In anticipation of the opening of dOCUMENTA (13) on 6 June in Kassel, OCA announces On the Destruction of Art—Or Conflict and Art, or Trauma and the Art of Healing by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev published in Spring 2012, as part of the dOCUMENTA (13) notebook series 100 Notes - 100 Thoughts.
According to the dOCUMENTA (13) summary, 'Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev reflects on the historical as well as personal notion of destruction and art, as well as on the potential healing power that art can have. Guiding us through a web of etymological, historical, philosophical, personal, and art historical references, she takes the reader from Melanie Klein’s thinking about the dyadic relationship between mother and child and Walter Benjamin’s reflection on Klee’s Angelus Novus, to object studies starting with Man Ray’s metronomes, his Objects of Destruction, and Lee Miller’s photographs from the end of World War II, to Gustav Metzger’s “Manifesto of Auto-Destruction,” to melted objects from the Beirut National Museum and the blown-up Bamiyan Buddhas, which are accompanied by Michael Petzet’s report of ICOMOS’s response to the destroyed monuments, followed by artworks by Michael Rakowitz and drawings with poems by Anna Boghiguian, in addition to a postscript by art historian Dario Gamboni on the destruction of art, the concept of 'world heritage', and the legislation around it. For Christov-Bakargiev, 'the sphere of art is poised on the edge of the private and of history, and becomes the location where one can experiment the possibilities of being on the edge of the anthropocentric, where the rubble lies.' Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (*1957) is Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA (13).'
About dOCUMENTA (13) notebook series 100 Notes - 100
Thoughts
As a prelude to the 2012 exhibition, dOCUMENTA (13) together with
Hatje Cantz are publishing a series of notebooks, 100 Notes –
100 Thoughts, that is comprised of facsimiles of existing
notebooks, commissioned essays, collaborations, and conversations.
The notebooks appear in three different formats (A6, A5, B5) and
range from 16 to 48 pages in length. Contributors hail from diverse
fields – art, science, philosophy, psychology, anthropology,
political theory, literature, and poetry. Matias Faldbakken is part
of a list of authors that includes György Lukács, Suely Rolnik,
Franco Berardi, Vandana Shiva, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Salvador
Dalí and Ignacio Vidal-Folch, Chus Martínez, Édouard Glissant and
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Arjun Appadurai, Cornelius Castoriadis,
Griselda Pollock, Donna Haraway, Pamela M. Lee, William Kentrige,
Erkki Kurenniemi, Walter Benjamin and Nikola Doll, and Lawrence
Weiner, among others.
Commissioned by dOCUMENTA (13) Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, together with Head of Department, Member of Core Agent Group, Chus Martínez, this series is edited by Head of Publications, Bettina Funcke. The 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts series is launched at various places and in various moments, each accompanied by a discussion on the nature and the aim of this publications project. You can acquire individual notebooks or subscribe to the entire series of 100 notebooks in both printed and e-book editions at www.hatjecantz.de/documenta13.
In Oslo you can acquire the notebooks at Torpedo Bookshop.