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This month in Artforum: The works of Dutch artist Daan van Golden—from his meticulously painted copies of patterned fabrics to his deceptively simple photographs of his daughter—achieve a stunning equipoise between appropriation and abstraction, expressionism and premeditation. For this issue, Richard Aldrich considers his fellow artist’s oeuvre, zeroing in on key moments from the early ’60s to the present to chronicle a practice that, in its subtle investigations of the experiential, discursive, and affective dimensions of images, is unlike that of anyone working today.
“For van Golden, an image, once selected, rarely refers back to its origin.”
—Richard Aldrich
· And: Taryn Simon and Brian De Palma in conversation: The artist and director take us behind the scenes of Simon’s latest project, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I–XVIII, 2011, and De Palma’s noir in progress, Passion, set for release in 2013. With their dual engagements in film, photography, and suspense, and their recent collaboration on the film Redacted (2007), each interrogates the other’s views on images and their agency.
“I want to see everything. I guess the positive version of not seeing or not knowing would be the preservation of fantasy.”
—Taryn Simon
· Through analog engagements with the protocols of memory and the shifting ground of visuality today, Slovakian artist Roman Ondák has articulated one of contemporary art’s most compelling responses to our current technoculture. Ina Blom links Ondák’s sculptural gestures to our contemporary regime of rapid circulation, on the cusp of his participation in this summer’s Documenta.
“When everything is memory, nothing is memory. Pertinence is overtaken by indiscernibility, obviated by searchability.”
—Ina Blom
· Anthropologist and direct action icon David Graeber talks with Artforum editor Michelle Kuo about the uses and abuses of social and economic theory in the realm of culture; Eric Rentschler takes stock of the fiftieth anniversary of the Oberhausen Manifesto—that watershed moment in 1962 when a group of young filmmakers broke with the presiding German film industry; André Rottmann examines Nairy Baghramian‘s critical twist on post-Minimalism and contemporary sculpture; and Mario García Torres gives “1000 Words” on his project for Documenta 13, Tea, 2012, with an introduction by Tom McDonough.
· Also: Jack Bankowsky raises his paddle for YBA tycoon Damien Hirst‘s Tate Modern retrospective; Dennis Lim explores António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro‘s fabled docu-fiction films of the ’70s and ’80s; and Jan Tumlir conjures up an “Openings” on Milan-based artist Pietro Roccasalva.
· Plus: In response to the 7th Berlin Biennale, Jakob Schillinger wonders where the art institution and political activism might meet; Huey Copeland reflects on Rashid Johnson‘s show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Rosalind Krauss sits in on William Kentridge‘s Norton lectures; Vaginal Davis recalls the glory days of ’90s LA café-club Jabberjaw; Manuel Borja-Villel pays tribute to the tireless experimentation of the late Antoni Tàpies; Richard Meyer remembers the life and work of Anita Steckel, raw and uncut; and Patterson Beckwith delivers his Top Ten, as Artforum closes its fiftieth volume year.
· And next: Coming this September, a special 50th Anniversary issue of Artforum. The most celebrated artists and critics of our time look back on the media that have shaped contemporary art—and envision what’s to come.
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