Perhaps the most notable development in the art of the past decade has been 'relational aesthetics' -- social, collaborative, participatory art that is concerned less with producing objects than with composing human interactions. Although most critical attention has focused on its development in Western Europe and the United States, relational art has flourished in regions with less developed art economies --decommodified contemporary art scenes being a natural habitat for dematerialized artworks. Although Pawel Althamer (b. 1967) was originally trained as a sculptor, his work bears many of the marks of relational art. Often dematerialized to the point of invisibility, this work also increasingly enlists human participants in what the artist describes as 'reality directed'. For Motion Pictures (2000) Althamer choreographed actors to perform everyday actions in a public square (greeting a friend, feeding pigeons) at the same time every day for three weeks. Viewers who did not know what to look for or who did not return a second time could not know whether they had seen the artwork at all. Another major element of Althamer's work is institutional critique. For a 2003 exhibition at his Berlin gallery, Neugerrieumschneider, he transformed the high-design space into a litter-strewn shell -- essentially returning the gallery to its dilapidated pre-gentrification state. Invited to show at Paris's Centre Pompidou this autumn, he has rounded up fifteen local artists who have never exhibited in a major public space in their home city to create an ongoing project in the museum for the duration of his show. Althamer belongs to a vanguard that is freeing art from a single dominant culture (both art historical and pop cultural), creating works that are as much at home in a square in Ljubljana as they are on a sidewalk in Pittsburgh. His work has been included in Documenta X (1997) and numerous international biennials, including Berlin (2006), Istanbul (2005) and Venice (2003). In 2004 he won the prestigious Vincent van Gogh Award for Contemporary Art in Europe.

Mark Lewis' work functions as a critique of cinema, encouraging the viewer's awareness of the cliches, conventions and fragmentary nature of film, and how it has been constructed historically. In so doing, he also acknowledges its suggestive power, and the alluring, seductive visual qualities of the medium, whilst maintaining a certain critical distance in his extraction and re-evaluation of its components. This catalogue provides a survey of Lewis' film works from 1995-2000.

Launched in 1999, Afterall is a journal of contemporary art that offers in-depth analysis of artists' work, along with essays that broaden the context in which to understand it. Its academic format differentiates it from popular review magazines. Volume 48 is Afterall's 21st anniversary issue, in which the editorial team reflects on the journal's past though a series of reprints of contextual essays and artist features, together with new commissions that inform the present and future vision of the journal.

"Sources in the Air" accompanies David Maljkovic's three-part exhibition of the same name at the Van Abbemusem, Eindhoven, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and GAMeC, Bergamo. Including films, sculpture, collage and installations from the past ten years, "Sources in the Air" is the artist's most comprehensive survey to date.

Piero Gilardi (born 1942) looms large in the annals of the European postwar avant-garde. A pioneer of Arte Povera and a promoter of Richard Long and Jan Dibbets, who also introduced American artists such as Bruce Nauman or Eva Hesse to a European audience, Gilardi is also a political activist. This retrospective monograph surveys his many activities.

In Richard Deacon's solo exhibition Some Time, a refabricated version of his sculpture Never Mind takes pride of place among more than twenty-five other works. Over time, the original sculpture, made in 1993, proved to be incompatible with the natural environment of an open-air museum. Now, after a period of critical reflection and discussion with the artist himself, what he calls a 'refabrication' has taken place. Follow the artist and the museum's quest for an innovative, sustainable solution to the renewal of (or variation on) a monumental sculpture that offers a potentially new line of approach for the future. This book not only represents the Some Time exhibition, but thanks to its diversity of material, ranging from original sketches and intimate correspondence to construction photos from the workshop and installation shots, it also gives a unique insight into Deacon's working process. At the same time, it provides a moment of critical reflection from the perspectives of the various authors who have contributed to it. Text in English and Dutch.

Launched in 1999, Afterall is a journal of contemporary art that offers in-depth analysis of artists' work, along with essays that broaden the context in which to understand it. Its academic format differentiates it from popular review magazines. In issue 47, featured artists are planned to include Gulsun Karamustafa, Armin Linke, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Thao-Nguyen Phan, and Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, among others.

Inspired by Andre Breton's mock trials of the 1920s and 30s, "A Crime Against Art" is a film based on a staged trial at the 2007 ARCO Art Fair in Madrid. Set as a television courtroom drama, this DVD condenses the trial to 100 minutes. Starring Jan Verwoert, Vasif Kortun, Chus Martinez and Charles Esche.

In 2007, Aernout Mik represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale. Rather than produce a standard catalogue to accompany Mik's acclaimed three-part video installation, curator Maria Hlavajova organized this dense and galvanizing critical reader. Interspersed with provocative black-and-white images from Mik's artworks, "Citizens and Subjects" looks at the Netherlands as an example of the contemporary western condition at a time when the demands of "national security," the normalization of violence and the maintenance of high levels of fear and anxiety have become part of daily life in the so-called "West." This volume seeks to identify the causes of our current predicament and looks at how our society fails to negotiate the challenges posed by economic globalization, human migration and cross-cultural influence. With contributions by philosophers, social scientists and artists including Marlene Dumas, Aernout Mik, Willem de Rooij and Lawrence Weiner.