Bookshop Situation Series: Release of Didi-Huberman "När bilderna tar ställning" (Historiens öga, 1). OEI

Jonas (J) Magnusson, translator of the book, will talk with Jörgen Gassilewski, Cecilia Grönberg and Kim West about the image and history readability through montage in Brecht and Benjamin, with the starting point in the book by Didi-Huberman and the processes in philosophy and art history since the 90’s.

In Bertolt Brecht’s work montage was a fundamental critical practice, whether it was a matter of exposing a theoretical argument in his Arbeitsjournal, or of complexifying the reading of history by juxtaposing images, incisive poems and captions in his “war primer”, Kriegsfibel.

“The truth is concrete”, Brecht wrote on a beam in his workspace. Through the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman’s dense analyses of the concrete procedures and theoretical choices that are inseparable from Brecht’s reflections on war during his years of exile, in montages where the challenges of history and political engagement meet with poetry and photography, an image practice emerges, which in the strongest sense is critical; a knowledge through montage whose horizon is a politics of imagination – when images take a position.

This presentation will be in Swedish.

När bilderna tar ställning. (Historiens öga, 1)
Georges Didi-Huberman
Translation and introduction by Jonas (J) Magnusson
OEI editör, 2019
OEI undersökningar VIII
280 pages.

The Bookshop Situation Series at Index is based on events to present books, magazines, records and other artistic formats. The bookshop situation is a way to test content, to share it, to distribute it, offering situations to be part of a community of experimental producers and users.