Charles Esche Livres

Spanning 60 years, this publication surveys the art, editing and curating activities of London-based, Pakistani-born artist Rasheed Araeen (born 1935) for the first time, presenting an expansive artistic practice that has had a profound influence on generations of artists, writers and thinkers. Whether as a pioneer of Minimalist sculpture, a publisher of magazines at the forefront of postcolonial thinking like Third Text (founded 1987) or as an abstract painter drawing inspiration from the art of the Abbasid period, Araeen has consistently sought to realign the understanding of Modernism imposed by the hegemonic discourses of the West. Bringing together newly commissioned essays by leading art critics and historians, documentation from the artist's archive as well as an extensive survey of Araeen's work, this publication offers the opportunity--long overdue--to assess Araeen's impact as an artist and thinker.

Focusing on two innovative projects in Jakarta, this work examines the intricate dynamics of the city's housing culture and the contrasting experiences of private and public spaces. It delves into the effects of urban migration, infrastructure challenges, and the city's increasing density. As developing megalopolises like Jakarta experience rapid growth, the book highlights the cultural, social, political, and economic complexities that arise, providing a compelling case study of this chaotic urban landscape.

The Reverend Callie Anson should have learned her lesson by now: revisiting the past is seldom a good idea. But she succumbs to peer pressure and attends a reunion at her theological college in Cambridge, where she is forced to confront painful memories – and the presence of her clueless ex, Adam.Margaret Phillips, the Principal of the college, has a chance for happiness but before she can grasp it she has to deal with her own ghosts – as well as corrosive, intrusive gossip. Both Margaret and Callie learn something about themselves, and about forgiveness, from wise retired priest John Kingsley.Meanwhile, in London, police officers Neville Stewart and Mark Lombardi are involved with the latest stabbing of a teenager. Was the victim – gifted, popular schoolboy Sebastian Frost – all he seemed to be, or was there something in his life that led inevitably to his death? The police find themselves plunged into the queasy world of cyber-bullying, where nothing may be as it seems.While they’re apart, Callie and Mark’s relationship is on hold, and his Italian family continues to be an issue. Will Mark realize, before it’s too late, that while his family will always be important to him, he is entitled to something for himself?

The current economic situation and society’s low confidence in its institutions demands that artists become more imaginative in their self-organization. If labels such as ‘alternative,’ ‘non-profit’ and ‘artist-run’ dominated the self-organized art scene of the late nineties, the separatist position implied by the use of these terms has been moderated during the intervening years. This new anthology of accounts from the frontline includes contributions by artist practitioners as well as their institutional counterparts providing a fascinating account of the art world as a matrix of positions where the balance of power and productivity constantly shifts. Artists, curators and critics discuss empirical and theoretical approaches from Europe, Africa and South and North America on how self-organization today oscillates between the self and the group, self-imposed bureaucratization and flexibility, aestheticization and activism.

Published to coincide with the Film and Video Umbrella's touring exhibition Peeping Tom shown at the Site Gallery, Sheffield, England, 5 February-11 March 2000 and Norwich Gallery, Norwich, England, 7 June-5 July 2000, and the exhibition Mark Lewis Films 1995-2000 at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada, 20 October 2000-4 February 2001.

In his artistic oeuvre, Olaf Nicolai questions the processes of perception in order to elicit a different kind of reception. "Questions of form, moods, attitudes and style are not just vain play with surfaces. They are questions of organizational forms of activities," he writes in his essay "Show Case. In his works, Nicolai displays attitudes and styles, combining and collecting them. He integrates both classical artistic techniques and collecting, the securing of evidence and archiving as the activities of an artistic production. In his surprising, often overwhelming installations, Nicolai combines current questions of natural sciences and the liberal arts with conceptual works that refer to biology, architecture, aesthetics, iconography, history and the general processes of civilization and urban life. His focus is on the construction and exploration of new aesthetic contexts, often reflecting the difference between nature and art, naturalness and artificiality. The monograph is published to mark the occasion of Olaf Nicolai receiving the Kunstpreis award of the city of Wolfsburg in 2002.