An Atlas of Es Devlin, the first monograph on artist Es Devlin’s genre-defying practice, is an experiential publication encompassing art, activism, theatre, poetry, music, dance, opera and sculpture. Devlin’s protean work is rooted in a life-long practice of reading and drawing. From sketches in the margins of texts, be they poetry, drama, song lyrics, opera libretti, climate reports or endangered species lists, emerge the technically advanced, collectively imagined universes for which she is globally renowned. Fragile miniature paintings, paper cuts and small mechanical cardboard models form the seeds of some of the most iconic, large-scale, multi-disciplinary cultural manifestations in recent times, from public sculptures and installations at Tate Modern, Serpentine, V&A, Barbican, Imperial War Museum and the Lincoln Center, to kinetic stage designs at the Royal Opera House, the Royal Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the National Theatre, as well as Olympic Ceremonies, Super-Bowl half-time shows, and monumental illuminated stage sculptures for Beyonce, The Weeknd, U2, Rosalìa, Dr Dre and Kendrick Lamar. Devlin’s work is at once deeply personal and inherently collective. Over the past decade her art practice has engaged with biodiversity, linguistic diversity and collective AI-generated poetry. She views the audience as a temporary society and encourages profound cognitive shifts by inviting public participation in communal choral works. An Atlas of Es Devlin is a unique, sculptural volume of over 900 pages, including foldouts, cut-outs, and a range of paper types, mirror and translucencies, with over 700 colour images documenting over 120 projects spanning over 30 years, and a 50,000 word text featuring the artist’s personal commentaries on each art work as well as interviews with her collaborators including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Bono, Benedict Cumberbatch, Pharrell Williams, Carlo Rovelli, Brian Eno, Sam Mendes, Alice Rawsthorn and Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye. Each book is boxed and includes a die-cut print from an edition of 5000. ‘Es is like superstring theory, at least eleven dimensions.’ Hans Ulrich Obrist ‘Es knows how to bend the mind around corners of our experience.’ Benedict Cumberbatch ‘Es takes our inchoate aspirations and sculpts them into a stage.’ Bono ‘I wish we’d had Es as a psychologist on some of our projects.’ Brian Eno ‘Es’s mind is both forensic and associative. She is able to x-ray a play and then she starts to dream.’ Lyndsey Turner ‘Es is a turning point for anyone she interacts with.’ Pharrell Williams ‘Es creates moments in which we suddenly become aware of life and existing, and time.’ Carlo Rovelli ‘With Es, there’s no “No”. She creates a whole universe.’ Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye

Using her own body as raw material for her artistic practice, French artist ORLAN deconstructs the traditional iconography of the feminine. In the 1990s, ORLAN caused a sensation with surgical operations performed on her body, but it was as early as 1964, at the age of 17, that she gave birth to her artistic self. Since then, she has continuously recreated herself and keenly explored the concept of identity. In her "carnal art," the body becomes both subject and object. This publication traverses the six decades of ORLAN's oeuvre, revisiting her early performances in particular. One of her most recent creations is the ORLANOIDE robot, and thanks to an augmented reality app, ORLAN avatars come to life and emerge from this richly illustrated volume. The political status of the body is made evident through all of her works: in 1989 she transformed Gustave Courbet's famous painting L'origine du monde into L'origine de la guerre by replacing the vulva with the phallus. The statement has not lost any of its topicality.

