PUBLISHING

Publishing Against the Grain

Art Against Art (Germany), Bisagra (Peru), Chimurenga / The Chronic (South Africa), Curatorial Dictionary (Hungary), East of Borneo (United States), Exhausted Geographies (Pakistan), Fillip (Canada), Glänta (Sweden), Makhzin (United States / Lebanon), Our Literal Speed (United States), Pages (The Netherlands / Iran), PISEAGRAMA (Brazil), Raking Leaves (Sri Lanka), SALT. (United Kingdom), Start Journal (Uganda), Stationary (Hong Kong), Tráfico Visual (Venezuela), White Fungus (Taiwan), and many others.

Publishing Against the Grain provides a space for reading, thinking, and conversing, where slowing down can become a form of intellectual resistance. It encourages discursive public participation, self-reflective investigation, and invites visitors to discover new perspectives while connecting multiple spheres of contemporary art.

In the context of today’s corporatization and commodification of cultural institutions, and in many political situations where free speech becomes ever more precarious, independent publishing has shown extraordinary vitality and importance as a platform for disseminating alternative, progressive and autonomous positions.

Publishing Against the Grain highlights the current state of publishing and art criticism as it exists in small journals, experimental publications, websites, and radio, as well as other innovative forms. It is organized around projects that connect theoretical, social, political, and aesthetic questions with a focus on community, whether understood in relation to a particular place, or defined in identitarian or diasporic terms. Included in the exhibition are print journals like White Fungus (Taiwan) and Bisagra (Peru) alongside more experimental forms like Our Literal Speed (United States).

In bringing together these projects from around the world, Publishing Against the Grain reveals how their material and discursive activities respond to intersecting subjects such as contemporary aesthetics, diaspora, sex and gender, gentrification, race, language, and art history.

A selection of key publications was drawn from ICI’s international network of collaborators. These curators, artists, and scholars involved in independent publishing are represented in the exhibition through their own projects and those of others who have influenced their work and school of thought. The exhibition continues to grow and accumulate as it travels, when new publications are added at every site.

For information contact Becky Nahom at becky@curatorsintl.org or call 212 254 8200.

Publishing Against the Grain, installation view, Critical Distance Centre for Curators, Toronto, 2019. Courtesy of CDCC and ICI.

Publishing Against the Grain, installation view, Adjective (detail), Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town, 2017. Courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA and ICI.