Brandon Shimoda When someone breaks down Everyone leans into someone breaking down And touches that one It can go on – Brandon Shimoda ‘The Desert’ (The Song Cave: New York, 2018), p. 129. Bhanu Kapil What did Ban do that outweighed art? What kind of art did she produce? Returning to the U.S., I lay […]
The woman making this film is writing on the subway… It was a brief encounter; she was meeting some of you for the first time. The day before you left, she turned on the camera without asking. She is fascinated by you, doesn’t want to be a voyeur, knows she is doing just that, eavesdropping […]
From where you stand, what is your position? How do you look at something? What is the story that comes out of what you’ve seen? – Otobong Nkanga Some books here hold stories about how they came to be in his library. For example, Otobong Nkanga: Luster and Lucre, Berlin: Portikus and Sternberg Press, 2017), […]
The best piece is again found in the German section. Where the old posters hang is an (“anonymous”) one portraying Hitler and Co. at the dinner table with a huge pot in front of them. The mood is cheerful and comforting, the food evidently Spartan. Written on two lines diagonally across the entire image: “Am […]
While this work [Caliban’s Mask] was made by Durham in 1992 to ‘celebrate’ the 500 year anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, three years later, Durham was invited to mark another anniversary with his work: the foundation of Rome. His tribute to the Eternal City is no less playful and ambivalent than that to […]
Words, they are slippery things. And don’t get me started on the sounds they make! (Wait, do words even make sounds? Or do sounds make words?). Phonetics or Phonology? Or both! Anyway, some sounds seem to appear out of nowhere when certain words are pronounced. Listen to that linking or intrusive ‘r’. (Hold Me Farst!). […]
“2012 is the year of Etel Adnan” – Hans Ulrich Obrist at Art Dubai, March 2012 But what of 2011? Or 2021, the year of Etel Adnan’s death. What is a year anyway? Adnan died a few days ago, on Sunday November 14th, so what do the years even mean within the posthumous dates of […]
Pessoa – you know the one, right? – isn’t here on these shelves, but his words are still here with me: To be great, be whole: don’t exaggerate Or leave out any part of you. Be complete in each thing. Put all you are Into the least of your acts. So too in each lake, […]
