Fugue

The Trial is an extensive publication chronicling the decade-plus-long evolution of one of Rossella Biscotti's seminal works, focusing on the trials of members of the revolutionary left-wing movement Autonomia Operaia in the early 1980s, an emblematic judicial drama of Italy's Years of Lead.

The core of the book is the English transcription of a six-hour audio piece, originally composed from hundreds of hours of the trial's archival recordings broadcast by Radio Radicale. Edited like a theatrical script, The Trial becomes a polyphonic narrative that foregrounds the political voices of defendants in opposition to the structure and language of the legal machine: prosecutors, judges, lawyers. The transcript is accompanied by critical texts by Michael Hardt, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, and Giovanna Zapperi, as well as a conversation between the artist and philosopher Antonio Negri, one of the trial's key defendants. It investigates how political memory is carried, translated, and embodied across time.

Featuring visual documentation and multilingual excerpts from performances staged across various institutions and countries, this publication traces the work's ongoing reactivation through translation, collaboration, and context-specific interventions.

A photographic archive of the transgender community in Bologna in the 1980s. With critical texts by scholars and queer theorists.

This book is inspired by the pictures that Giordano Bonora, a young streetcar operator and aspiring photographer, took of Bologna's small transgender community in 1980 (although it would be more correct to speak, in this case, of proto-Transgenderism). Reproduced here for the first time, these raw and gilded images reflect—during a period in Italy characterized by subversive movements and political revolts that were not just rooted in questions of identity—attempts made by T* people at a construction of the self outside the binary logic of the genotypically XY male/genotypically XX female. By people like Valérie—a woman's face, a hairless chest with no breasts, a fleur-de-lis tattooed on the shoulder, and two pairs of pantyhose—for whom “gender” is not determined biologically but something to be embraced depending on the circumstances. A box containing a jigsaw puzzle with a picture that is constantly changing. Bundled with the photographs, a handful of texts set out to explain how the question of gender involves two cultural levels of sexual difference, the normative and the dissident, and how the decision-making power over organs outside heteropatriarchal systems of sexuality and processes of disidentification are the stakes in the new “somato-political” struggle against hegemonic regimes of oppression conducted by enchanting, allied, opaque, and vulnerable bodies.

Texts by Paolo Barbaro, Paul B. Preciado, Helena Velena, Salvatore Vitale, Wendy Vogel.

First monograph dedicated to the American artist, poet, and activist John Giorno, this publication introduces some of the many ways Giorno wove poetry into all aspects of daily life—by putting words on the wall, on the performance stage, on LP vinyl records, or on the telephone, in the context of the iconic Dial-A-Poem, one of his most celebrated works. A wide range of archival documents, images, and ephemera also form an intimate portrait of Giorno as an activist, performer, Buddhist practitioner, collaborator, and friend.

Published on the occasion of the eponymous retrospective exhibition at the MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, in 2026.

Emerging from the New York downtown scene of the 1960s, John Giorno (1936–2019) developed a singular artistic voice at the crossroads of poetry, performance, painting, and political activism over the course of more than six decades. By bringing the written word off the page and into performance, technology, and visual art, Giorno consistently challenged disciplinary boundaries and advanced a radical vision of language as central to human expression. Though often positioned at the margins of multiple downtown scenes—the Beats, Andy Warhol's Factory, punk music, queer counterculture, anti-war activism—he was in fact an influential presence within all of them, operating as a conduit between coexisting cultural communities. His collaborators included Robert Rauschenberg, William S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsberg, and Ugo Rondinone, among many others.

Ding Dong Bell is an invitation to cross the threshold into a world that belongs not only to the imagination, but also to the concrete possibility of a different way of inhabiting reality. In this space, details weave together landscapes and reveal characters, hinting at unexpected encounters in a continuous search for shapes and textures, in a chromatic immersion and a sequence of perspectives on a syncretic and archaic world, on an alchemical pictorial practice, where the complex figurative iconography of living beings and cosmic constellations is progressively enriched with tonal stratifications and semantic density.

The collection of paintings outlines universes in which plants, animals, human beings, and subtle presences coexist outside any pre-established hierarchy. The forms cross each other lymphatically and transform without ever being fully accomplished, metamorphically generating a visual ecosystem based on the continuous exchange of substances and the visceral mixture of matter. In this fluid chorus, everything is constantly redefined in the process of becoming, yet without losing its identity. What emerges is a symbolic horizon that becomes a universal hope: an invitation to living beings, witnesses of contemporaneity, to cultivate mutual respect and nurture a providential alliance, where the different planes of existence vibrate in resonance.

