March 2016 / issue no. 101
Issue 101 of Texte zur Kunst takes “Polarities” as its theme—a term that in the first degree we associate with what’s unfolding around us right now: ideological polarization, from Pegida to Donald Trump. In turn, this issue looks to the macro conditions in which art critical and art historical discourses are currently being formed, and within which they will need to position themselves.
What’s particularly striking, we argue, is that this trend toward polarization is happening despite the popular tendency, in recent decades, to speak of increased unification. How, then, can such polarization be reconciled with the dominant, and inherently continuous, neoliberal system—one characterized by the global economy’s promise of inclusiveness; utopian visions of peace (if not survival) via the “singularity” of screen, mind, and body; and a European Union as project of post-Soviet unification, striving to push all conflict to its periphery?
What do we make of this growing difference between the ideals of technological/smooth space (where the art world often resides, swiftly neutralizing any resistance as “content”) and the broadening expanses of material unrest? Could the image of polarization be something not to avoid but to engage, at least as a potentially generative model, for understanding true opposition within a continuous system—for times that are anything but free from ideological division?
Main section (in English and German):
“Et sous la plage… ?”
Philipp Felsch interviews Timothy Brennan on the state of left theory
Helmut Draxler
“Always Polarize? Conditions and limitations of a model of argumentation”
“Liberty, Equality, Security”
Four questions for Carolin Emcke
“Enter the Void”
Roy Scranton & @LilInternet on hyperreality and reflexive narrative
Daniel C. Barber and Davis Rhodes
“The Terror Within”
Antek Walczak
“Globally Positioned”
Gabriele Werner
“Heimat: Notes on the enduring renaissance of an idea”
New Development:
Sven Lütticken on Germany‘s Kulturgutschutzgesetz (German, English online)
Reviews (partial listing):
Maria Muhle on Painting 2.0 at Museum Brandhorst, Munich (German)
David Rimanelli on Dash Snow at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut (English)
Hans-Jürgen Hafner on Daniel Richter at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main (German)
Svenja Bromberg on Nina Power‘s book of collected essays Das kollektive politische Subjekt (German)
Sarah Lookofsky on Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (English)
Tobias Madison on Seth Price’s novel Fuck Seth Price (German)
Daniel Keller on Peter Fend at Barbara Weiss and The Oracle, Berlin (English)
Jenny Nachtigall on Carolee Schneemann at the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (German)
Yilmaz Dziewior on Slip of the Tongue at the Punta della Dogana, Venice (German)
Image spread:
Gerhard Richter
Plus artists’ editions by:
Thea Djordjadze
Dana Schutz
Visit TEXTE ZUR KUNST online at www.textezurkunst.de.
Available by subscription at TZK Abonnement.
For editions and other information, please contact:
TEXTE ZUR KUNST
Strausberger Platz 19
10243 Berlin
Germany
T +49 (0) 30 30 10 453 45
F +49 (0) 30 30 10 453 44
editionen [at] textezurkunst.de
