Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina
Publishing Against the Grain
With contributions by: Adjective / Art Against Art / Post Capitalism: A Guide to our Future, Telematic Embrace, The Transhumanist Reader / Bisagra / ramona / Chimurenga & Selections from the Chimurenga Library / Curatorial Dictionary / Art-Leaks.org / East of Borneo / Artes Visuales / Exhausted Geographies / SCROLL / Fillip / Art-Language / Glänta / Bidayat / Makhzin / Souffles, Soufless-Anfas / Top Stories / Our Literal Speed / Collective Actions / Pages / Pumflet / Corrections and Clarifications / Counter-Signals / PISEAGRAMA / Urbânia / Raking Leaves / Aar Paar / SALT. / LIES / Start Journal / Uganda Press Photo Award / Stationary / Blackbird / Lenny Kwok / Tráfico Visual / Félix Suaz / White Fungus / Life Is A Rip Off / Adjective / Pumflet / ÆQAI / Arthopper / New Culture / X-TRA / Charcuterie / EMILIA-AMALIA / The HIV Howler / Lola / MICE Magazine / Peripheral Review / Public Parking / Redwire Magazine / Scapegoat / Towards Braiding / Molly Sherman / Pastelegram
Produced by Independent Curators International (ICI)
On view from August 9, 2021, 20:00.
Venue: The Boxing Club, Mark Isaku 8, 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina and Independent Curators International (ICI) are pleased to announce the presentation of Publishing Against the Grain at the Boxing Club: a unique exhibition in construction that provides visitors with a rare opportunity to engage in a variety of conversations from across the world.
In the context of today’s corporatization and commodification of cultural institutions, and in many political situations where free speech becomes ever more precarious, independent publishing has shown extraordinary vitality and importance as a platform for disseminating alternative, progressive and autonomous positions.
It encourages discursive public participation, self-reflective investigation, and invites visitors to discover new perspectives while connecting differing and analogous spheres of contemporary art.
The exhibition highlights the current state of publishing and art criticism as it exists in small journals, experimental publications, websites, and radio, as well as other innovative forms. It is organized around projects that connect theoretical, social, political, and aesthetic questions with a focus on community, whether understood in relation to a particular place, or defined in identitarian or diasporic terms. Included in the exhibition are print journals like Makhzin (Lebanon) and Pisegrama (Brazil), alongside more experimental forms like tranzit’s interactive Curatorial Dictionary (Hungary).
In bringing these projects together from around the world, Publishing Against the Grain reveals how their material and discursive activities respond to intersecting subjects such as contemporary aesthetics, diaspora, sex and gender, gentrification, race, language, and art history.
A selection of key publications was drawn from ICI’s international network of collaborators. These curators, artists, and scholars involved in independent publishing are represented in the exhibition through their own projects and those of others who have influenced their work and school of thought. The exhibition at the Boxing Club will continue to grow and accumulate as it continues to research and include new publications. Additionally, visitors will be encouraged to read and reproduce sections of the materials within the gallery space, and collate them to produce their own projects or take them home for continued engagement, allowing for the content of the exhibition to exist and circulate beyond the walls of the gallery.
Publishing Against the Grain at the Boxing Club is an exhibition organized and produced by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina and Independent Curators International (ICI), New York.
Publishing Against the Grain was once a travelling exhibition that provided a space for reading, thinking, and conversing, where slowing down could become a form of intellectual resistance. Publishing Against the Grain, in its present form of ongoing construction at Summer School as School 2021, in addition to the permanent installation of the library at the Boxing Club in Prishtina corresponds with the Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina’s aim to establish a critical, independent space for reading, thinking, analyses and experimenting.
Publishing Against the Grain is an exhibition organized and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York and initiated by Alaina Claire Feldman and Becky Nahom with Sanna Almajedi. The exhibition was made possible with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum. The presentation at Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina has been organized by curators Albert Heta and Vala Osmani and is supported by The Trust for Mutual Understanding, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo and the Municipality of Prishtina.
ABOUT ICI
Independent Curators International (ICI) produces exhibitions, events, training opportunities, research initiatives, and publications for curators and audiences around the world. Established in 1975, ICI is headquartered in New York, but active around the world. ICI’s programs are presented and often developed in partnership with art spaces across the globe, therefore encouraging new infrastructures for art practice internationally, and inspiring fresh ways of seeing and contextualizing contemporary art.