Klaus Biesenbach

ACTIVE BACKLIST

MARCO ANELLI: PORTRAITS IN THE PRESENCE OF MARINA ABRAMOVIC
Text by Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Chrissie Iles.
DAMIANI
ISBN: 9788862082495 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 9/30/2012
Active | In stock

EIKE BECKER ARCHITECTS: SUPERFERENZ
Text by Eike Becker, Klaus Biesenbach, Klaus Humpert, Matthias Schuler.
HATJE CANTZ
ISBN: 9783775731508 | US $85.00
Pub Date: 4/30/2012
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BASED IN BERLIN
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
ISBN: 9783863350451 | US $22.95
Pub Date: 9/30/2011
Active | Awaiting stock

SEPTEMBER 11
MOMA PS1
ISBN: 9780984177639 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 9/30/2011
Active | In stock

UGO RONDINONE: THE NIGHT OF LEAD
JRP|RINGIER
ISBN: 9783037641453 | US $90.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2010
Active | Awaiting stock

GREATER NEW YORK 2010
Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Cornelia H. Butler, Neville Wakefield.
MOMA PS1
ISBN: 9780984177622 | US $19.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2010
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FRANCIS ALÿS: A STORY OF DECEPTION
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870707902 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 8/31/2010
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MARINA ABRAMOVIC: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT
Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Arthur C. Danto, Chrissie Iles, Nancy Spector, Jovana Stokic.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870707476 | US $50.00
Pub Date: 4/30/2010
Active | Awaiting stock

POLITICAL, MINIMAL
Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Jenny Schlenzka, Michael Archer.
VERLAG FüR MODERNE KUNST NüRNBERG
ISBN: 9783941185074 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2009
Active | Awaiting stock

JONATHAN HOROWITZ: AND/OR
Edited by Lionel Bovier, Kelly Taylor. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Alison Gingeras, Elizabeth Peyton.
JRP|RINGIER
ISBN: 9783037640180 | US $55.00
Pub Date: 5/31/2009
Active | In stock

INTO ME / OUT OF ME
Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Georges Bataille, Susan Sontag.
HATJE CANTZ
ISBN: 9783775720410 | US $60.00
Pub Date: 8/1/2007
Active | In stock

DOUG AITKEN: SLEEPWALKERS
Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry and Anne Pasternak. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Peter Eleey, Doug Aitken.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870700453 | US $39.95
Pub Date: 1/1/2007
Active | In stock

DOUGLAS GORDON: TIMELINE
Essay by Klaus Biesenbach.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
ISBN: 9780870703904 | US $60.00
Pub Date: 6/1/2006
Active | Not available

ANDY WARHOL: MOTION PICTURES
KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
ISBN: 9783980426541 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Active | Awaiting stock

KATHARINA SIEVERDING: CLOSE-UPS
KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
ISBN: 9783980426558 | US $39.95
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Active | In stock

ANIMATIONS
P.S.1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
ISBN: 9783980426503 | US $20.00
Pub Date: 12/2/2003
Active | In stock

MEXICO CITY
P.S.1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
ISBN: 9780970442840 | US $30.00
Pub Date: 2/2/2003
Active | In stock

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

GREATER NEW YORK 2005
Edited by Klaus Biesenbach.
P.S.1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
ISBN: 9780870709876 | US $39.99
Pub Date: 7/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

LARA SCHNITGER: FRAGILE KINGDOM
Essays by Klaus Biesenbach and Matthew Monahan.
ARTIMO
ISBN: 9789085460015 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

HENRY DARGER: DISASTERS OF WAR
Essay by Klaus Biesenbach. Interview by Kiyoko Lerner.
KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
ISBN: 9783980426534 | US $29.95
Pub Date: 4/2/2004
Out of print | Not available

VIDEO ACTS
P.S.1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
ISBN: 9780970442857 | US $30.00
Pub Date: 2/2/2003
Out of print | Not available

Klaus Biesenbach

Marco Anelli: Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic

Text by Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, Chrissie Iles.
Published by Damiani

