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| Disorientations: Art on the Margins of the “Contemporary” |
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Full blurb:
The latest book by cult author Travis Jeppesen proposes that rarest of things: a poetics of art criticism. Mirroring the author’s years spent in Central and Eastern Europe, Jeppesen’s writings on artists and scenes situated outside the radar of the larger art world, bring together a motley crew of outsiders whose work is destined to push the margins to the center.
Encompassing a selection of reviews, essays, riffs and rants on the state of the visual arts, Disorientations is a joltingly unconventional – and confrontational – addition to the literature of art criticism. Disorientations is destined to be the talk of the art world for years to come. Some of the essay titles give a flavour of the breadth and depth of this collection of contemporary art criticism: ‘Negative Space – Graffiti Art in Prague’, ‘Keanu Gets Reeved – Reloading the Gaytrix’, ‘My Life in Meat – Death as Art, Art as Death’, ‘American Existentialism – Richard Linklater’s Slacker’, ‘Whose Biennale Is It Anyway?’ Lem Lite – Soderbergh’s Solaris’, ‘Girls and Animals – The Case of Martin Eder.’
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First page first lines:
From ‘On the expulsion of the friendless warrior’:
Why do we read art magazines? Sorry, but it’s a question that needs to be asked every now and then, as the answer seems to change over time according to one’s position, status, and relationship to the rest of the so-called art world, if such a world exists. Do we read in search of some projection of our selves, whether direct or indirect, on glossy pages? To keep abreast of the latest trends so we don’t feel left behind? And, when we finally get past the voluminous deluge of advertisements, do we flip through or actually read the text? Does anyone care about what the critic has to say? Is there still such a thing as the independent critic, unaffiliated with any art institution?
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Category: Essay collection
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Author: Travis Jeppesen
Travis Jeppesen is best known as the author of Victims, a novel that was selected by renegade author Dennis Cooper to debut his ‘Little House on the Bowery’ series for Akashic Books in 2003. His other books include Wolf at the Door, a novel, and Poems I Wrote While Watching TV, a collection of poetry. He currently resides in Berlin, where he edits the magazine and small publishing house BLATT and maintains the disorientations website, which has been described as a “virtual extension” of his book Disorientations.
Travis was interviewed at Dogmatika by Matthew Coleman earlier this year. Here is an extract from that interview:
MC: The character of the terminally ill sculptor [in Travis’ novel Wolf at the Door] ends up destroying all of his art before leaving the city to head into the village. What is your perspective about the art being produced in the here and now?
TJ: It's a strange sort of sacrifice that the sculptor makes. One of his reasons, I believe, for withdrawing from that world in such a dramatic fashion is because he feels there is a lack of integrity in current art practices. In the last quarter of the 20th century up to the present day, the art market has become so overinflated and powerful that most people working in the arts sector are more interested in capital than they are in ideas or individual works. There is very little interest in formal matters, there is very little criticism that anyone pays much heed to. This has had a detrimental effect on young artists, as well as the art that is produced under these conditions.
MC: You spent some time living in Prague, how was the whole writing and art scene out there?
TJ: The years I spent in Prague were probably the most important ones in my life so far. I still get really nostalgic whenever I think of Prague, and hope to go back there someday to actually write the book I always wanted to write about that city and my time there. But I got to a point where I realized that that phase of my life had come to a close, and I had to move on. I don't think I would be in a very good state, had I opted to remain there.
I think BLATT and the Prague Literary Review (I only edited the latter publication for a short while) both give you an indication of the kind of writers from the Czech Republic – and Central and Eastern Europe, in general – that I have been most interested in. I would also recommend the entire back catalogue of Twisted Spoon books. Not only are their books beautiful as objects, they have managed to bring so many of the best writers from this overlooked region to an English-reading audience – from the Czech Republic alone, Ewald Murrer, Eva Svankmajerova, and Pavel Brycz are all worth reading.
While I was living in Prague, I was writing a lot about contemporary Czech art, as well as art from the surrounding area, for magazines like the Prague Pill, Umelec (the Czech art magazine), and Think Again, a free city magazine that comes out monthly. A bunch of these writings appear in Disorientations, so I hope that does something towards bringing the art from this region to a wider audience.
To read the full interview with Travis Jeppesen at Dogmatika, go here.
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Publisher: Social Disease
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Reviews:
Praise for Travis Jeppesen:
"Any attempts to trace the tributaries of Jeppesen's influences fall away after a dozen pages because his voice is a fiercely independent and fresh one that casts a spell on the reader." - The Stranger.
"Jeppesen has a flair for skewed reasoning and an obsession with internment." - Village Voice.
Praise for Disorientations:
“Disorientations is full of this interesting writer's art criticism: centred around Prague during the years 2003-2006, they are short, animate reviews of exhibitions, biennales, interviews with expatriate artists, reports from the sets of film shootings… and they all share a rather rough, jargon-free engagement with their subjects…This is seeing artworks through the eyes of a talented poet… Admirably, like his publisher Social Disease has already done with the stuffy, inward-looking English literary scene, Jeppesen has knocked down a couple of the walls holding up the established art press…” John Holten, Dogmatika.
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| Book code: BTD020 |
| Price: £ 10.99 |
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