December at e-flux
Upcoming events:
Sunday, December 11:
Boris Groys presents a screening of the Russian film Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)
Saturday, December 17:
Franco “Bifo” Berardi lecture at MoMA PS1 on insolvency and emancipation
Also on view:
Out of town: Andrei Monastyrski & Collective Actions
Curated by Boris Groys
November 5, 2011–January 7, 2012
e-flux
311 East Broadway
2nd Floor
New York City
Tuesday–Saturday, 12–6
Sunday December 11, 5 pm, free
Abrons Art Center
466 Grand Street, New York
The 1924 film Aelita: Queen of Mars, based on the novel by Alexei Tolstoy, is at once a curiosity of post-revolutionary life and silent cinema in the Soviet Union and an enduring testament to the early days of the science fiction film genre. The film tells of the adventure of Los, an engineer living in Moscow, who dreams of Aelita, the Queen of Mars, and builds a spaceship to take him to her, only to be drawn into a proletarian uprising to establish a Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. One of the earliest full-length space-travel films, Aelita is also widely recognized for it’s constructivist inspired Cubist Martian set and costume designs.
This screening is presented as part of the exhibition “Out of Town: Andrei Monastyrski and Collective Actions,” curated by Boris Groys and on view at e-flux until January 7, 2012.
Franco “Bifo” Berardi at MoMA PS1
Saturday December 17, 4 pm, free
22-25 Jackson Avenue at 46th Avenue
Long Island City, NY
The concept of insolvency as it has been applied in the US and especially in the EU has to do with economic debt, but also with the symbolic debt implied in the capitalist process of exploitation. In the EU, this symbolic debt is bound to tensions that haunted European modernity—between Calvinist and Catholic, Baroque and Gothic, good German laborers and bad lazy Mediterraneans. It is a subject often avoided for being politically incorrect, because no one wants to see the religious, anthropological, and aesthetic implications of the crisis. But the concept of symbolic debt may also provide a way out: What if debt as semiotization and insolvency could actually provide autonomy from capitalist semiotization—a direct move from insolvency to emancipation? What is the meaning of the word “revolution” anyhow? Let us consider how the concept of emancipation will replace of the concept of revolution.
This is the second in a season of talks and discussions presented by e-flux book co-op at MoMA PS1. Hito Steyerl was the first to present in the series, which will continue throughout the season with presentations by artists, writers, and theorists such as AA Bronson, Paul Chan, Sven Lütticken, Elizabeth Povinelli, and others considering the recent intensification of political life.
About e-flux book co-op:
Costly and often monopolistic approaches to the distribution of art books has resulted in a situation in which it is common for not only the author but also the publisher to receive little to no revenue from book sales. As a possible alternative, e-flux presents the book co-op: a mobile bookstore with over 600 titles on contemporary art, theory, and criticism from over 100 international art centers, artist-run spaces, and independent publishers. Housed in a refurbished aluminum Airstream trailer, this temporary model for more equitable distribution in art publishing displays and sells books on behalf of the cooperative’s member institutions. The e-flux book co-op is located in the courtyard of MoMA PS1.
co-op member publishers:
98weeks : A.R.T. Press : AND Publishing : Archis Press : Architectural Association / Bedford Press : Archive Press : Arsenal Gallery : Artspace : AS220 : BAK, basis voor actuele kunst : Ballroom Marfa : BAS : Bergen Kunsthall : Berliner Künstlerprogramm / DAAD : Bielefelder Kunstverein : Brumaria : CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo : CASCO—Office for Art, Design and Theory : Casino Luxembourg—Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg : CDA-Projects : Contemporary Image Collective (CIC) : Cultural Center of Belgrade : DeLVe, Institute for Duration, Location and Variables : Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane : EACC—Espai d’Art contempoarani de Castello : Eastside Projects : Fillip / Motto : Fondazione March : Fondazione Nicola Trussardi : Foreman Art Gallery of Bishopʼs University : Gagarin : Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic : Gallery Nova / WHW : Grazer Kunstverein : Halifax, INK : Harpune Verlag : IASPIS : ICA Sofia : Ikon Gallery : Independent Curators International (ICI) : Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation : Kadist / Kadist Paris : Kim? : Kölnischer Kunstverein : Kumu Art Museum : Kunsthalle Basel : Kunsthalle Bern : Kunsthaus Bregenz : Kunsthaus Graz : Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein : Kunstnernes Hus : Kunstverein Hamburg : LABoral Centre for Art and Creative Industries : Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers : M HKA : MACBA : MAMbo-Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna : Master in Visual Arts, Faculdade Santa Marcelina : Maumaus, Escola de Artes Visuais : Milton Keynes Gallery : Moderna Galerija Ljubljana : MUMA, Monash University Museum of Art : Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia : Museum of Contemporary Art Serralves : NKV, Nassauischer Kunstverein : MNAC, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest : NBK, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein : Nottingham Contemporary : Old Mill Society : OMMU : Paraguay Press : Pavilion : Pavilion Unicredit : Pori Art Museum : Portikus / Städelschule : Postgraduate Program in Curating, Zürich University of the Arts / Whitespace : Press to exit project space : Project Arts Centre : Publication Studio : Rakett : READ Books, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art and Design : REDCAT : Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten : SALT : Salzburger Kunstverein : Sarai-CSDS : Serpentine Gallery : Shedhalle : split/fountain : Sternberg Press : Stroom den Haag : The Books : The New Gallery : The Power Plant : The Renaissance Society : Torpedo Press : Traffic : Van Abbemuseum : Vitamin Creative Space : Walker Arts Center : Wexner Center for the Arts : White Flag Projects : Wysing Arts Center : Zachęta National Gallery of Art and others.
