ART

Markus Miessen - Crossbenching Toward a Proactive Mode of Participation as a Critical

Spatial Practice
Sternberg Press 2016 ISBN 9783956792205 Acqn 26095
Pb 12x19cm 108pp 11.75
With a preface by Armen Avanessian, an introduction by Hannes Grassegger and Markus
MIessen, and a postscript by Patricia Reed
At the heart of this book is a simple and profound proposition: to do' architecture is to immerse
oneself in a conflictual process of material productionparticipation is not a productive encounter
of multiple practitioners and stakeholders, but a set of conflicts, negotiations, manoeuvres, and
swindles between and within a multiplicity of agents, human and nonhuman alikeequally
including architects, clients, financiers, and builders, say, but also silicon, plastic, concrete, each
with its conflicting aims and different material means to achieve them. Every building is thus the
materialization of such encounter. So, despite the hubris of the field, none of the parties to such
an encounter can ultimately control that the resultarchitecture (unlike real estate), according to
Miessen, belongs to no one but affects and is affected by everyoneand this proposition asks
that we reframe questions of ethics and politics. They can no longer be the property of an
individual but a collective set of interrelationsit is through such profound departure from the
terms of architecture that Miessens new book demands nothing less than to re-imagine how we
might finally become citizens.
Eyal Weizman, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures, Director of the Centre for Research
Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London.

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Roee Rosen - The Blind Merchant

Sternberg Press 2016 ISBN 9783956791864 Acqn 26094
Pb 22x28cm 312pp 145ills 19.95
Foreword by Joshua Simon
An artist book juxtaposing text and image, history and its revision, The Blind Merchant was
produced from 1989 to 1991. The work is composed of three elements: the complete text of
Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice; a parasitical text written by Roee Rosen that runs
alongside the play, adopting the perspective of the principal antagonist Shylock, the Jewish
moneylender; and 145 drawings that present an alternative approach to the dramas staging and
casting of charactersShylock is depicted as the blind merchant with drawings made by the artist
while blindfolded.
The book is also telling of its time, produced at the moment when the idea of originality was up for
question, the subaltern was asked to speak, and just before Silicon Valley took over our
imaginations. A compelling superimposition of Shakespeare, The Blind Merchant shows that
classic stories are still open for new angles of approach that reflect the times of its reading.

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