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For issue 86, on the occasion of "Parkett"'s 25th anniversary, the
magazine's patron saint, John Baldessari has provided a special
anniversary collaboration, buttressed with an interview and
critical assessments. Josiah McElheny's proliferative glass works
and Philippe Parreno's appropriations, interventions and films are
also featured here, in spreads, interviews and critical
assessments, as is the work of Carol Bove, who appears in
conversation here with "Parkett" senior editor Bettina Funcke.
German writer, critic, and theorist Paul Scheerbart died nearly a
century ago, but his influence is still being felt today.
Considered by some a mad eccentric and by others an important
visionary in his own time, he is now experiencing a revival thanks
to a new generation of scholars who are rightfully situating him in
the modernist pantheon.
"Glass Love Perpetual Motion " is the first collection of
Scheerbart's multifarious writings to be published in English. In
addition to a selection of his fantastical short stories, it
includes the influential architectural manifesto "Glass
Architecture" and his literary tour-de-force "Perpetual Motion: The
Story of an Invention." The latter, written in the guise of a
scientific work (complete with technical diagrams), was taken as
such when first published but in reality is a fiction--albeit one
with an important message. "Glass Love Perpetual Motion " is richly
illustrated with period material, much of it never before
reproduced, including a selection of artwork by Paul Scheerbart
himself. Accompanying this original material is a selection of
essays by scholars, novelists, and filmmakers commissioned for this
publication to illuminate Scheerbart's importance, then and now, in
the worlds of art, architecture, and culture.
Coedited by artist Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin, with new
artwork created for this publication by McElheny and beautifully
designed by Purtill Family Business, "Glass Love Perpetual Motion "
is a long-overdue monument to a modern master.
Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) was a visionary German novelist,
theorist, poet, and artist who made a lasting impression on such
icons of modernism as Walter Benjamin, Bruno Taut, and Walter
Gropius. Fascinated with the potential of glass as a medium for
expressionist architecture and moved by tales of the fantastic,
Scheerbart envisioned the sublime through a series of futurist
milieus composed entirely of crystalline, colored glass
architecture. In 1912, Scheerbart published "The Light Club of
Batavia", a novelette about the formation of a club dedicated to
building a glass spa for bathing - not in water, but in light - at
the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft. Translated here into English
for the first time, this rare story serves as a point of departure
for Josiah McElheny, who, with an esteemed group of collaborators,
offers a fascinating array of responses to this enigmatic work.
"The Light Club" makes clear that the themes of utopian hope,
desire, and madness in Scheerbart's tale represent a part of
modernism's lost project: a world that would have looked entirely
different from the one we now inhabit. In his compelling
introduction, McElheny describes Scheerbart's life as well as his
own enchantment with the artist, and he explains the ways in which
'The Light Club of Batavia' inspired him to produce art of uncommon
breadth. "The Light Club" also features inspired writings from
Gregg Bordowitz and Ulrike Muller, Andrea Geyer, and Branden W.
Joseph, as well as translations of original texts by and about
Scheerbart. A unique response by one visionary artist to another,
"The Light Club" is an unforgettable examination of what it might
mean to see radical potential in the readily transparent.
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