Square of Will in Square of Love

This book traces the legacy of Zona, Eastern Europe performance art festival that took place in Timișoara, Romania, between 1993 and 2002, years which were marked by a transition from communism to a new society built on different principles.

Bringing together artists from the former "Eastern Bloc," Zona became a space of encounters, a platform for theoretical discussions and postmodern art experiments, which displayed a remarkable diversity of artistic languages. The fall of the Berlin Wall, as Nicolas Bourriaud noted in his book "The Radicant", was the first decisive step towards globalization and the generalization of postmodern thought.

In the early 1990s, adopting subversive strategies helped artists overcome critical moments in totalitarian societies, which had been consolidated for decades in Eastern Europe. They combined techniques of expression such as pastiche, quotes, historical images, popular culture, or subcultures with personal mythologies. What resulted was often a critical mixture with an explosive effect. Body art became an appropriate language for critically analyzing stereotypes about the nation, religion, gender, or social prejudices and taboos. Body art facilitated the transfer of ideas and a dialogue with the audience, or it helped launch questions about identity politics. The concerns and intentions of the festival's protagonists were built around political, social, and artistic topics that were debated between the East and the West.

Essays by Ileana Pintilie, László Beke, Vladimir Bulat, Robert Fleck, Alexandra Titu, Berislav Valušek; artists' texts by Alexandru Antik, Matei Bejenaru, Ștefan Bertalan, Geta Brătescu, Oskar Dawicki, Ion Grigorescu, H.arta Group, Karen Kipphoff, Liliana Mericioiu, Dan Perjovschi, Lia Perjovschi, Sorin Vreme.

A collection of writings by Alina Popa and Florin Flueras written over a seven-year period.

Unsorcery composes and explores ways of sorcery that can eventually surpass or undo some of the contemporary realities and subjectivities. It is an Artworld involved in a productive alienation from concepts through experience and from experience through thought. Unsorcery is an environment in which Alina Popa and Florin Flueras were working together, each following their own path, doing their own practices, texts and performances around the concepts: Life Programming, Artworlds, Black Hyperbox, Second Body, Dead Thinking, End Dream.

New expanded edition of the book first published in 2019.

Alina Popa (1982-2019) was a Romanian artist who moved between choreography, theory, and contemporary art.

Florin Flueras (born 1978 in Târgu Mureș, Romania) oscillates between contemporary performance, visual arts and theory as contexts in which he activates.

With texts by Phillip Van den Bossche, Filarowska and a conversation between Eva Wittocx and the artist (NL/EN)

Nº 48 / October 2022

sawing a plank is like going for a walk by Kato Six (b. 1986) is published on the occasion of Kato’s solo exhibition at M Leuven this autumn. This book encapsulates 10 years of her quest as an artist.

The work of Kato Six (b. 1986) balances between abstract and figurative art. She works on different themes which she develops into series or ensembles. Architecture, design, domesticity and utensils all act as important references. Starting there, she uses recognisable and everyday materials such as MDF, stone, plastic or textiles.
Kato wants to question certain affinities and let the viewer look at familiar objects or images from a different perspective. As a viewer, you feel connected to the object or image but the actual meaning or function no longer applies.

Some of my works refer to the domestic, especially the most recent ones, such as ‘Carpet Beater Carpet’ and ‘Striped Knitwear’. The invisible work done by “housewives”, but also by workers or maintenance staff, is certainly one of the themes addressed in ‘Carpet Beater Carpet’. The above works are textile works, created with so-called “soft skills”. In the arts, these “soft skills” are often attributed to female artists — women often being assigned a certain medium.
Kato Six in conversation with Eva Wittocx in “sawing a plank is like going for a walk”

Canonically Speaking is the second title to appear on the First Drafts imprint, a zigzag in Kunstverein Publishing’s output that’s dedicated to publishing completed manuscripts that would otherwise, for an array of reasons, not see the light of day in this rough early form.

Central to Canonically Speaking is the idea that (female) life is an inherently surrealist experience. In this spirit, the ‘absurd’ is embraced as a means to speak out on themes such as self-image, spirituality, mental health and work. While slipping between poetry, comprehensive list-making, knock knock jokes and intertextual references, forms of recital and misinterpretation often take place, whereby characters quote and repeat sentences and words from a large variety of sources, jumping from the health benefits of whale blubber to court transcripts of Bill Clinton's impeachment to the plasma that is released when microwaving two grapes side by side.

“Sketchbook 1-10” with Antoinette d’Ansembourg bundles a complete collection of pocket sketches created between 2020 and 2023, stretched across ten different notebooks. These sketches, despite their two-dimensionality, form the mainstay of her sculptural output, offering a glimpse into the intimate process behind her stately installations.

Last year, on a summer night in Marseille, someone, within all the hungry people I am meeting during my dinners, specifically set her attention on my projects. Later during the fall I received a call from Austė ZDANČIŪTĖ, the cultural attache at the Lithuanian embassy in France, who introduced me to Kamilè Krasauskaitè. Since that fall, we kept on exchanging and making future plans in France where she would have a residency. The more we chatted, the closest we began. Kamilè is a almost-thirty-years-old Lithuanian artist that has been including sourdough bread in her work and builds a poetic and mesmerising world around that dimension of food, fermentation, senses, environment, rituals...Through our communication I decided to share that encounter that we managed to welcome in Marseille. We kneaded some bread together, shared it in a forest of Marseillais sunflowers, walked the streets, met people, questioned and compared artists' lives in Europe. This issue might be an excerpt of all the long conversations we had, it was hot and sunny in Marseille, it was in June.

This special, limited-edition issue of Plaster celebrates Akomfrah’s commission for the British Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. The linen presentation box contains: an essay by Akomfrah’s long-time friend and collaborator, the BAFTA-winning film curator June Givanni; an interview with Akomfrah by Harriet Lloyd-Smith; original portraits by photographer Siam Coy and a fold-out poster featuring an exclusive still from Akomfrah’s film installation, Listening All Night To The Rain, now screening in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

With creative direction by Constantine // Spence and design by Emma Ralph.