Over the last two decades, the encyclopedic museum has been criticized and praised, constantly discussed, and often in the news. Encyclopedic museums are a phenomenon of Europe and the United States, and their locations and mostly Eurocentric collections have in more recent years drawn attention to what many see as bias. Debates on provenance in general, cultural origins, and restitutions of African heritage have exerted pressure on encyclopedic museums, and indeed on all matter of museums. Is there still a place for an institution dedicated to gathering, preserving, and showcasing all the world's cultures? Donatien Grau's conversations with international arts officials, museum leaders, artists, architects, and journalists go beyond the history of the encyclopedic format and the last decades' issues that have burdened existing institutions. Are encyclopedic museums still relevant? What can they contribute when the Internet now seems to offer the greater encyclopedia? How important is it for us to have in-person access to objects from all over the world that can directly articulate something to us about humanity? The fresh ideas and nuances of new voices on the core principles important to museums in Dakar, Abu Dhabi, and Mumbai complement some of the world's arts leaders from European and American institutions-resulting in some revealing and unexpected answers. Every interviewee offers differing views, making for exciting, stimulating reading.

After the Crisis offers a platform for discussions between some of today's leading artists, writers, theorists, curators, and historians aimed at questioning the very status of photography today. Contributors come from the realms of critical theory, fiction, performance art, fashion photography, and museums, as well as film and design, and their conversations bring together history and the contemporary. Comparing the current situation of photographic images with the crisis experienced by representation at the time of the birth of photography, they set our relationship with photographic images in the digital era in perspective. Through these discussions, we come to sense the existential burden of being surrounded by images, while also beginning to grasp the historical depth of a questioning of images that started long before the current generation and engages with crucial political and cultural issues of our time.

Ways of Re-Thinking Literature creates a unique platform where leading literary thinkers and practitioners provide a multiplicity of views into what literature is today. The texts gathered in this extraordinary collection range from philosophy to poetry, to theater, to cognitive sciences, to art criticism, to fiction, and their authors rank amongst the most significant figures in their fields, in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Topics covered include an assessment of the role of literary narratives in contemporary writing, new considerations on the novel, a redefinition of the "poetic" factor in poetry and life, and a discussion of how literature engages with contemporary forms of individuality. Under the auspices of literary luminaries Helene Cixous and the late John Ashbery, these new pieces of writing bring to light contributions by innovative and well-established authors from the English-speaking sphere, as well as never-before translated prominent new voices in French theory. Featuring original work from some of today's most influential authors, Ways of Re-Thinking Literature is an indispensable tool for anybody interested in the future and possibilities of literature as an endeavor for life, thought, and creativity. With special cover artwork by Rita Ackermann, the volume includes contributions from Emily Apter, Philippe Artieres, John Ashbery, Paul Audi, Dodie Bellamy, Tom Bishop, Helene Cixous, Laurent Dubreuil, Tristan Garcia, Stathis Gourgouris, Donatien Grau, Boris Groys, Shelley Jackson, Wayne Koestenbaum, Camille Laurens, Vanessa Place, Mael Renouard, Peter Schjeldahl, Adam Thirlwell, and Camille de Toledo.

Ways of Re-Thinking Literature creates a unique platform where leading literary thinkers and practitioners provide a multiplicity of views into what literature is today. The texts gathered in this extraordinary collection range from philosophy to poetry, to theater, to cognitive sciences, to art criticism, to fiction, and their authors rank amongst the most significant figures in their fields, in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Topics covered include an assessment of the role of literary narratives in contemporary writing, new considerations on the novel, a redefinition of the "poetic" factor in poetry and life, and a discussion of how literature engages with contemporary forms of individuality. Under the auspices of literary luminaries Helene Cixous and the late John Ashbery, these new pieces of writing bring to light contributions by innovative and well-established authors from the English-speaking sphere, as well as never-before translated prominent new voices in French theory. Featuring original work from some of today's most influential authors, Ways of Re-Thinking Literature is an indispensable tool for anybody interested in the future and possibilities of literature as an endeavor for life, thought, and creativity. With special cover artwork by Rita Ackermann, the volume includes contributions from Emily Apter, Philippe Artieres, John Ashbery, Paul Audi, Dodie Bellamy, Tom Bishop, Helene Cixous, Laurent Dubreuil, Tristan Garcia, Stathis Gourgouris, Donatien Grau, Boris Groys, Shelley Jackson, Wayne Koestenbaum, Camille Laurens, Vanessa Place, Mael Renouard, Peter Schjeldahl, Adam Thirlwell, and Camille de Toledo.

