Telling Invents Told

Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966–2016 is a collection of essays by Peter Gidal that includes “Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film” and other texts on metaphor, narrative, and against sexual representation.

Also discussed in their specificity are works by Samuel Beckett, Thérèse Oulton, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Throughout, Gidal’s writing attempts a political aesthetics, polemical as well as theoretical. One of the foremost experimental film-makers in Britain since the late 1960s, Peter Gidal was a central figure at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, and taught advanced film theory at the Royal College of Art. His previous books include Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings (1971), Understanding Beckett (1986) and Materialist Film (1989).

Compiled on the occasion of a Sandra Lahire retrospective at Courtisane festival 2021. This cahier was developed in collaboration with Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (San Sebastian). Edited by María Palacios Cruz and Charlotte Procter.

Living on air: the films and words of Sandra Lahire is the first monograph dedicated to the work of Sandra Lahire and brings together new and existing texts on Lahire as well as writing by herself, with contributions by Gill Addison, Jo Comino, Pam Cook, Laura Guy, Maud Jacquin, Julia Knight, Michael Mazière, Sarah Pucill, Irene Revell & Kerstin Schroedinger, Lis Rhodes, Selina Robertson & Ricardo Matos Cabo (with So Mayer), Vicky Smith, Sarah Turner and Ana Vaz.

This DVD contains:
Light Reading, 1978, 20 min.
Pictures on Pink Paper, 1982, 35 min.
Cold Draft, 1988, 28 min.

Lis Rhodes has been at the forefront of British experimental filmmaking since the early 1970s. She studied at the North East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. A strong formal aesthetic has been developed in her films, reflecting her involvement with the debates and practice which emerged from the London Filmmakers' Co-operative, where she was Cinema Curator 1975-6. Early 'expanded' works such as Light Music (1975) fused performance and multi-screen projection with an exploration of the visual qualities of sound. Her analysis of broader political and social questions can be traced to her later films, which combine formal rigour with a passionate critique of issues from nuclear power to domestic violence. As an active campaigner for women's rights, Rhodes was a founder member of Circles, the first women's artist film and video (1979) and was an Arts Advisor to the Greater London Council between 1982 and 1985. She lives and works in London and teaches at Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London.

The 1960s and 1970s were a defining period for artists’ film and video, and the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative (LFMC) was one of the major international centres. Shoot Shoot Shoot documents the first decade of an artist-led organisation that pioneered the moving image as an art form in the UK, tracing its development from within London’s counterculture towards establishing its own identity within premises that uniquely incorporated a distribution office, cinema space and film workshop.

Contributions from: Antony Balch, Ian Breakwell, Bob Cobbing, John Collins, David Crosswaite, David Curtis, Fred Drummond, John Du Cane, Mike Dunford, Ray Durgnat, Deke Dusinberre, Stephen Dwoskin, Gill Eatherley, Steve Farrer, Simon Field, Chris Garratt, Peter Gidal, Marilyn Halford, David Hall, Roger Hammond, Simon Hartog, Ron Haselden, Jim Haynes, Roger Hewins, Tony Hill, Jeff Keen, Ian Kerr, Jonathan Langran, David Larcher, John Latham, Malcolm Le Grice, Mike Leggett, Carla Liss, John Mathews, Harvey Matusow, Anthony McCall, Barry Miles, Jack Henry Moore, Annabel Nicolson, Jenny Okun, David Parsons, Sally Potter, Stuart Pound, William Raban, Anne Rees-Mogg, Lis Rhodes, Carolee Schneemann, Anthony Scott, Guy Sherwin, John Smith, Chris Welsby. Illustrated throughout in full colour, this book brings together a wide variety of texts, images and archival documents, and includes newly commissioned essays by Mark Webber, Kathryn Siegel and Federico Windhausen.

LUX, London / 2016

Paperback, 288 pages incl 193 full colour illustrations

The artist book Amanda is greatly inspired by “Tradeswomen” quarterly magazine for women in blue-collar work, published in the 1980’s and 1990’s in the United States. Amanda is similarly thought as a periodical dealing with the subjects of technology and industry from a feminist (not solely female) angle. The first issue contains fiction stories of an emancipatory character, citing trade associations, oil industry in Iran and ghosts of the printer feeders.

The publication is made in the framework of The Building Institute, an experimental organisation aiming to strengthen the position of femmes builders in the domain of technical construction work. Amanda brings together literary texts by Maria Toumazou, Samantha McCulloch, Sepideh Karami and Madeleine Morley, combining fiction stories with visual artwork. 

Olga Micińska is a visual artist currently living in Amsterdam. Graduated from the MA Art Praxis program at the Dutch Art Institute and holds an MFA in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Also trained as a woodworker, collaborates with craft studios of various domains. Recently she has initiated The Building Institute.

The Building Institute (TBI) is an experimental platform aiming to emancipate the undermined knowledges dwelling in the craft domains, and to unpack diverse questions related to technology and the means of production. TBI combines art’s speculative competences with the grounded practice of manual labor, manifesting its objectives through educational activities, exhibitions, and publications.

The fruit of a long-term project, this artist's book focuses on the written word and language in Jean-Michel Wicker's work.

Since the 1990s, the work of French artist Jean-Michel Wicker (born 1970 in Riedisheim, lives and works in Berlin) has focused on all forms of production, including publishing, typography, performance, and gardening. Wicker is the founder of the publishing houses Le edizioni della luna, Nice, Le edizioni della china, Berlin, and Ballabella papers, Berlin. His recent solo exhibitions include Edouard Montassut, Paris (2017), Bergen Kunsthall (2015), Sandy Brown, Berlin (2015), Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart (2015), Cubitt, London (2014), New Theater, Berlin (2014), Artists Space, New York (2013), Kunsthalle Bern (2012), and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2010). He has also exhibited in group shows, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2011), and Kunsthalle Zürich (2011).

"Portrait of the Artist as a Writer" is a collection of short stories, quotes and drawings about dinosaurs, gay lesbians and how to lose a joke at the lake.

Risoprinted in pumpkin and purple, perfect binding with glue, first edition of 300, Berlin 2022.

The title COMFORT 7/32/00 refers to a note I found on the street one day, that became a portal into a state of mind or a particular time, although the time was out of date or imagined, foating in between past, present and future. The book is a journey through this imagined place, where vision oscillates between perception and mechanics, where objects and materials are in permanent state of melting or intersecting.

Published August 2020.