Elena Filipovic

Barbara Vanderlinden

Reflections from curators, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, architects, and writers on the cultural and political conditions of European exhibition practice since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-wall Europe

The Manifesta Decade

The Artist as Curator

Chris Ofili

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel marked the artist's first institutional solo in Switzerland, and filled the Kunsthalle's upstairs galleries with twenty-four new paintings, initiating what was her largest show of new work to date. For her New Museum exhibition, Yiadom-Boakye is debuting a new body of work, all created in the first months of 2017. As part of an ongoing series of exhibitions that provide a focused look at artist's practices by presenting new bodies of work, this exhibition also takes part in the New Museum's long history of giving artists major solo museum exhibitions at pivotal points in their careers.

An Under-Song For A Cipher

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

A new understanding of Marcel Duchamp and his significance as an artist through an investigation of his non-art activities—archiving, art-dealing, and, most persistently, curating. This groundbreaking and richly illustrated book tells a new story of the twentieth century's most influential artist, recounted not so much through his artwork as through his “non-art” work. Marcel Duchamp is largely understood in critical and popular discourse in terms of the objects he produced, whether readymade or meticulously fabricated. Elena Filipovic asks us instead to understand Duchamp's art through activities not normally seen as artistic—from exhibition making and art dealing to administrating and publicizing. These were no occasional pursuits; Filipovic argues that for Duchamp, these fugitive tasks were a veritable lifework. Drawing on many rarely seen images, Filipovic traces a variety of practices and projects undertaken by Duchamp from 1913 to 1969, from his invention of the readymade to the release of his last, posthumous work. She examines Duchamp's note writing, archiving, and quasi-photographic activities, which resulted in the Box of 1914 and the Green Box; his art dealing, marketing, and curating that culminated in experimental exhibitions for the Surrealists and his miniature museum, The Boîte-en-valise; and his administrative efforts and clandestine maneuvering in order to posthumously embed his Étant donnés into a museum. Demonstrating how those activities reflect the artist's questioning of reproduction and originality, as well as photography and the exhibition, Filipovic proposes that Duchamp's “non-art” labor, and in particular his curatorial strategies, more than merely accompanied his more famous artworks; in a certain sense, they made them. Through Duchamp's elusive but vital activities he revised the idea of what a modern artist could be. With this fascinating book, Filipovic in turn revises the very idea of Duchamp

The Apparently Marginal Activities of Marcel Duchamp

Joanna Mytkowska

Alina Szapocznikow

A sculptor who began working during the postwar period in a classical figurative style, Alina Szapocznikow radically reconceptualized sculpture as an imprint not only of memory but of her own body. Though her career effectively spanned less than two decades (cut short by the artists premature death in 1973 aged 47), Szapocznikow left behind a legacy of provocative objects that evoke Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme and Pop art. Her tinted polyester casts of body parts, often transformed into everyday objects like lamps or ashtrays; her poured polyurethane forms; and her elaborately constructed sculptures, which at times incorporated photographs, clothing or car parts, all remain as wonderfully idiosyncratic and culturally resonant today as when they were first made. Well-known in Poland, where her work has been highly influential since early in her career, Szapocznikows compelling body of work is ripe for art-historical reexamination. Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 19551972 offers a comprehensive overview of this important artists work at a moment when international interest is blossoming. Richly illustrated with over 150 colour plates, the catalogue features essays by the exhibition curators that touch on key aspects of her practice and historical reception, as well as an extensive annotated chronology that provides an in-depth exploration of the intersection of her life and art. Spanning one of the most rich and complex periods of the twentieth century, Szapocznikows oeuvre responds to many of the ideological and artistic developments of her time through artwork that is at once fragmented and transformative, sensual and reflective, playfully realized and politically charged.

Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972

Drawing on unpublished documents and oral histories, an illustrated examination of an iconic artwork of an artist who has made a lifework of tactical evasion. One wintry day in 1983, alongside other street sellers in the East Village, David Hammons peddled snowballs of various sizes. He had neatly laid them out in graduated rows and spent the day acting as obliging salesman. He called the evanescent and unannounced street action Bliz-aard Ball Sale, thus inscribing it into a body of work that, from the late 1960s to the present, has used a lexicon of ephemeral actions and self-consciously “black" materials to comment on the nature of the artwork, the art world, and race in America. And although Bliz-aard Ball Sale has been frequently cited and is increasingly influential, it has long been known only through a mix of eyewitness rumors and a handful of photographs. Its details were as elusive as the artist himself; even its exact date was unrecorded. Like so much of the artist's work, it was conceived, it seems, to slip between our fingers—to trouble the grasp of the market, as much as of history and knowability. In this engaging study, Elena Filipovic collects a vast oral history of the ephemeral action, uncovering rare images and documents, and giving us singular insight into an artist who made an art of making himself difficult to find. And through it, she reveals Bliz-aard Ball Sale to be the backbone of a radical artistic oeuvre that transforms such notions as “art,” “commodity,” “performance,” and even “race” into categories that shift and dissolve, much like slowly melting snowballs.

Bliz-aard Ball Sale

David Hammons

Adam Szymczyk

Kunst-Werke Berlin

In a supportive article covering the 4th Berlin Biennial, critic Steven Henry Madoff took a moment to question what many have termed "Biennial Fever," writing, "Are [biennials] here to capture trends or to advance artists' voices in a larger social dialogue? Do they promote international understanding or local interests? Are they bully pulpits for curators turned ideologues, or are they simply there to tap the art market's stopwatch till the next survey of hot new things draws the attention of an ever expanding universe of collectors?" For the 2008 edition of this always-provocative international fair, Curators Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic brought together primarily newly commissioned work by 50 emerging and established international artists for a round-the-clock exhibition that included 63 nightly events. This expansive volume documents it all, and contains contributions by writers, critics and artists including Beatriz Colomina, Bettina Viesmann, Cameron Jamie, Gabriel Kuri, Babette Mangolte, Ahmet Ögüt and Katerina Seda.

Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours

"This is an anthology of essays that first appeared in The Artist as Curator, a series that occupied eleven issues of Mousse from no. 41 (December 2013/January 2014) to no. 51 (December 2015/January 2016). It set out to examine what was then a profoundly influential but still under-studied phenomenon, a history that had yet to be written: the fundamental role artists have played as curators. Taking that ontologically ambiguous thing we call "the exhibition" as a critical medium, artists have often radically rethought conventional forms of exhibition making. This anthology surveys seminal examples of such exhibitions from the postwar to the present, including rare documents and illustrations. It includes an introduction and the twenty essays that first appeared in Mousse, a newly commissioned afterword by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and two additional essays that appear here for the first time."

Elena Filipovic

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