Saint is its/Conviction

This book follows my journey of launching, growing, and ultimately failing in the adult entertainment industry. It explores society’s complex relationship with porn and sex education, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and the struggles of working in a deeply stigmatized space. Sometimes funny, often dramatic, and always surprising, it offers an unfiltered look at the business side of porn and what it really takes to challenge the status quo.

Dans l’imaginaire collectif, l’œuf évoque la fragilité et la promesse de vie, tandis que la pierre renvoie à la permanence et à la disparition. Cette édition tente de déplacer cette opposition à travers une forme fragmentaire. Il rassemble des notes écrites au fil du temps. Sa production suit cette logique : imprimé en offset, le projet prend en compte les formats de papier afin d’en optimiser l’usage. Les chutes sont utilisées dans un cahier complémentaire, rassemblant textes et images laissés en marge. La reliure, cousue à la main au fil de coton, reste simple et légère. L’objet se conçoit comme quelque chose à manipuler et découvrir, entre publication et transmission plus intime. 

« J’ai donc cherché une forme simple, en évitant tout formalisme superflu. Le projet repose sur une question : est-il nécessaire de produire ce type d’objet, et pourquoi ? » 

In the collective imagination, the egg suggests fragility and the promise of life, while stone evokes permanence and disappearance. This edition seeks to move beyond this opposition through a fragmentary form. It gathers notes written over time. Its production follows the same logic: printed in offset, the project takes paper formats into account in order to optimize their use. Offcuts are used in a supplementary section, gathering texts and images left aside. The binding is hand-sewn with cotton thread, remaining simple and lightweight. The object is conceived as something to handle and discover, between publication and a more intimate form of transmission. 

“So I sought a simple form, avoiding unnecessary formalism. The project rests on a question: is it necessary to produce this type of object, and why?”

Ce jeu memory invite à découvrir la symbolique de l’ours à travers l’Histoire, et plus précisément à travers l’histoire de l’ours en peluche. L’animal n’a pas toujours eu bonne réputation chez les humains. Comment un jouet à son effigie a-t-il pu devenir un emblème de l’enfance ? Le jeu se compose de 54 cartes numérotées (27 paires) et d’un poster explicatif imprimés en risographie. 

This game of memory is an invitation to discover the symbolism of the bear through history, more specifically, through the history of the teddy bear. The animal didn’t always have such a good reputation among humans. How could a toy in his likeness become an emblem of childhood ? The game is made of 54 numbered cards (27 pairs), and an explanatory poster printed in risography.

Ladies wear the blue is a collection of watercolour drawings by the hand of Melissa Mabesoone and Oshin Albrecht. The blue watercolours portray women from different moments in time. The adjacent texts describe these women's existence, roles, desires or ideosyncrasies deriving from the 'blue' in their lives. From the first female police officers and Alices all around, to Courtney Love's blue baby dolls and the girl with the blue tattoo Olive Oatman, this publication is an ode to women venturing into the world, and a way to continue telling their herstories.

‘Kamer I - Oesters’ is een kort verhaal geschreven in het kader van het kunstproject Beste Anna,. Hierin fungeert de figuur van de openlijk lesbische Rotterdamse schrijfster Anna Blaman als motor voor vragen, gesprekken en correspondenties rondom feminisme, schrijvende vrouwen en de canon, anders zijn, eenzaamheid en vriendschap.

Ook verkent Katinka met dit onderzoek Anna Blaman als personage voor een toekomstige roman. In ‘Kamer I - Oesters’ betreedt de hoofdpersoon Anna’s met een rolkoffer vol boeken van andere schrijvers, fluistert ze hun woorden in de kieren in Anna’s muren en verleidt ze Anna met een pauwendans.

Anna Blaman (1905-1960) was openlijk lesbisch, in die tijd een groot taboe, maar zag zichzelf niet als voorvechter van een beweging. Een belangrijk thema in haar werk is de vraag of we een ander werkelijk kunnen kennen. De personages in haar romans zijn vaak alleen en verlangen naar een ander, die altijd onbereikbaar blijft. In 1948 publiceerde Blaman de roman Eenzaam Avontuur, die erg veel stof op deed waaien vanwege enkele (homo-)erotische personages die in het boek voorkomen. 

This stunning collection of poems by the Algerian poet Jean Sénac (1926–1973) was originally published when he was forty-one. Sénac represented the hope of the new generation of Algerians who were celebrating their independence from France after 130 years of colonialism, and in the tradition of René Char and the early Albert Camus, he portrayed an Algeria whose land and people would finally sing with their own voice. 

Sénac celebrates revolution, love, and the body, beginning with the resonant verses: “And now we’ll sing love / for there’s no Revolution without love.” He sang, as well, of beauty: “No morning without smiling. / Beauty on our lips is one continuous fruit.”

Translated by Jack Hirschman

The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a beloved queer utopian text written by Larry Mitchell with lush illustrations by Ned Asta, published by Calamus Press in 1977. Part-fable, part-manifesto, the book takes place in Ramrod, an empire in decline, and introduces us to the communities of the faggots, the women, the queens, the queer men, and the women who love women who are surviving the ways and world of men.

This new edition will feature essays from performance artist Morgan Bassichis, who adapted the book to music with TM Davy in 2017 for a performance at the New Museum, and activist filmmaker Tourmaline.

Textdemic | A Retrospective on Jenny Holzer’s Laments” Ed. by A.L. Steiner and GenderFail, a publication based on A.L. Steiner + Friends on Jenny Holzer at Dia Chelsea. This book is based on the Artists on Artists Lecture Series when the Dia Art Foundation invited Steiner to curate a public program based on a work of the artist's choice.

Steiner chose Jenny Holzer’s Laments and invited Morgan Bassichis, Riel Bellow, Gregg Bordowitz, Alexander Chee, Malik Gaines, Guadalupe Maravilla + Alexa Mishell Guillen, Lucas Michael, Eileen Myles and Pamela Sneed to present in Dia’s first in-person program after the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2021. This publication features records of the poems, lectures, and performances during this memorial program. The book's design plays homage to the 1990 Laments publication by the Dia Art Foundation.

For this publication, Steiner and GenderFail invited Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, Associate Curator at Dia Art Foundation and the organizer of the Artists on Artists Lecture Series, to write an afterword for the book. In this, she states: "Dispensing altogether with the monographic formula that characterizes the institution, for her Lecture A.L. Steiner convened a group of artists, writers, and activists to join her in responding to Jenny Holzer’s 1989 text-based installation, Laments. Holzer identified the thirteen texts that comprise Laments as 'voices of the dead,' a visual choir in response to the raging HIV/AIDS epidemic and government inaction. Over the protracted COVID-19 lockdown, Steiner developed the idea to organize an evening for the voices of the living to lament today's crises.”