table discussion with participants 17:40 Discussion with audience and Conclusions

Λύση Κομμουνισμός

Ένα ολοήμερο συμπόσιο που οργανώνουν οι Ingo Niermann, Joshua Simon και Ηλιάνα Φωκιανάκη   21 Ιανουαρίου 2017, 11-6 μ.μ. Στην State of Concept, Τούσα Μπότσαρη 19, Κουκάκι, Αθήνα --------- Το Λύση Κομμουνισμός είναι μία πρώτη συνάντηση μιας σειράς από συμπόσια τα οποία θα αποτελέσουν ένα βιβλίο που θα εκδοθεί στην σειρά Solution με τίτλο Solution 275 -...:Communism  από τον εκδοτικό οίκο Sternberg Press στα τέλη του 2017. Το συμπόσιο και το βιβλίο είναι κομμάτι της σειράς Τα παιδιά θέλουν κομμουνισμό (The Kids Want Communism TKWC), που μαρκάρει τα 99 χρόνια από την Ρωσική Οκτωβριανή επανάσταση του 1917. Προσκαλούμε τους συμμετέχοντες σε ένα συμπόσιο για να παραθέσουν νέες προτάσεις για μια ιδέα που συστάθηκε ως λύση, αλλά στην πραγματικότητα αποδείχτηκε πρόβλημα: τον κομμουνισμό. Ως η ύστατη έκφραση κοινωνικής και πολιτικής αλλαγής ("Η θεωρία των Κομμουνιστών μπορεί να ειπωθεί περιληπτικά σε μια πρόταση: Κατάργηση ατομικής περιουσίας" έγραφαν οι Μαρξ και Ένγκελς στο Μανιφέστο), ο Κομμουνισμός επίσης εκπροσωπεί τις συνθήκες μέσω των οποίων απέτυχε η διευρεύνηση των δίκαιων και εξισωτικών κοινωνιών (για παράδειγμα ο σοσιαλισμός συγκεκριμένων περιόδων). Παρ' όλα αυτά στην σημερινή πραγματικότητα όπου αντι-κομμουνισμοί  μάχονται ο ένας τον άλλον σε όλο τον κόσμο (φονταμενταλιστές, νεο-φιλελεύθεροι, εθνικιστές) το ερώτημα του κομμουνισμού ως λύση αλλά και το πως θα μπορούσε κανείς να λύσει τον ίδιο τον κομμουνισμό, παραμένει επίκαιρο. Περισσότερο από κάθε άλλη έννοια, ο κομμουνισμός εκφράζει το αντίθετο μιας πραγματικότητας που προωθεί την εκμετάλλευση και την ανισότητα. Όπου όμως βρίσκεται ο καπιταλισμός, "φέρνει" μαζί του και τον κομμουνισμό ως πιθανότητα για την ριζική του άρνηση. Παρ' όλα αυτά ο κομμουνισμός δεν ικανοποιείται με την απλή περιγραφή των σχέσεων εξουσίας ή των ταξικών διαχωρισμών του "εμείς" εναντίον "αυτών", αλλά προσφέρει έναν ακόμα άξονα - αυτόν όπου εμείς είμαστε το μέλλον. Αυτός ο άξονας τρέχει παράλληλα με εμάς και η βασική του αρχή είναι πως το ζω-μαζί, προηγείται του ζω, και του κάθε ζώντα: βιολογικ��, πολιτικά, ψυχολογικά, κοινωνικά κτλ. Κάτω από την ομπρέλα του δόγρματος του "Τέλους της Ιστορίας" έχουμε βιώσει το μέλλον ως "Περισσότερο Τώρα". Καθώς η ιστορία ξυπνάει, κάποιες φορές με τον πιο τρομακτικό τρόπο στη Μέση Ανατολή και την Ανατολική Ευρώπη, τις ΗΠΑ και την Βρετανία, την Ρωσία και την Τουρκία, την Ελλάδα και την Γερμανία - το Μέλλον θα προτείνει ξανά ανατρεπτικές και διαφορετικές πραγματικότητες και με αυτές ο κομμουνισμός θα επανέλθει στο προσκήνιο. Τα παιδιά θέλουν Κομμουνισμό είναι μια λαθραία αλλά δημόσια σειρά από ενέργειες που μαρκάρουν τα 99 χρόνια της Ρωσικής Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης. Ένα κοινό πρότζεκτ ανθρώπων και οργανισμών που οργανώνουν εκθέσεις, προβολές, συζητήσεις, σεμινάρια και εκδόσεις καθ΄όλη την διάρκειας του 2016 και λαμβάνει χώρα σε διάφορα μέρη και ιδρύματα μεταξύ των οποίων  tranzit, Πράγα, The Visual Culture Research Center, Κίεβο, Free/Slow University Βαρσοβία, State of Concept, Αθήνα, Skuc gallery, Λιουμπλάνα, και MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, Τελ Αβίβ. Πρόγραμμα 11:00 Καφές 11:20 Εισαγωγή 11:35 Joshua Simon -- Κομμουνισμός: Μια λύση σε ένα πρόβλημα που υποτίθεται οτι ήταν λύση. 12:00 Άντζελα Δημητρακάκη - Κομμουνισμός και το Αίνιγμα της Κοινωνικής Αναπαραγωγής 12:20 Διάλειμμα για καφέ 12:50 Jonas Staal -- Assemblism 13:10 James Bridle -- Η Νέα Σκοτεινή Εποχή 13:40 Discussion 14:00 Lunch break 15:20 Ingo Niermann -- Πως μπόρεσε ο Μαρξ να ξεχάσει το Σεξ και την Αγάπη; 15:40 iLiana Fokianaki -- Νέο-ταυτότητα ως Κομμουνισμός 16:00 Vincent van Gerven Oei -- Ανακυκλώνοντας Κομμουνιστικές Κληρονομιές 16:20 Διάλειμμα για καφέ 16:40 Irena Haiduk -- Aesthetoconomics 17:00 Kostis Stafylakis -- Ένας μισάνθρωπος κάτω από το τραπέζι Μέρος 2ο-- Τα παιδιά θέλουν κομμουνισμό και αυτό θα έχουν. 17:20 Συζήτηση με τους συμμετέχοντες 17:40 Συζήτηση με το κοινό -- Συμπεράσματα