The titles of the works, inspired by traditional English nursery rhymes, and the accompanying texts take the form of ancient and surreal chants, capable of evoking both the childhood of the world and its possible future. Their language, closer to illuminated manuscripts than to linear narration, constructs a vivid imaginary world in which whirlwinds and impulses evoke the idea of original totality: at the end of this long succession of worlds, everything seems to tend towards a single, shared substance of being.

Barbara Cammarata (born in 1977) lives and works in Catania (Sicily).

Andrew Berardini on Artificial Intelligence; Pepón Osorio; Arash Nassiri; Gloria E. Anzaldúa; Marcela Guerrero speaks with C. Ondine Chavoya; Daisy Lafarge; Dani Blanga Gubbay; Davide Stucchi speaks with Alex Bennett; Luca Lo Pinto on Hanuman Editions; Reynaldo Rivera & Abdellah Taïa; Jungle Books...

This issue comes with different covers, randomly distributed.

The third Publiek Park publication – Walking Guide – combines essays, archival fragments, and artistic voices to trace both the exhibition route at Plantentuin Meise and the historical path that led from the creation of the Jardin Botanique in the heart of Brussels to its relocation outside the city. Following the logic of a quilt, layering different perspectives, textures, and timelines, the book connects artistic narratives with history and reflections on urban gardens, public space, and botanical imaginaries. Just like the exhibition, the publication offers not merely a portrait of a place, but a reflection on the multiplicity that defines it.

Alongside documentation of the exhibition and contributions from the participating artists, this year’s Walking Guide features writings by Nikolaos Akritidis, Denis Diagre-Vanderpelen, Koen Es, Lana Jones, François Makanga, Noam Youngrak Son, and Jean Watt. The two parks are portrayed in photographs by Michiel de Cleene, with book design by Victor Verhelst and Corbin Mahieu bringing all of these elements together.

This publication is made with the generous support of Plantentuin Meise and all partners.

This eighth instalment of BFTK is on letters and letters. It takes the double meaning of this word as its point of dispatch, inviting recipients to think through and respond to — directly and indirectly — ideas around correspondence, addressing and alphabets. What it means to be in correspondence with somebody, the initiation and continuation of this communicative exchange and what happens when it is severed or lost. How to write directly towards a you, to you; to a particular reader, object, locale. The volume is littered with letters. There are letters about letters, letters to letters, letters that crease, fold, tear and rip, letters that are sent and lost, found and read. There are letters that pile up, their combinations arranged and rearranged to form comprehensive linguistic logics, and there are letters that are simply letters. Contributions sit in eight-page signatures, of which there are twenty-six in total. Of the eight hundred bound copies, twenty-six are left unbound, returned to discrete correspondence, loose abécédaire units for exchange — letters to be leafed through and addressed once more.

PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR
SHADOW IN THAT MIRROR
Chang Yuchen
(pp.1–8, A)

BESTIARY FOR A NON-GENETIC DESCENDANT
Bhanu Kapil
(pp.9–16, B)

THROW STUFF AWAY
Hannah Regel
(pp.17–24, C)

THE MOON HATH XXX DAYS:
LETTERS FOR LETTERS
Helen Marten
(pp.25–32, D)

WHAT DOES THE LOSS FEEL LIKE?
Meg Miller
(pp.33–48, E, F)

LIGHT UP THE A
Kate Briggs
(pp.49–56, G)

THE POSTCODE CONNECTION
Rebecca Ross
(pp.57–72, H, I)

(LETTER) TO S… LABYRINTH-CORTEX
Michèle Métail, trans. Thea Petrou
(pp.73–80, J)

RACKETY CORRESPONDENCES /
A CORRESPONDING RACKET
Nisha Ramayya
(pp.81–96, K, L)

THE COIN OF THE REALM
Lucie Elven
(pp.97–104, M)

UNFOLDING FOLDED FANTASIES:
A CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE SEATED SCRIBE
Fatema Abdoolcarim
(pp.105–112, N)

DEAR DEAREST DEAR MOTHER
Alice Butler
(pp.113–120, O)

/ DON’T BOTHER THE CREASE
Tice Cin
(pp.121–128, P)

FEELING LETTERS, SEEING BLUE
Gemma Blackshaw
(pp.129–144, Q, R)

LINES OF GRACE AND DISGRACE
Francis Haselden
(pp.145–152, S)

AN ABC OF MIMICRY
Jeffrey Stuker & Jan Tumlir
(pp.153–176, T, U, V)

ADDRESS
Céline Mathieu
(pp.177–184, W)

MY VOICE FOLDS YOU
Thea Petrou
(pp.185–192, X)

A LONG DISTANCE LULLABY
Vibeke Mascini
(pp.193–200, Y)

DEBT OF GOLD CAN BE PAID OFF,
DEBT OF KINDNESS IS CARRIED OVER DEATH
Chang Yuchen
(pp.201–208, Z)

