The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival is an artwork, a sculpture, created by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn in a peripheral borough of Amsterdam's south-east known as the Bijlmer in 2009. This book recounts the event through the eyes of its "Ambassador", art historian Vittoria Martini, who was invited by the artist to be an eyewitness to the existence of this "precarious" work. A term Hirschhorn sees as positive and creative: a means of asserting the importance of the moment and of the place, of asserting the Here and Now to touch eternity and universality. Appreciating the art historian's presence as a central element of his sculpture, Hirschhorn consciously challenged the certainties of the profession by empowering and activating the role, thus leading Martini to find a new working methodology that she calls "precarious art history". Accompanying the readers through her experience of the physical existence of The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival, Martini's commentary leads to the profound understanding of how a work that no longer exists physically, can live on in the mind- elsewhere, at some other time-because in the meantime it has become universal.

Presenting unique and in-depth collaborations and editions with leading international artists, Parkett #57 features the work of Doug Aitken, Nan Goldin, and Thomas Hirschhorn, three artists who conceive of private and personal landscapes and challenge our notions of the real and the imaginary. Contributing writers include Francesco Bonami, Christina van Assche, and James Roberts on Aitken; Arthur Danto, Deborah Eisenberg, Dana Friis-Hansen, Elisabeth Lebovici, and Lisa Liebmann on Goldin; and Robert Fleck, Alison Gingeras, Markus Steinweg, and Philippe Vergne on Hirschhorn. In addition, this issue contains essays on Donald Baechler, Louise Lawler, and John Miller. Parkett #58, featuring collaboration artists Sylvie Fleury, Jason Rhoades, and James Rosenquist, will be published in early Summer 2000.

For three months Biel, Switzerland, hosted a special kind of sculpture. It was special not simply because it was by one of Switzerland's most famous contemporary artists-Thomas Hirschhorn-and dedicated to one of the most prominent authors in the history of Swiss literature, Robert Walser. Beyond that, this sculpture was a redefinition of sculpture itself, because what takes on a plastic form here is not made of stone, steel, or bronze. It is society itself that helped to develop this work of art. In 2016 Thomas Hirschhorn and the curator Kathleen Buhler began doing field research in Biel, the city of Robert Walser's birth, connecting with residents, clubs, artists, literati, and experts. This resulted in a multifaceted agenda. Every day the two offered events such as readings, walking tours, lectures, and children's activities. All of this ultimately comprised the Robert Walser-Sculpture. Never before has an entire city been integrated into a temporary work of art in this way.

Contemporary art has produced its own "bubble" and often barely reaches the general public-this self-isolation is its blind spot. Why does the implicit idea still persist that avant-garde art is a matter for the few? Why don't curators try harder to break out of their own comfort zone? This was precisely the intention behind the 2021 edition of steirischer herbst: The Way Out offered a curatorial sketch for a way of working outdoors, in public space, where an audience beyond the "bubble" can be found. This catalogue shows how performances and artistic interventions in the middle of the city can create meaningful experiences for everyone.

Writings by Thomas Hirschhorn, collected for the first time, trace the development of the artist's ideas and artistic strategies. For the artist Thomas Hirschhorn, writing is a crucial tool at every stage of his artistic practice. From the first sketch of an idea to appeals to potential collaborators, from detailed documentation of projects to post-disassembly analysis, Hirschhorn's writings mark the trajectories of his work. This volume collects Hirschhorn's widely scattered texts, presenting many in English for the first time. In these writings, Hirschhorn discusses the full range of his art, from works on paper to the massive Presence and Production projects in public spaces. "Statements and Letters" address broad themes of aesthetic philosophy, politics, and art historical commitments. "Projects" consider specific artworks or exhibitions. "Interviews" capture the artist in dialogue with Benjamin Buchloh, Jacques Ranciere, and others. Throughout, certain continuities emerge: Hirschhorn's commitment to quotidian materials; the centrality of political and economic thinking in his work; and his commitment to art in the public sphere. Taken together, the texts serve to trace the artist's ideas and artistic strategies over the past two decades. Critical Laboratory also reproduces, in color, 33 Ausstellungen im oeffentlichen Raum 1998-1989, an out-of-print catalog of Hirschhorn's earliest works in public space.

Contemporary art, as well as our society in general, is - according to the diagnosis of the interdisciplinary art festival steirischer herbst '21 - in a dead end. The Way Out of... features texts by international contributors to the festival's discussion program that outlines ways out of the white cube, failed political art, and an unrestrained digital capitalism, and shows new paths for climate justice, a more critical race theory, and new activists. Accessible and pointedly written, this reader offers rich food for thought on the multiple crises of our times.

Meditations, maxims, aphorisms, notes, and comments address topics that range from pathos and genius to careerism and club sandwiches. Marcus Steinweg's capacity to implicate the other is beautiful, bright, precise, and logical, grounded in everyday questions, which to him are always big questions. -from the foreword by Thomas Hirschhorn The houses of philosophy need not be palaces. -Marcus Steinweg, "House," The Terror of Evidence This is the first book by the prolific German philosopher Marcus Steinweg to be available in English translation. The Terror of Evidence offers meditations, maxims, aphorisms, notes, and comments-191 texts ranging in length from three words to three pages-the deceptive simplicity of which challenges the reader to think. "Thinking means getting lost again and again," Steinweg observes. Reality is the ever-broken promise of consistency; "the terror of evidence" arises from the inconsistency before our eyes. Thinking is a means of coping with that inconsistency. Steinweg is known for his collaborations with Thomas Hirschhorn and the lectures and texts he has provided for many of Hirschhorn's projects. This translation of The Terror of Evidence includes a foreword by Hirschhorn written especially for the MIT Press edition. The subjects of these short texts vary widely. ("The table of contents is in itself excessive and ambitious," writes Hirschhorn.) They include pathos, passivity, genius, resentment, love, horror, catastrophe, and racism. And club sandwiches (specifically, Foucault's love for this American specialty), blow jobs, and dance. Also: "Two Kinds of Obscurantism," "Putting Words in Spinoza's Mouth," "Note on Rorty," and "Doubting Doubt." The Terror of Evidence can be considered a guidebook to thinking: the daily journey of exploration, the incessant questioning of reality that Steinweg sees as the task of philosophy.