After becoming an internet sensation, Marco Anelli’s powerful portraits of sitters in the historic 2010 Marina Abramovic performance at The Museum of Modern Art, New York are now collected and available in their entirety in this volume. The centerpiece of the landmark retrospective Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present was Abramovic herself, who sat silently in the museum’s atrium, inviting visitors to take a seat across from her for as long as they chose. She sat every day for the run of the show--716 hours and 30 minutes--and faced more than 1,500 people, whose participation completed the work. Marco Anelli’s photographic project captured every interaction, taking a portrait of each participant and noting the time they spent in the chair. Just as Abramovic’s piece concerned duration, the photographs give the viewer a chance to experience the performance from Abramovic’s perspective. They reveal both dramatic and mundane moments, and speak to the humanity of such interactions, just as the performance itself did. The resultant photographs are mesmerizing and intense, putting a face to the world of art lovers while capturing what they shared during their contact with the artist.

Eike Becker Architects: Superferenz

Text by Eike Becker, Klaus Biesenbach, Klaus Humpert, Matthias Schuler.
Published by Hatje Cantz

At nearly 500 pages, this tome is the first comprehensive monograph on Eike Becker Architekten, a Berlin firm that operates at the intersection of architecture and urban planning. Featuring 28 projects, Superferenz provides insight into the architects’ ideas and methods with reproductions from sketchbooks, paintings, collages, models, drawings, photographs and writings.

Based in Berlin

Introduction by Angelique Campens, Fredi Fischli, Magdalena Magiera, Jakob Schillinger, Scott Cameron Weaver. Foreword by Klaus Biesenbach, Christine Macel, Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Published by Walther König, Köln

Based in Berlin showcases some 80 emerging artists currently living and working in Berlin, pursuing practices ranging from painting and drawing to sculpture, photography, film and video, text, performance and installation. The publication is produced through the initiative of the same name, and is the result of hundreds of studio visits made since November 2010.

September 11

Edited by Peter Eleey. Introduction by Peter Eleey. Foreword by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by W.H. Auden, Alexander Dumbadze, Peter Eleey, Robert Hullot-Kentor, Alexander Kluge, W.J.T. Mitchell.
Published by MoMA PS1

The attacks of September 11, 2001 were among the most pictured disasters in history, yet they remain, a decade later, underrepresented in cultural discourse--particularly within the realm of contemporary art. Responding to these conditions, MoMA PS1 curator Peter Eleey brings together more than 70 works by 41 artists--many made prior to 9/11--to explore the attacks’ enduring resonance. Eschewing both images of the event itself and art made directly in response, the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue provide a subjective framework within which to reflect upon the attacks and their aftermath, and explore the ways that they have altered how we see and experience the world in their wake. Opening on the tenth anniversary of the attacks, September 11 includes works by Diane Arbus, John Chamberlain, Bruce Conner, Christo, Ellsworth Kelly, Mary Lucier, Stephen Vitiello and others.

Ugo Rondinone: The Night of Lead

Edited by Agustín Pérez Rubio, Madeleine Schuppli. Text by Agustín Pérez Rubio, Klaus Biesenbach, Beatrix Ruf, Madeleine Schuppli.
Published by JRP|Ringier

Mixing menace and unease with buoyancy and optimism, Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone (born 1963) infuses his sculptures, drawings, videos, photographs, sound art and text works with a wide repertoire of fantasies and fears. Rondinone is famed for his celebratory, rainbow-colored "Hell, Yes!" sign, emblazoned on the New Museum's frontage on the occasion of its 2007 opening. At the other end of his emotional-artistic spectrum lie his outsized monster heads and contorted trees that could be modeled from illustrations to a children's ghost story, and somewhere in between lie such works as his curiously ominous series of heavily augmented doors and his looming lightbulbs. At nearly 400 pages, and with a wealth of color plates, this enormous new monograph from JRP|Ringier surveys all of these works and more, taking full stock of Rondinone's prolific activity over the past dozen years.

Greater New York 2010

Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Cornelia H. Butler, Neville Wakefield.
Published by MoMA PS1

The third iteration of the quintennial exhibition organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and The Museum of Modern Art, Greater New York 2010 showcases emerging artists who are living and working in the metropolitan New York area. Covering a full range of practices and media, and eagerly anticipated throughout the art community, the 2010 exhibition and catalogue present new works by more than 70 artists of diverse backgrounds, allowing each of them a significant area of space in P.S.1’s expansive galleries in which to show new work or work that has been made in the past five years. This year, Greater New York is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, P.S.1 Director and MoMA Chief Curator at Large; Connie Butler, MoMA Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawing; and Neville Wakefield, P.S.1 Senior Curatorial Advisor.

Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception

Edited by Mark Godfrey, Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Eduardo Abaroa, Klaus Biesenbach, Francesco Careri, Carla Faesler, Mark Godfrey, Boris Groys, Miwon Kwon, Tom McDonough, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Laymert Garcia dos Santos, Eyal Weizman.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Working in a variety of media and a range of scales, from humble works on paper to monumental staged performances, Francis Alÿs (born 1959) has established himself as one of the world's leading contemporary artists. Based in Mexico City since 1986, the artist fashions much of his work from the street life he observes during long walks throughout the city. Bringing together a variety of participants, from Mexican sign-painters to British Guardsmen, his collaborations have produced several well-known works, including "When Faith Moves Mountains" (2002), in which he enlisted 500 volunteers to attempt to move a sand dune one foot from its original position using shovels, and "The Modern Procession" (2002), a ceremonial procession commemorating MoMA's temporary move to Queens, New York, that included a brass band and uniformed participants carrying reproductions of the Museum's most famous works across the Queensboro bridge. Published to accompany the largest retrospective of Alÿs' work to date, this publication is more a guidebook than a conventional monograph, reflecting the spirit of the artist's wandering practice. It features an introductory essay by Mark Godfrey, a curator at the Tate Modern, an index of quotes from Alÿs' previous writings and interviews compiled by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, and descriptions of works written by Alÿs and Cuauhtémoc Medina, freelance curator and art critic, as well as responses to the artist's work from a wide range of critics and commentators.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Arthur C. Danto, Chrissie Iles, Nancy Spector, Jovana Stokic.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Since the beginning of her career, in Belgrade in the late 1960s, Marina Abramovic has been a pioneer of performance art, creating some of the most important works in the field. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present accompanies an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art that documents approximately 50 of the artist's ephemeral time- and media-based works from throughout her career. The book also discusses a unique element of the Museum's retrospective, live performance: a new work created for the occasion, and performed by Abramovic herself; and re-creations of the artist's works by other performers—the first such to be undertaken in a museum setting. The book spans over four decades of Abramovic's early interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, solo performances and collaborative performances made with the Dutch artist Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen). Essays by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator of Media and performance art at MoMA, and four distinguished scholars examine Abramovic's ideas of time, duration and the reperformance of performance art as a way to extend it into posterity. The Artist Is Present also includes a CD with audio commentary by the artist that guides the reader through the publication. The artist is present not only in the exhibition but also in the experience of the book.Born in Belgrade just after the end of the Second World War, Marina Abramovic was raised in the Serbian Orthodox Church (her great uncle was a Patriarch and a canonized saint in the Church) and left Yugoslavia in 1976, having already established herself as a performance artist, living in Amsterdam and eventually New York, where she presently lives.

Political, Minimal

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Jenny Schlenzka, Michael Archer.
Published by Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg

Political, Minimal surveys works of art from the past 40 years that use a strongly reduced, geometrical formal vocabulary, but which nonethless manage to retain slim narrative clues, through a repertoire of shapes such as circles, pyramids, balls and cubes. From these most minimal of cues, these versatile artists are able to address subjects that range from ecological observations to body politics, from social and economical matters to ethical questions. Locating an imaginative mid-ground between the "purified" rhetoric of Minimalism and more politicized forms of art, among the artists contributing to this fascinating conceit are Adel Abdessemed, Monica Bonvicini, Tom Burr, Annabel Daou, Edith Dekyndt, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hans Haacke, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Alfredo Jaar, Derek Jarman, Terence Koh, Klara Liden, Kris Martin, Helen Mirra, Seth Price, Gregor Schneider, Santiago Sierra, Taryn Simon, Rosemarie Trockel and Aaron Young.

Jonathan Horowitz: And/Or

Edited by Lionel Bovier, Kelly Taylor. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Alison Gingeras, Elizabeth Peyton.
Published by JRP|Ringier

Orienting himself firmly in the media-present, New York artist Jonathan Horowitz replays the recent past in the incarnations of our times. This reprisal occurs particularly in video works such as "Maxell," in which the name of the now obsolete videotape company is worn down to a VHS blur, and "The Soul of Tammi Terrell," in which 1960s footage of the eponymous pop star singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is juxtaposed with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon's rendition of the song in the 1998 film Stepmom. Horowitz himself makes no overt political critique, but always ensures that the work's underlying edge is laid plainly before the viewer. Queer and ecological themes also abound, as does sly humor and a Warholian detachment. This is the first thorough survey of Horowitz's work.

