Rab-Rab, Issue 5

Edited by Michael Corris, the expanded edition of In the Belly of the Beast: Art & Language New York Project 1972-1978 is a survey of the tumultuous years of the political Conceptualism in the mid-seventies New York.

Artists have always experimented with politics, either by organizing themselves or uniting in support of a broader political movement. Today, "activist art" is taught in universities, supported by foundations, and featured in museums and international exhibitions. Is this the only possible way?

In the Belly of the Beast tells a different story, of the work of politically engaged artists and the conflicts they experienced. It is the history of artists wishing to continue working within the boundaries of the artworld and those who were intent on establishing new ideological and class relationships with activists to build a political party.

During the 1970s in New York, the Art & Language collective pioneered institutional critique; published a Marxist-influenced journal; agitated against racism and sexism in museums; challenged the cultural imperialism of international exhibitions; and forged a framework for a socialist organization of artists. This new edition includes previously unpublished documents illuminating the contradictions and disputes that lay at the center of the organization and practices of Art & Language and left-wing groups, such as the Anti-Imperialist Cultural Union and the Artists' Meeting for Cultural Change, mobilizing artists in New York at the time.

The new and expanded edition of In the Belly of the Beast features an extensive interview with Michael Corris, who annotated a collection of previously unavailable documents from the period, including manuscripts, pamphlets, transcripts, and letters.

Art & Language is the name of a group of English artists who choose to work collectively, and the title of a magazine that they founded in 1968. Proposing a critical analysis of the relations between art, society, and politics, Art & Language marks, even in its name, the importance of the “textual turning point” in the 1960s.

Since 1976, Art & Language's project has continued, through Mel Ramsden and Michael Baldwin, with the literary and theoretical collaboration of Charles Harrison. Working with very varied mediums, from painting to rock, these co-founders of Conceptual art remain, even today, attached to observing the consequences of what they themselves call the “depressing collapse of modernism.”

Extensive survey of the politically outward-looking Conceptualism emerging from Art & Language in the UK. Especially considering its critique of the norms of Modernist art practices in contemporary art, particularly practices of art education.

Edited, compiled and introduced by Paul Wood, Biting the Hand: Traces of Resistance in the Art & Language diaspora is about a dissident formation of artists active in the UK in the 1970s and 80s.

The book tells the story of artists engaging with a critique of then-contemporary modernist art education, who have embarked on a series of theoretical investigations which became increasingly politicised under the pressures of an evolving social crisis. Increased racism, unemployment and attacks on the organised working class all raised questions about how a critical art might respond.

By the late 1970s, these radical artists, mostly in the orbit of the Art & Language group, were producing posters and leaflets for a wide range of left-wing causes, as well as analyses of the politics of art and design education and the role of cultural ideology in maintaining consensus. In the 1980s, as Thatcherism tightened its grip, those involved went their separate ways into areas as diverse as media work, trade unionism, health and education.

Biting the Hand has three parts: a retrospective introduction setting the formation in its historical context, and two annotated documentary sections presenting examples of the work as both text and image, written and edited by Paul Wood.

It also includes a foreword by Sezgin Boynik, publisher, and an afterword by Ann Stephen, curator and art historian, further expanding on the book's subject.

For many years Paul Wood worked for the Art History Department of the Open University. His publications from that period include Conceptual Art (2000), Western Art and the Wider World (2013), and the four-volume anthology Art in Theory (1990-2020), co-edited with Charles Harrison and others.

Edited, compiled and introduced by Paul Wood.
Foreword by Sezgin Boynik; afterword by Ann Stephen.

The English translation of Zdanevich's Dadaist autobiographical lecture in Paris in 1922, where he adopts the name Iliazda. In this entertaining lecture, the achievements of the avant-garde is presented as a combination of zaum, polymorphous sexuality, aleatory forms and scatological interpretation of culture.

The second volume of the bie bao series presents a eulogy entitled Iliazda at the Birthday Party, a pseudo-autobiographical lecture delivered by Ilya Zdanevich in Paris in 1922. It reports on Zdanevich's artistic and political adventures up until then. Along with an autobiography full of self-admiration, in this lecture Zdanevich gives an interpretation of his zaum dramas inspired by Freudianism, and humorously describes a colourful image of the Russian microcosm in Montparnasse. 

Additionally, this second volume also includes Iliazd's letter to Ardengo Soffici from 1964, where one can read, in the most unambiguous terms, about Zdanevich's positions against war, imperialism, and all forms of nationalism. Subtitled 50 Years of Russian Futurism, the letter to Soffici presents us with an altogether new Zdanevich—a "fellow traveller" in both leftist and avant-garde circles. As well as the extended introduction and extensive annotations, the texts are further contextualised with Johanna Drucker's visual presentation of the birth of the Iliazd cult.