LETTERS ON LETTERS
FROM LETTERS ON LETTERS
Matthew Stuart
(covers)

Assembled and copied by Jan Matthé at Permeke Library Antwerp, September—October 2022. Edited at Kransen, printed in Borgerhout in an edition of 200, bound by De Wrikker in Berchem. Released on the occasion of Permeke draait door met Risiko Press, Sunday 27 November 2022 at Permeke Library, with readings and performances by Tina Schott, Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir, Stefanie Alexandra, Sis Matthé, Ria Pacquée, Jan Matthé, Clodagh Kinsella and Roman Hiele. Thanks to Christel Kumpen for the invitation, Allon McKaye for the Saturday and Toni Matthé for the unicorn with a heartshaped tail.

“RUSTIQUE” is an artist book created by Nicola Godman. This book is sprung out of a residency in September 2021 at Hôtel Chevillon, a former Scandinavian artist colony in Grez-sur-Loing, France. Barbizon, the village where the painter Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) lived and died, is located 20 km away from there. The book interweaves the life and work of Millet with Godman’s photographs, drawings and personal anecdotes.

“RUSTIQUE” wishes to put forward the artistic gaze towards rural life by artists who themselves are born peasants. Nicola Godman (b. 1989, Rute) is an artist working with photography, video, books and stories, currently based in Stockholm, Sweden. Having grown up on an organic dairy farm, she is researching depictions of rural life in art history and contemporary culture.

Sasha Phyars-Burgess’ first monograph, Untitled. Spanning three bodies of work, this 200-plus page monograph includes poems by Ser Alida and Aurora Masum-Javed, a conversation between Sasha Phyars-Burgess, Juliana Huxtable and Carolyn Lazard, and essay by Bill Gaskins. Designed by Studio Lin.

As recipient of the second annual Capricious Photo Award, Sasha is a vital, emerging voice in contemporary photography, engaging the charged line between documentary and fine art. Her work ranges from affecting studies on diaspora, family and place to revolving social phenomenons in which energy, beauty and power meet.

The second annual jury panel was helmed by Capricious Founder and Publisher Sophie Mörner and Associate Publisher Anika Sabin alongside Lauren Cornell, Katherine Hubbard, JOFF, Matt Keegan, Guadalupe Rosales, Ka-Man Tse, and Lyndsy Welgos.

Ernesto de Sousa (1921–1988) was a major and multifaceted figure from the Portuguese avant-garde—artist, poet, critic, essayist, curator, editor, filmmaker, and a promoter of experimental ideas and artistic expressions. 
Reflecting questions of hierarchy, authorship, and the complexity of framing or dividing within the multiple and complementary practices of Ernesto de Sousa—whose motto “Your Body is My Body, My Body is Your Body” serves as a poetic manifesto—this publication explores the various aspects of his oeuvre (visual, poetical, and theoretical) and his outstanding inventiveness of concepts.

The volume brings together a selection of works, unpublished archives and their translations, and theoretical texts by Ernesto de Sousa, including the first complete translation in English of «Orality, the future of art?» (1968). Richly illustrated, the book reunites an introductory text by Lilou Vidal, two new essays by Paula Parente Pinto and by José Miranda Justo along with a text by Hugo Canoilas.

"There was a time when bread was sacred; and in a general sense, all fabricated objects deserved the respect that resulted from (for the conscience of those who used them) concretely diving into their own motivations. Human gestures, like aesthetic objects, were inseparable from their relevant functions. Naturalism prompted us to look at natural and fabricated objects with a vision that was cosmic and indifferent at the same time. The objects, today, object. In the future, objects and gestures will perhaps clothe themselves once again in their lost dignity. The word love, a bit of bread, the letter A will stop being mortal accidents of daily life. Desacralized, they will once again be as decisive as the tiniest brushstroke the painter made on his canvas. And each of these brushstrokes will reveal the structure of the world. Life can then be compared to a vast work of art. Everything will be absolutely aesthetic.."
— Ernesto de Sousa

Contributors: Hugo Canoilas, Ernesto de Sousa, Tobi Maier, José Miranda Justo, Paula Parente Pinto, Lilou Vidal

faits divers are the various reports in a news bulletin, miscellaneous human interest stories, theorised by Roland Barthes as ‘total’ and ‘immanent’ information.

ferrara deux (faits divers) scrolls around the discovered corpse of a talented street musician named Landau, mangled and sealed into vacuum bags in the walk-in of a modern Italian-American restaurant. Street performance is content for an attention economy, playing on authenticities and profiting from recognition.

In this debut novel, artist Ivan Cheng reconfigures recent performance texts into an approximation of a murder mystery.