Into Me / Out of Me

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Georges Bataille, Susan Sontag.
Published by Hatje Cantz

Editor and P.S. 1/MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach credits the late Susan Sontag with sparking the idea for this survey of Body and Action art in the course of their conversations about artistic approaches that describe and question the human condition. Into Me / Out of Me gathers work focused on the imagined, descriptive and performative acts of passing into, through and out of the human body--explorations and visualizations of the wet and the dry, the inner and the outer--and the physical exchange of the body with the material world. Spanning over 40 years and featuring an international group of more than 130 artists, it addresses the primordial relationship between the internal and the external in three chapters: "Metabolism" (eating, drinking, excreting); "Reproduction" (intercourse, conception, birth); and "Violence" (shooting, impaling, perforation). Featured works range from Hannah Wilke's unflinching self-portraits in illness to Matthew Barney's performance-based installations to Kara Walker's antebellum figures. Artists include Chris Burden, Valerie Export, Bruce Nauman, Carolee Schneemann, Kiki Smith, Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Patty Chang, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Douglas Gordon, Mona Hatoum, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ana Mendieta, Paul McCarthy, John Miller, Frank Moore, Carolee Schneemann, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Marina Abramovic, among many others.

Doug Aitken: Sleepwalkers

Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry and Anne Pasternak. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Peter Eleey, Doug Aitken.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

In January and February of 2007, the Los Angeles-based video artist Doug Aitken projected a new work, commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art and the New York arts institution Creative Time, onto seven facades on and around MoMA's fabled West Fifty-third Street building. Sleepwalkers was both inspired by, and offered in opposition to, the densely built midtown environment; it integrated itself onto the surfaces on which it was projected, and it challenged viewers' perceptions of architecture and public space. The piece, which follows the trajectories of five characters as they make their way through nocturnal New York, explores Aitken's key recurring themes: broken and recombined narratives, the rhythm and flow of information and images, and the relationship of individuals to their environment. The viewer, as a pedestrian, a participant and a vital component of New York's energetic system, becomes part of the work, and of the interactive personal landscape that Aitken creates in and among the hard-edged concrete and glass language of Manhattan's architecture. In addition to documentation of Sleepwalkers, this publication contains an overview of the artist's work to date, with special emphasis on works since 2001. It also contains conversations between Aitken and a variety of artists, architects, writers and performers about different elements of city life, from the lit signage of Times Square to a taxi driver's eye view of the streets.

Douglas Gordon: Timeline

Essay by Klaus Biesenbach.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Throughout his career, Douglas Gordon has engaged in an ongoing reflection on the motion picture, examining the relationship between the movies and our common knowledge and perception of them. In altering, monumentalizing, and alienating our collective understanding of film, he visualizes, pictures, and "sculpts" time. Douglas Gordon, which was organized by MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach, collects images and texts from the past 40 years (a nod to Gordon's birth date of 1966), all of which deal with ideas of visual memory, shared visual knowledge, and the interwoven texture of imagined and remembered sounds and images. It explores the relationship between film and psychoanalysis, and the way in which these systems of thought have affected the idea of individual biography: Gordon is acutely attuned to the relation of such deep experiences as love, longing, loss, and trauma to what one feels while watching film. He understands how films refer to other films, how they superimpose themselves upon each other and upon their viewers' memories, and how, through their ubiquity and accessibility, films express and represent the ideals and fears of their times. Essay by Klaus Biesenbach.