Tom Bishop has, for over sixty years, helped shape the literary, philosophical, cultural, artistic, and political conversation between Paris and New York. As professor and director of the Center for French Civilization and Culture at New York University, he made the Washington Square institution one of the great bridges between French innovation and a New York scene in full transformation. Bishop was close to Beckett, championed Robbe-Grillet in the United States, befriended Marguerite Duras and Helene Cixous, and organized historic public encounters-such as the one between James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. He was also a scholar, a recognized specialist in the avant-garde, notably the Nouveau Roman and the Nouveau Theatre. In 2012, Bishop invited Donatien Grau to give a talk at NYU. This invitation led to conversations-many of which are presented in this book-and a friendship. Literature Is a Voyage of Discovery gathers their dialogues, retracing Bishop's career, his own history, his departure from Vienna, his studies, his meetings, his choices, his conception of literature and life, his relationship to the political and economic world, and the way he helped define the profession of "curator" as it is practiced today, offering a thought-provoking look into one of the leading minds of our time.

The most recent installation by the internationally acclaimed artist Alicja Kwade (b. 1979), who comes from Katowice, explores the French physicist Leon Foucault's (1819-1868) proof that the world rotates and develops the experiment further. The present volume illustrates the playful exploration of space and time using recent pictures from the Schirn rotunda. The Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade's scientificlooking experimental setups are reminiscent of surreal and phantasmagorical constellations and objects. The fascination of her work, which cannot be explained by reason alone, is rooted in the skilful superimposition and sometimes paradoxical nature of scientific and social realities. Things that are generally taken to be established facts are called into question and disproved. Here the artist explores the true movement of time, which will have an immediate effect on both space and the viewer.

Dealing with the power of artistic gesture, each work, presented here in stunning colour, features a blue glass gazing ball that sits on a painted aluminum shelf attached to the front of the painting that reflects both the painting and the viewer. Through the simple act of placing a gazing ball in front of the images, painting and sculpture are reunited for maximum sensory perception.

In the mid-1970s, Sylvere Lotringer created Semiotext(e), a philosophical group that became a magazine and then a publishing house. Since its creation, Semio-text(e) has been a place of stimulating dialogue between artists and philosophers, and for the past fifty years, much of American artistic and intellectual life has depended on it. The model of the journal and the publishing house revolves around the notion of the collective, and Lotringer has rarely shared his personal journey: his existence as a hidden child during World War II; the liberating and then traumatic experience of the collective in the kibbutz; his Parisian activism in the 1960s; his time of wandering, that took him, by way of Istanbul, to the United States; and then, of course, his American years, the way he mingled his nightlife with the formal experimentation he invented with Semiotext(e) and with his classes. Since the early 2010s, Donatien Grau has developed the habit of visiting Lotringer during his trips to Los Angeles; some of their dialogs were published or held in public. This book is an entry into Lotringer's life, his friendships, his choices, and his admiration for some of the leading thinkers of our times. The conversations between Lotringer and Grau show bursts of life, traces of a journey, through texts and existence itself, with an unusual intensity.

The man behind Purple magazine is the chronicler of his generation, exposing the lifestyles of the creative elite through his intimate, autobiographical photographs. Purple magazine has gained cult status during the span of its twenty-year history, and its editor Olivier Zahm has become a celebrity in the international fashion world. Notorious for his obsessive photographic documentation of his life and surroundings, which he shares daily with a huge fan base on his blog purple DIARY, Zahm said to the New York Times in 2010, Even in the bedroom I have my camera, I sleep with my camera, I have lunch with my camera, I go to dinner with my camera and I'm recording my experience. Presented in the form of a free-flowing personal scrapbook, the book follows Zahm through a fantasyland populated by the artists, socialites, models, and celebrities who regularly appear in his magazine, such as Terry Richardson, Karl Lagerfeld, Andre Saraiva, Dash Snow, Lindsay Lohan, Chloe Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Carine Roitfeld, Nate Lowman, Leigh Lezark, and Kate Moss. His idealistic belief in creative and sexual freedom is made evident in the many nude portraits of female friends and lovers. This voluminous book is an important historical document of our times, exposing the lifestyle and inspirations behind Purple magazine, which has had a profound influence on the approach to contemporary fashion photography.

