22 Sep 2009

Mousse Magazine | New Issue | No. 20

In Issue 20:

_In her recent project 'These Ruins You See', Mariana Castillo Deball explores the genealogical implications of archeology for the imaginary community of Mexicanidad. Dieter Roelstraete is fascinated by the artist's capacity to explore the science of origins through art.

_Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist blends poetry and pop music in cut-ups that hinge on the schematic structure of both media. In the resulting streams of consciousness, one can trace Gertrude Stein and Chicks on Speed, William Blake and the Rolling Stones. Stefania Palumbo and the artist explore the theme of communication and language, the linchpin of his work.

_Drawing is the process that underlies everything Nick Mauss does, and his drawings make no mystery of the time and method of their construction. The three-dimensional pieces are just 'amplified drawings', like the aluminum leaf that changes with the light and is hard to see clearly. In a talk with the artist, Dominic Eichler tries to get the whole picture.

_Fairs are time machines that travel through the seasons of the art world, breaking down chronological markers, generating the occasions for collectors to discover work, creating temporal vortices that move in circles, trying to meet up. Jennifer Allen invites us on board, but keep an eye on the road!

_Miroslaw Balka didn't tell Michal Wolinski anything about his project for the Turbine Hall, but did give quite a few hints about his sources of inspiration.

_This talk with one of the most elusive and charismatic artists of the last forty years is the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. Marisa Merz opens her studio/home (which she once shared with Mario) to a young man who paid a visit there twenty-two years ago: Hans Ulrich Obrist.

_In 'Beyond', Massimo De Carlo and Mark Leckey discover that their hard disks contain the same songs, in a long conversation about the legends and outsiders of rock 'n' roll.

_Gigiotto Del Vecchio shows us the world through the lens of Hilary Lloyd's 8mm camera: naked, skeletal, potential, generated by speed. This is where the artist changes from a voyeur into an accomplice of her subjects, through the evolution of real-life relationships, transferred into a system of representation that renders details absolute.

_Gintaras Didziapetris, b. 1985, is the Lithuanian grandchild of Douglas Huebler, or at least so it would seem, since he takes the personal approach of not adding other objects to the ones already in existence. He thinks that culture, too, ought to learn some self-control. It's time to reinterpret what we already have. A conversation with Raimundas Malasauskas leads us into his world of gaps and shadows.

_Are nature and civilization doomed to be antagonists or could they be persuaded to work in benign cooperation? Kirsty Bell reveals the transformational aspects of the collages and sculptures by Björn Braun, which manage to reconcile the two: art as an agent of change.

_One of the guests at the Nordic Countries Pavilion was a gay writer, present only through the synecdoche of his incomplete manuscript, lying on a desk that was a model of the pavilion itself. Architecture, eroticism, and literature are the obsessions of Simon Fujiwara, who talked about all this with Francesca Boenzi.

_Andrew Dadson and Monika Szewczyk met to talk about suburban Suprematism, the encounter between Malevich and the landscape, but also about how to move the neighbours' trailer, very, very slowly...

_It's hard to believe Carolyn Christov Bakargiev when she says she doesn't know Miroslav Tichý very well. Her revisitation of the artist for 'Lost & Found' is exemplary.

_Alexandre Singh explores how our fetishistic relationship with brands and consumer products resembles superstition and the mood of Gothic horror stories, undermining modernist tenets and established geopolitical scenarios. The artist convinced Luigi Fassi that nowadays, the pope could very well live in Memphis, Tennessee.

Artist's Project:

_Trisha Donnelly

Reporting from...

_NEW YORK: Cecilia Alemani meets up with several members of The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a collective whose hordes of zombies are invading New York art institutions...

_PARIS: Clément Rodzielski's work touches on some of the most topical issues in the artistic debate, ranging from the status of the image to the exhibition as a framework. Francesca di Nardo interviewed him during preparations for the exhibition of finalists in the 11th Prix Ricard.

_LONDON: The political factor of music seems be the underlying concept in Ruth Ewan's radio station and jukebox, which are constantly updated archives of revolutionary songs. The artist tells Alli Beddoes why a charango is more than just a miniature guitar.

_LOS ANGELES: Martin Kersels is an unusual heir of Chris Burden and Paul McCarthy. Andrew Berardini explains why the artist's massive figure is the yardstick of all his work.

_BERLIN: Fascinated by both the form and content of art in periods of social and political transformation, Florian Zeyfang (in an interview with Clemens Krümmel) offers an unusual take on how transformations in technology and the media affect the process of artistic creation.

Plus:

_'Introducing' features Roberta Tenconi talking to Rossella Biscotti about the fascinating figure of Donnie Brasco, explored in her recent piece 'The Undercover Man', which directly involved the former FBI agent.
_Karl Lydén guides us through the Venice of the North. 'City Focus' examines how Stockholm makes it through the dark season thanks to kunsthalles, museums, and odd bookshops with implausible
_Is modernism really an alternative to the capitalist system? In a rigorous investigation that blends philosophy and psychoanalysis, Ana Teixeira Pinto unmasks the longing for self-determination that underlies the self-referential codes of art, and the anxious desire to be at the center of a network that no longer has anything social about it. Yet the solution is still a kind of modernism... the author explains which one.
_ 'Reprint' features an extract from 'Steps to an Ecology of Mind' by Gregory Bateson, selected for Mousse by Anthony Huberman.

Also...

Mousse Is an Independent Publishing Project:

Mousse makes zines, catalogues, artist books and editions, working together with galleries, institutions, museums and artists. New titles are out now.

_Christian Holstad: I confess is the first comprehensive monograph on the New York-based artist, a peculiar volume released on the occasion of Holstad's first museum solo show in Europe, at Galleria Civica Modena.

_The second issue of Peep-Hole Sheets features an unpublished text by American artist John Miller. Miller is currently having a major solo show at Kunsthalle Zurich, which generously supported this edition.

_William E. Jones starts a new series of small catalogues and zines realized for ar/ge kunst, Bolzano.