Participants’ Biographies:

James Bridle is a British writer, artist, publisher and technologist currently based in Athens, Greece. His work covers the intersection of literature, culture and the network. Angela Dimitrakaki is a writer. Working across Marxism and feminism, her theory work, including books and articles, focuses on the impact of globalisation on Europe's art scenes and societies. Her novels, in her native Greek, have been shortlisted for a number of literary awards. She works at the University of Edinburgh. 

iLiana Fokianaki is a writer and curator based in Athens and Rotterdam. She is the founder and director of State of Concept Athens the first non profit gallery of Greece. She has lectured internationally and locally and her texts have appeared in Frieze, Art Papers, Monopol, Leap a.o. 

Irena Haiduk artist, founder of Yugoexport, an oral corporation whose primary goal is to demonstrate how to surround ourselves with things in the right way. Ingo Niermann is a writer of fiction and speculative non fiction and the editor of the Solution book series (Sternberg Press). His latest book is the novel "Solution 257: Complete Love". Joshua Simon is a writer and curator, and is the director and chief curator of MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam. He is the author of "Neomaterialism" (Sternberg Press, 2013), and editor of "Ruti Sela: For The Record" (Archive Books, 2015). Simon holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College. Kostis Stafylakis, Art theorist and visual artist, Dr in Political Science, Adjunct at University of Patras.

Jonas Staal is an artist and PhD researcher based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Staal’s work includes interventions in public space, exhibitions, theater plays, publications and lectures, focusing on the relationship between art, democracy and propaganda.

Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei is a philologist and co-director of independent open access humanities publisher punctum books, where he also manages Dotawo, the imprint of the Union for Nubian Studies. 

[xhemilbeharaj]

Sulmi i Ramës ndaj opozitës, tregon rreziqet e shtetit njëpartiak

Sulmi i Ramës ndaj opozitës, tregon rreziqet e shtetit njëpartiak

Nga: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei – Megjithëse ka kaluar vetëm një javë nga publikimi i përgjimeve Dako-Avdylaj, duket sikur ka kaluar një shekull. Kryeministri Rama, ditët e fundit, ka nisur një fushatë frontale sulmi ndaj kundërshtarëve politikë duke përdorur të gjitha mënyrat dhe mjetet e nevojshme për të diskredituar ose dobësuar besueshmërinë e tyre.

Një përmbledhje e shkurtër e ngjarjeve:…

[tkwc]

The Kids Want Communism Closing and Final Weekend ❤️  ☭

After the closing and final weekend of The Kids Want Communism at MoBY and at Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien (curated by Joshua Simon), we would like to say thank you to everyone who has been involved and supported this project!

TKWC would not have been the same without the participation and collaboration with: Bini Admczak; Toy Boy; Diego Castro; Maya Elran, Efraim Davidi; Tamar Gozansky; Max Epstein; FAMU Prague program curated by Tereza Stejskalová: Nabil Maleh, Piyasiri Gunaratna, Krishma (Krishna) Viswanath, and Nosratollah Karimi; Tal Gafny; Nadya Bakuradze; Michal Helfman; Jacob Blumenfeld; Michael Jones McKean; Jonathan Gold; Nir Harel; Raanan Harlap; Micah Hesse; Ivonne Dippmann and Agnes Friedrich, The Israel Communist Party Archive (MAKI); Nikita Kadan; Jakob Koesten; Mati Lahat; Hila Laviv and Dana Yoeli; Ohad Meromi; Ian Svenonius; Stano Filko; Olaf Nicolai; Tamar Nissim; Ingo Niermann; Angela Dimitrakaki; Jonas Staal; James Bridle; Vincent van Gerven Oei; Irena Haiduk; Kostis Stafylakis; "Notes on Division" (curated by iLiana Fokianaki): Konstantinos Kotsis, Yota Ioannidou, Antonis Pittas, Yorgos Sapountzis, and Vangelis Vlaho; Praxis School archive curated by Vladimir Vidmar; Yuri Primenko; Katya Oicherman; Natalia Kopelanskaya; The New Barbizon: Zoya Cherkassky, Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Asya Lukin, and Natalia Zourabova; Nicole Wermers; Noa Yafe; Ekaterina Degot.