Greater New York 2005

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach.
Published by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

Greater New York 2005, jointly organized by P.S.1 and The Museum of Modern Art, New York went on view March 13, 2005, showcasing 150 artists who have emerged since 2000. Their work explores this specific time period, during which New York City has changed dramatically; shows vitality, energy, and exciting promise; and anticipates new artistic directions. The exhibition includes artists from New York's five boroughs, as well as nearby towns in New Jersey, and builds from the spirit of its first incarnation, Greater New York, which opened at P.S.1 in 2000, shortly after the two institutions became affiliated. This accompanying catalogue documents trends, process, and media explored by the artists in the exhibition. Each artist featured in the exhibition receives a two-page spread that includes images, text, and biographical information. Among the 160 participating artists included are Dana Schutz, Taylor McKinens, Jules de Balincourt, Jen DeNike, Steve Mumford, Peter Rostovsky, Saya Woolfalk, Wangechi Mutu, Wade Guyton, Atlas Group/Walid Raad, Christian Jankowski and many more.

Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures

Essays by Callie Angel, Mary Lea Bandy, Klaus Biesenbach, Laurence Kardish and Wayne Koestenbaum. Forewords by Glenn D. Lowry and Tom Sokolowski.
Published by KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Prolific, mercurial, thought-provoking, charming, engaging, dynamic, confusing--just like the artist himself, Andy Warhol's films explore the gamut of human emotion. From the time he obtained his first film camera in 1963, up until his death in 1987, Warhol explored and created moving images ranging from epic films, to personal portraits, to programs for cable television, to music videos. In fact, in a mere five years (1963-1968) he produced nearly 650 films including hundreds of silent screen tests--portrait films--and dozens of full-length movies, in styles ranging from minimalist avant-garde to commercial “sexploitation.” His films and videos capture the rich and raw texture of the fertile cultural milieu in which he lived and worked, and are crucial to the understanding of Warhol's work in other media. Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures focuses on the artist's screen tests and non-narrative films from 1963-73. Within it we see sequences of his “most beautiful women”--screen tests featuring “Baby” Jane Holzer, Ivy Nicholson, Edie Sedgwick--and other works that showcase a parade of friends, actors, and models--Dennis Hopper, Gerard Malanga and Walter Burn to name just a few. This collection of tests is followed by the artist's non-narrative films including Eat, Sleep, Kiss and Blow Job. All of the artist's film works are enhanced by texts from Mary Lea Bandy, Klaus Biesenbach and others. The worlds of art, photography, film, criticism, lifestyle and fashion unite in Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures, as 200 fascinating, full-bleed, remarkably clear, black and white stills provide access into territories both familiar and unexplored.

Katharina Sieverding: Close-Ups

Essays by Norman Bryson, Klaus Biesenbach, Sabeth Buchmann, Katja Diefenbach, Alanna Heiss, Brian O'Doherty, Daniel Marzona, Abigail Solomon-Godeau and Amy Smith Stewart.
Published by KW Institute for Contemporary Art

This full-color catalogue presents a broad overview of Katharina Sieverding's technically processed and manipulated photographic close-ups. They are reproduced here as full-bleeds--faces close to the lens, eyes staring directly into the camera with proposed implication. Sierverding creates what has been described as a “phantasmagoric series of characters... relentless, confrontational and frightening but also seductive and vulnerable.” Accompanying these 300 images is Joseph Beuys' overview of Sieverding's early work, up to her current works that focus on self-portraits.

Lara Schnitger: Fragile Kingdom

Essays by Klaus Biesenbach and Matthew Monahan.
Published by Artimo

Mundane materials such as nylon pantyhose, ties, cloth, foam, rubber, and plastic are indefinitely mutated and transformed in Lara Schnitger's large-scale, site-specific installations. The Dutch-born artist often uses friable, manmade materials that evolve as they disintegrate to emphasize the entropic nature of her work. Her flighty, spatial constructions often consist of fabric stretched and secured by poles and braces. Some are reminiscent of the human figure, while others, once they reach a certain height, begin to resemble architectural models of skyscrapers or totem poles. Other pieces cleave to floors and ceilings like alien creatures, some seem to float, and some are actually airborne. Fragile Kindgom presents over 100 images that showcase the varying qualities found in Schnitger's work.