The bie bao series will include eight publications, covering many layers of Zdanevich's rich theoretical and artistic output. Each volume consists of a bio-bibliographical introduction, a commentary, a translation with annotations, and artistic intervention.

Iliazd (Ilya Zdanevich, 1894-1975) was a Russian poet, designer, typographer, theoretician, art critic, and publisher, close to the avant-garde circles and one of the promoters of Futurism in Russia, author of a poetic work, drama written in zaum abstract poetic trans-sense or "transrational" language, and novels.

A children's book by Johannes van de Weert, a veteran of the punk underground (Rondos, The Ex, Red Rat, Raket).

The Adventures of Red Rat and BIGGO – The Present is a remake of Bram konijn en Piet de muis [Bram the Rabbit and Piet the Mouse], a 1982 children's book by Johannes van de Weert, a veteran of the Dutch punk underground who played with Rondos and The Ex, and who was the force behind Red Rat and Raket editions.
The Present is a 2010 remake telling the story of a bully pig who terrifies a poor rat on a daily basis. After a while, the rat falls ill with fear and has to stay in bed. The lonely, evil pig has no one to play with and becomes depressed. The pig gives the rat a present—a bunch of beautiful flowers—and all is well. Now the two can play together.
The 2010 remake, featuring different characters and intended for a North Korean audience, was never published. The 2025 English version opens with an introduction by Van de Weert, telling a bizarre story of a failed political career and an absurd vaudeville class struggle behind the seemingly harmless educational children's book.

Johannes van de Weert was a cartoonist active in the Rotterdam punk and squatter's movements of the 1980s. He was a singer with the punk band De Rondos and he started self-publishing small comic booklets in the late 1970s. He created his character "Redrat" for the fanzine Raket in 1980. The character soon became an icon for the squatter's movement.

Published in collaboration with Harun Farocki Institut, this book unpacks About Narration [Erzählen], a 1975 essay film directed by Ingemo Engström and Harun Farocki.

Edited and introduced by Sezgin Boynik and Tom Holert, this book focuses on About Narration [Erzählen] directed by Ingemo Engström and Harun Farocki.
It includes the film's script alongside the historical documents related to its making and Farocki's previously unpublished theoretical and programmatic essay on the film. The publication also includes a retrospective essay by Ingemo Engström on the film's political and artistic background.

Volker Pantenburg's detailed elaboration of the conditions of its making, alongside Boynik and Holert's concluding remarks, further contextualizes the film. The interview with Cathy Porter on Larisa Reisner, a heroine of About Narration, gives an overview of the life of a militant writer who inspired Engström and Farocki.

Edited and introduced by Sezgin Boynik and Tom Holert.

The editorial/imaginative centre of the ninth issue of Errant Journal is located in the regions that have experienced Russian imperial aggression from where it makes connections across times, geographies, and ontologies to explore the radical potential of companionship. Companionship is understood not as agreement, but as a shared responsibility across unequal histories. It means not being full without the other. While forms of imperial and colonial violence might differ in places and through times, the issue recognizes how colonial mechanisms are sustained, how they present themselves as if they were past while shapeshifting and continuing in new forms and places in the present. By bringing these contexts in relation, this issue aims to show how certain borders, biases, clichés, and power structures travel, mutate, and shape both human and non-human lives and landscapes. Ultimately, companionship is about prioritizing life and about insisting that no oppression is singular.

This issue is a concept by and co-edited with Katia Krupennikova.

Contributors: Adriana Arroyo, Keto Gorgadze, Andreas Kalkun, Chung Kai Lee, Samira Makki, Ana Mikadze, Petrică Mogoș, Fabienne Rachmadiev, Vaim Sarv, Victoria Soyan Peemot, Czyka Tumaliuan, Iryna Zamuruieva, Irene de Craen, Katia Krupennikova

Typeface by Bea Schlingelhoff, from the Project "Women against Hitler"