It has been amazing to see TKWC evolve and grow together with institutions around the world throughout 2016 and 2017: tranzit, Prague; The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv; Free/Slow University Warsaw; State of Concept, Athens; Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana; West Space, Melbourne; Marx200; CCA Tel Aviv; The Young Communist League of Israel (BANKI); The Left Bank; SDAJ; ZHdK and Corner College; Northwestern University; Erev Rav; Artis Contemporary; Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Israel Office; MoBY Museums of Bat Yam.

The Kids Want Communism was organized by iLiana Kokianaki, Vladimir Vidmar, Oleksiy Radynski, Vit Havranek, Patrice Sharkey, Kuba Szreder, and Joshua Simon.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this project happen and kept us going!! Naama Henkin, Meir Tati, Noa Tsaushu, Avi Bohbot, Ofir Finkelstein, Alina Yakirevitch, Nechama Winston, Michal Raz, Nufar Kaplan, Shulamit Bialy, George Choresh, Jonathan Goldstein, Moyu Honda, Ariel Blitz, Rani Rosenheim, Shimon Malka, Moran Paz, Layne Goldman, Jordan Selan, Michelle Paterok, Matthew Turell, Ofri Omer, Yafir Ido, Sassi Mazor, Danielle Kaganov, Yael Meromi, Tamir Davidov, Tali Konas, Tsafrir Cohen, Raffi Gueta, Stephane Bauer, Theres Laux, Esther Tusch, and many others.

We're excited for The Kids Want Communism book which will be published next year!

The book "Communists Anonymous," edited by Joshua Simon and Ingo Niermann, will be published by the end of the year in the Solution Series by Sternberg Press in Berlin. 

We would like to celebrate The Kids Want Communism with a recap of all the events, conversations, exhibitions, and conferences that have taken place in the last two years below. 

☭

The Museums of Bat Yam — MoBY, Israel:

The Kids Want Communism, Installment One

Also see here

Ekaterina Degot: Shockworkers of the Mobile Image

Also see here

Kuba Szreder: The Political Economy of Art and Beyond

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Two 

Also see here, here and here

Artist Talk: Nir Harel

“The Future Is Ours,” Reunion of The Young Communist League of Israel 

Also see here for stories from the history of The Young Communist League of Israel—BANKI

The 10th Marx Forum in Israel: “Imperialism Then and Now”

As Radical As Reality Itself

See more photos here

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Three / Final Installment 

Also see here, here and here

Artist Talk with Tamar Nissim and Tal Gafny

Artist Talk with Max Epstein and book launch of RESTRooM

2017 Marx Conference: 100 Years after the October Revolution

Finissage and party for the exhibition series The Kids Want Communism and 100 years to the October revolution

The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine:

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 1

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 2

tranzit, Prague, Czech Republic:

First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists/ painting symposium and exhibition

Also see here and here for an interview with the initiators of the First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists in Prague (Artalk magazine, September 6th, 2016)

Škuc gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia:

Nikita Kadan: Above the pedestal the air condenses in a dark cloud

Also see here and here

Free/Slow University Warsaw, Poland:

Summer camp hosted by the Free/Slow University of Warsaw

State of Concept, Athens, Greece:

Solution Communism, a one day symposium organized by iLiana Fokianaki, Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon 

Also see here for video recordings of some of the talks, panel discussion and Q+A

See  “Assemblism” by artist Jonas Staal, in  e-flux journal issue #80. The text came out of a lecture presented at the conference Solution Communism

West Space, Melbourne, Australia:

The Kids Want Communism at West Space

ZHdK and Corner College, Zürich, Switzerland:

Guest lecture of the Postgraduate Programme in Curating CAS/ MAS ZHdK — Joshua Simon: Verschüttete Traditionen // The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Communism and The Dividual

Northwestern University, Chicago, USA:

Visiting Artist Lecture, in collaboration with the Graham Foundation: Joshua Simon, The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Communism and The Dividual

CCA Tel Aviv, Israel:

The second gathering for Solution Communism on April 6, 2017

Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany:

The Kids Want Communism in Berlin, to mark 100 years of the Bolshevik Revolution (also see here and here)

Also see here for an interview published online by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Israel with Joshua Simon

Photos from the Vernissage (also see here)

A celebration of 100 years of Soviet Revolution: Lecture & music

☭

❤️   +  a playlist

[poetryasartisticpractice]

From the left to the right: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Alessandro De Francesco and Marco Mazzi at their opening on September 16th 2017 at Anima Ludens. 

Photo by Keiko Yamashita

[poetryasartisticpractice]

Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei lecturing at Anima Ludens on the new opening day, September 16th 2017. 

Photo by François de Coninck