The work of Fabrice Samyn is as diverse as it is complex, often referencing masterpieces of art history. In his paintings, sculptures and drawings, the artist manages to translate and magnify details from the paintings of the old masters. With his fascination for the spoken word and everyday poetry, he also follows the path taken before him by his Belgian compatriot Rene Magritte.

No thinker in the West has had a wider and more sustained influence than the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. From philosophy to drama, religion to politics, it is difficult to find a current cultural or social phenomenon that is not in some aspect indebted to the famous philosopher and the Platonic tradition. It should come as no surprise that contemporary artists continue to engage with and respond to the ideas of Plato. Accompanying an exhibition at the Getty Villa, this book brings together eleven renowned artists working in a variety of media all of whom have acknowledged the role of Plato in their artistic process. Featuring candid interviews with the artists, this volume begins with an essay by the critic and curator Donatien Grau that contextualizes Plato in antiquity and in the present day. Contemporary art, Grau demonstrates, is Platonism stripped bare, and it allows us to reconsider Plato's philosophy as a deeply human construct, one that remains highly relevant today.

Between a Temple of Art and a Big Event As places to enjoy art, as well as institutions that have become historic, museums can also be examined through the question of who exactly heads up these temples of art. What kinds of personalities have guided the fates of these large, traditional institutions? How have they done so, and what has motivated them? What galvanizes international curators or museum employees, and how have they risen to the challenge of opening their organizations to increasingly large numbers of visitors? Donatien Grau has conducted impressive conversations with influential museum operators. We have him to thank for these personal, art historical, cultural-political, and timely insights into museum operations, the histories of various institutions, and their leaders' very personal attitudes toward art. This volume reads like a detective story about the mediation efforts of museums and the personal motives behind them. Interviews with MICHEL LACLOTTE, Director of the Louvre, Paris, 1987-1995; SIR ALAN BOWNESS, Director of the Tate, London, 1980-1988; SIR TIMOTHY CLIFFORD, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1984-2006; PHILIPPE DE MONTEBELLO, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1977-2009; IRINA ANTONOVA, Director of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, 1961-2013; PETER-KLAUS SCHUSTER, General Director of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1998-2008; SIR MARK JONES, Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London 2001-2011; TOM KRENS, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Venice, and Bilbao, 1988-2008; WILFRIED SEIPEL, General Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1998-2008; HENRI LOYRETTE, Director of the Musee d'Orsay, Paris (1994-2001), and the Louvre, Paris (2001-2013). DONATIEN GRAU is a newspaper art critic, a museum curator, and a university teacher. His lively and clever voice has a firm place in the field of art.

The book presents a series of new works produced by Adel Abdessemed for the MAC's/Museum of Contemporary Arts in Grand-Hornu. The Algerian-born French artist Adel Abdessemed (b. 1971) works in a wide variety of media including animation, installation, performance, sculpture, and video; through his art he addresses contemporary themes and he reflects the bleak picture of the present day. His works, unsettling in their simultaneous beauty and raw reality, have made Abdessemed one of the most visible international artists of our time. This volume is composed of two distinct parts, each showcasing and examining one of two series of brand new, site-specific works created by Abdessemed for the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Grand-Hornu and the Musee d'Art Contemporain in Lyon. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition Schedule: MAC's, Grand Hornu (03/04/18-06/03/18) Musee d'Art Contemporain, Lyon (03/09/18-07/08/18)