I’m finally on the mend from an illness I picked up in Paris a few weeks ago. Lots to catch up on not least the first stirrings of co-ordinated action against the baleful Coalition government hear in the UK. I suspect that there will be much more to report in future weeks. In the meanwhile:
1) I have just finished a text for Manifesta 8, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art which is being held in Murcia, Spain. I was commissioned to produce a piece of written work for Fay Nicolson’s Newspaper Project. A major remit of the project was to engage with some facet of the local environment and I took the opportunity to write a speculative essay on place and memory with a particular focus on local Jewish history. The essay has been translated into Spanish and will appear in the regional daily La Verdad on Sunday.
2) I’m finally catching up with a host of excellent shows and openings here in Nottingham. I attended the opening of “Revolution on Paper: Mexican Prints, 1910-1960″ at the Djanogly Gallery yesterday evening. The exhibition (a touring show from the British Museum) features a remarkable collection of prints produced in the wake of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. It highlights the work of three of the most important Mexican artists to emerge during that period: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The show is a telling reminder of the power of various vernacular modernisms during the early half of the 20th century and speaks to the enduring capacity of art to produce an ‘image-politics’ in its own name. The Nottingham Sideshow also continues its successful run. There are lots of exciting events to look forward to in coming weeks including the LAB launch on November 25th and YH 485′s Conversational Library on the 28th of November. YH 485′s bookmobile blog is worth checking out as well.
3) I’ve just discovered the Backdoor Broadcasting Company website which is mobile audio webcasting service. They host an excellent archive of academic broadcasts. All the papers from the recent Birkbeck “Why Humanities” conference can be downloaded here. There is also an interesting paper by Antonia Birnbaum on “The Invention of Communism in Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts.”
4) I will be posting a separate entry on some recent squatting news including the 20th anniversary of the violent eviction of the Mainzer Strasse squatters in Berlin.