Eric Bell & Kristoffer Frick: Rainbow Rope, 2017 1, Crystal Table (II), 2017 2, 63, Platonic Solid, 2018 64, Kolumne 3, Sara MacKillop: WC2N 4, 10, 15, 24, California Cannabis Legalization 9, Letzte Ausgabe der Spartakusbriefe, Oktober 1918 11, Delia Gonzales 16-21, Cordula Daus 22, Christina Irrgang 25, Eric Ellingsen 26, Hugo Canoilas: L’ô 29, 30, 35-38, Sadie Plant 31, Markus Krottendorfer: aus der Serie TERMINAL, 2017 32, Kate Rich: Feral Trade 39, Julia Knass 44, Walter Hetzer: World Trade Center 1972 46, Lidl, Wiedner Hauptstraße 15, Wien (ehemals Generali Foundation, gebaut 1993-95, Architektur Jabornegg & Pálffy) 50, One Hour and a Half in the Life of Ztscrpt 62-52

Sore is a serial anthology that brings together authors whose writing practices oscillate between the genres of diary keeping and fiction. For the second issue of Sore, ten contributors – both authors and visual artists – were invited to collectively develop their work through a series of informal critiques over the course of five months.

In the first issue of Sore, observations of everyday life intertwined with memories and cultural references to denote the significance of a certain soreness we each carry within us as we negotiate the various challenges of social existence. In this second ensemble, seven new authors widen our understanding of the term ‘sore’ by underlining a need to orient one’s gaze towards what’s hidden underneath, to enter the anatomy of all these necessary contortions and u-turns one performs in order to escape the grip of expected compliance.

With contributions from: Mathilde Heuliez, Lisa Lagova, Muyeong Kim, Nour Ben Saïd, Masha Ryabova, Adrienne Chung, Richard Dmitri Hees, Oscar Le Merle, Morra Kozlitina, Tindra Eliason, Helmer Stuyt, Ilya Stasevich, Kristina Stallvik.

Published by cover crop, Mathilde Heuliez & Lisa Lagova.

The Salvage Editorial Collective on the Covid-19 crisis.

Including: ‘Mothering Against the World' by Sophie Lewis on ‘Momrades’, ‘The Bushes’ a new fiction by China Miéville, ‘Hookers and Other Angels’ photography from Juno Mac, ‘Prepared for the Worst’ by Richard Seymour on Disaster Nationalism, ‘Welfare State Populism and the “Left-Behind Left”’ by Kevin Ochieng Okoth, ‘A Glimmer of a Shell of a Husk’ by Maya Osborne; ‘The Phallic Road to Socialism’ by Sebastian Budgen; A newly translated interview with Daniel Guérin, ‘Nationalism After Coronavirus’ by Sivamohan Valluvan, ‘Striking in Striking Times: Capitalism’s Coronavirus Crisis’ by Gregor Gall, ‘Getting Dressed for a Pandemic’ by Camila Valle, ‘Out of the Iron Lung: A Miasma Theory of Coronavirus’ by Matthew Broomfield.

Poetry by Nisha Ramayya, this issue’s featured poet, and an interview with her conducted by Salvage poetry editor, Caitlín Doherty. Plus the return of the Salvage Editorial Collective perspectives pamphlet, and a postcard.

Salvage is a bi-annual journal of revolutionary arts and letters. Salvage is written by and for the desolated Left, by and for those sick of capitalism and its planetary death-drive, implacably opposed to the fascist reflux and all ‘national’ solutions to our crisis, committed to radical change, guarded against the encroachments of ‘woke’ capitalism and its sadistic dramaphagy, and impatient with the Left’s bad faith and bullshit.

The third issue of Le Chauffage is an inquiry into the relationship between the practices of artists/ writers and their day jobs. This subject stems from a question fundamental to the existing mandate of Le Chauffage: 'how do you keep warm?' and subsequently, 'how do you pay the bills?' As these perennial concerns occupy our everyday lives, we ask artists/writers to consider the influence that their day jobs, side hustles, creative or non- creative forms of employment have on their respective practices.

This issue tries to account for the significant ways in which complex economic realities come to shape the art we produce, look at, and discuss. How do we deal with limited time and resources? How do we reclaim and steal time back? How do our day jobs shape and influence what we make? How do we subvert the means of production of the workplace? Can the constraint of a day job also be a way to alleviate the pressure of professionalising?

With contributions by Daniel Bozhkov, Nathan Crompton Pippa Garner, Chauncey Hare Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes, Garrett Lockhart, Jannis Marwitz Reba Maybury, Tiziana La Melia, Dan Miller, Ragen Moss, Jean Luc Moulène, Jean Katambayi Mukendi Paul Niedermayer, Sophie Nys, Megan Plunkett, Chris Reinecke, Jacquelyn Zong Li Ross On Gabrielle L Hirondelle Hill Margaux Schwarz, Eleanor Ivory Weber James Welling, Werker, The Wig.