Henry Darger: Disasters Of War

Essay by Klaus Biesenbach. Interview by Kiyoko Lerner.
Published by KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Henry Darger spent his life working as a janitor in Catholic hospitals, living alone in a rented room on Chicago's north side, attending Mass up to five times a day, and writing a picaresque tale in 15 massive volumes, composed of 145 handwritten pages and 5,084 single-spaced typed pages, and titled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. To accompany this enormous literary production, Darger also created several hundred large-scale illustrations--pencil on paper drawings painted over with watercolor and occasional additions of collage--that relate the story: on an unnamed planet, of which Earth is a moon, the good Christian nation of Anniennia wars with the Glandelinians, who practice child enslavement. The heroines are the seven Vivian sisters, Abbiennian princesses, who, after many battles, fires, tempests, and lurid torture, succeed in forcing the Glandelinians to give up their barbarous ways. The Disasters of War offers an affordable introduction to Darger's astonishing outsider oeuvre. It explains the technique, diligence and creativity of the works, illustrates details, and features a conversation between the Darger estate holder and the Kunstwerke's curator. A selection of 12 previously unpublished excerpts from The Realms of the Unreal and from Darger's diary explore the artist's favorite topics: thunderstorms and atrocities. With a biography and exhibition history.

Animations

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach. Essays by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Norman Klein, Anthony Huberman, Giannalberto Bendazzi, John Canemaker, Larissa Harris and, Karyn Riegel. Foreword by Alanna Heiss.
Published by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

The works in Animations endow unlikely objects with unexpected and uncanny life. During its century-plus history, animation has continually absorbed, hybridized, mutated and melded disciplines and techniques, undergoing both commercial exploitation and artistic exploration. The latter is documented here, focusing on the cross-continental exchange of artists from around the world who are dialoguing in the collective languages of animation. 28 artists are featured here, including Haluk Akakce, Francis Alÿs, William Kentridge, Kristen Lucas, Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick and Liliana Porter, demonstrating the unique ways in which contemporary visual practitioners address animation as a medium and subject.

Mexico City

An Exhibition About the Exchange Rates of Bodies and Values

Edited by Klaus Biesenbach, Alanna Heiss, Anthony Huberman. Contributions by Pedro Reyes, Jonathan Hernndez. Text by Patricia Martin, Guillermo Santamarina, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Gabriel Kuri, Glenn Lowry.
Published by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

Living in a cramped space where Beverly Hills and Calcutta meet every day, the artists gathered here explore the tension between wealth and poverty, among progress, stagnation, and improvisation, and between the violence and civility that animates the vibrant center that is Mexico City. Compounding the complexity of urban living, high rates of kidnapping, murder and pollution become a daily threat. For the rich, the body becomes an object to be cared for, protected, even exchanged for ransom, while, for an underclass of day laborers, homeless people, and prostitutes, survival depends on participation in physically exploitative situations that place an exact commercial value on the body. Alluding to recent art historical movements such as body art, process art, and arte povera, these artists use everyday objects and situations to form a complex dialogue about Mexico City and its relationship with the first world, focusing on the influence of the global economy on aesthetic values and daily life. Daniela Rossell's series of photographs, Ricas y Famosas, captures the endangered species of the rich and famous in their ornate and overprotective environments, and Francis Als documents people pushing and pulling their wares to and from the marketplace, leveraging their body weight against the commercial value they are physically dragging along.

Video Acts

Single Channel Works from the Collections of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and the New Art Trust

Artwork by Dara Birnbaum, Peter Campus, Valie Export, Steve McQueen, Pippiloti Rist, Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Vito Acconci, Darren Almond, Dan Graham, Gary Hill, Joan Jonas, Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, Nam June Paik, Jim Shaw, Bill Viola, William WPhotographs by Martha Rosler. Edited by Klaus Biesenbach, Alanna Heiss, Anthony Huberman. Text by Christopher Eamon, Barbara London, Glenn Lowry.
Published by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

Today, video is a familiar tool at the artist's disposal. But to those who experimented with the technology in the 1960s and 70s--when affordable equipment became commercially available--the capabilities inherent in the medium were unknown. Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman, among other American pioneers, used videotape to document and extend their performance work. Acconci, for one, produced conceptual, performance-based video work in the 70s that consisted of ruthless interrogations of the artist and viewer, as though defining the video medium were a matter of universal urgency. Video Acts provides a historical overview of video art created for display on a single monitor, with more than 100 pieces, dating from the mid-60s through 2000, including numerous landmarks in the development of this young medium by Marina Abramovic, Gilbert & George, Acconci, Jonas and Nauman, as well as more recent work by Tony Oursler, Darren Almond, Pipilotti Rist and others redefining the genre.