Bookshop Situation Series: Release of Active Art

Welcome to the release and conversation about Active Art with the editors; writer and curator Barbara Sirieix and writer and artist Joachim Hamou.

The 1923 manifesto ‘Active Art’ by Latvian philosopher Andrejs Kurcijs triggered a series of responses by writers, artists and curators on the notion of activism, past and present: art for political purposes, art for its own purpose or art with no purpose.

The texts collected in the book ‘Active Art’ aim at considering the active part of writing according to the definition given by Kurcijs. Contributors include Rebeka Pōldsam from Estonia writing on the lesbian artist Anna-Stina Tremund, Isabella Marrin from UK writing on virus structures in language, French poet Laure Boullic writing a revolutionary poetry essay, French artist Eva Barto advertising her upcoming research on economic structures in art and Latvian artist Evita Vasiļjeva sharing the beginning and the end of her notebook. There is a conversation in several parts running throughout the book between the editors and Latvian contemporary philosopher Ainars Kamolins analysing Kurcijs original text. And finally the book also includes the reprint of texts by American writer Rober Glück introducing the queer writing collective New Narrative he co-founded in 1975 and a rare essay from 1982, and by American writer James Baldwin, an essay initially published in 1987 in an art catalogue with a very strong political stand against racism.

Active Art is edited by Maija Rudovska, Barbara Sirieix and Joachim Hamou and published in English by French publisher Paraguay Press .