Novel
AC Gebbers | Bibliothekswohnung
Berlin

Franz West
Onkel Sessel, 2000
metal, textile
87 x 64 x 58 cm

Alastair MacKinven, ‘i / no man’, 2008

Novel at Anna-Catharina Gebbers Bibliothekswohnung

Publication launch, event and screenings
Curated Alun Rowlands & Matt Williams
Preview 31 October, 1400 -1800 hrs
1 – 3 November, 1200 – 1800 hrs

AC Gebbers Bibliothekswohnung
Ziegelstr. 2, Apt. #06.03, 10117 Berlin-Mitte

Newspaper format publication
Designed by James Langdon

EL ARAKAWA, EDWIN BURDIS, MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOVICZ, STEVE CLAYDON, HENRY FLYNT, MEGAN FRASER, ANNA-CATHARINA GEBBERS/ LUIS JACOB, BARRY MacGREGOR JOHNSON, MICHAEL KREBBER, SAM LEWITT, SCOTT LYALL, ALASTAIR MacKINVEN, RH QUAYTMAN, HANNAH SAWTEL, MARK VON SCHLEGELL, MICHAEL STEVENSON / JAN VERWOERT, and JOSEF STRAU

Novel draws together artists writing, texts and poetry that oscillate between modes of fiction and criticism. A cacophony of voices, that is the primary condition of writing, seek to break the habitual methods of representation and productions of subjectivity. Disconnected from any unitary theme these texts place writing as a core material of a number of artists exploring language as a force. This fiction as force is no longer defined by what is said, even less by what makes it a signifying thing, but by what causes it to move, to flow and to erupt. Here, writing is an apparatus for knowledge capture, informed by theory, film, politics and storytelling; writing as parallel practice, different, tangential; writing as political fiction; writing as another adventure, renegotiating unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects – that might offer points of departure. Amidst the insinuated narratives and materialised visions there is a concern for writing and the impossibility of fiction which is at stake. Novel asks us to think of writing as something distinct from information, as at least one realm of cultural production that is exempt from the encompassing obligation to communicate.

The launch event, readings and screenings will be staged at Anna-Catharina Gebbers |Bibliothekswohnung, library and project space for art exhibition, performance art, literary and philosophical readings. A former GDR apartment off Berlin-Mitte’s Friedrichstrasse, the apartment will be the loci for reading, furnished with artworks and related films that augment the fictioning of a scenario. This scenario will be the summation of multiple experiences and anxieties that demands new forms of critical fiction. These new strategies require an active protagonist, a polymath who can amalgamate them with fluency. Fiction is not made up, it is based on everything we can learn or use; a zone in which all sources of knowledge are valid.

Exhibiting Artists

ALASTAIR MacKINVEN//
RUPERT NORFOLK//
HANNA SCHWARZ//
CHEYNEY THOMPSON//
FRANZ WEST//

Film Screening

DUNCAN CAMPBELL//
LUKE FOWLER & KOSTEN KOPER//
MEGAN FRASER//
SASCHA HAHN//
JUDITH HOPF & DEBORAH SCHAMONI//
NILS NORMAN & STEPHAN DILLEMUTH//
BERNADETTE CORPORATION//

We would like to thank all of the artists for participating and the following galleries for their kind support; AC Gebbers, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Daniel Buchholz Gallery, Cabinet, Gisela Capitain Gallery, Dicksmith Gallery, Greene Naftali, Hotel, Modern Institute, Christian Nagel Gallery, Croy Nielsen, Overduin and Kite, Reena Spaulings, Sutton Lane, Vilma Gold and Zabludowicz Collection.

“Before starting, before describing the structure of this beautiful, brand-new and yet nostalgically classic journal recently launched in both Berlin and London by Alun Rowlands and Matt Williams, before all of that I have a question buzzing in my mind: do we believe in the existence of a direct relationship between a socio-political situation and cultural development? In other words, to closely approach the central issue: do we believe in the existence of a direct link between our current unstable economic climate and our fast-changing, productionsaturated cultural development? If so, how does it relate to the recent proliferation of printed matters, journals, fanzines, pamphlets and small magazines, which focus on the practice of writing?”

—

Review: Francesco Pedraglio ‘Novel’ MAP #18 Summer 2009

Writing on artistic practice, writing on writing practice and (subsequently and logically) writing as artistic practice; what is the reason, then, (if there is one and if it would be possible to talk about it) under our constant and urgent necessity to engage with different writing techniques, from poetic to analytic, from narrative to experimental? Why does writing seem to be the realm of cultural development that we trust the most?

“

IN WORD SHADOWS
fingers cut from a glove
silver bag of box wine flows
the weather comes inside our clothes
we mouth it
to each other
what we think we know
happens when we blink
To this dark time
we toast
with full mouths
our own cups
open
slowly touch our chins together

Running
like dogs
on the sidewalk
away from empty buses
just missing nothing
the funny spelling
comes over us!
With no word for help
with no word for thank
with no word for you
we’re not sure
where the lipstick came from
which covers us now
and the flag
that has no top or bottom.
Sisters and brothers and brothers and sisters and sisters
chime in
to the score of the foam
left high on bank walls
chime in
to double trouble
the cloud in scaffolding
growing to climb
shirtless
with kickball under the shirt set loose
and styrofoam destroyed in joy over
piss stinking M.C. Escher staircases
finger snaps are where we walk

And in the echo is terror
and down the alley the light we block
precedes us
and is one body
,Mother of Friends,
we can’t do more right
than wrong
when out of thirst
we tip toe
with fingers find a window
of heat
to pass through a slashed screen
carrying someone
else’s television
our eyes will never see on
Behind the knitted ski word
Is a kiss
With our hand
We will pay to get in

”

— Barry MacGregor Johnston ‘In Word Shadows’, Novel issue 1, p.12-13

Michael Stevenson / Jan Verwoert ‘Fables (extract)’

“

My lecture was a plea for contradictory behaviour in any situation that is set up in such a way as to be contradictory or disadvantageous from the outset. I was not talking about pictures or painting that had themes of this kind, nor about behaviour that was recognizably contradictory, but about artists who try to act invisibly or alternatively about how to identify such attitudes or actions.

Among my illustrations are numerous book covers and many of them are from the literature of the Dandyism. For that reason I have decided to print in the appendix Oswald Wiener’s booklist, which I knew from ‘Dandyism I/II’, the seminar that he conducted together with Friedrich Wolfram Heubach at the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts in 2000/2001. It has been revised and brought up to date by him. Markus Ziegler produced the graphic design for the book. The idea for the cover, a spawning sea anemone, a hybrid creature, came from him, as did the title of the book, ‘Alien Hybrid Creatures’.

Dandyism needs neither painting nor art, but a knowledge of Dandyism can be useful for artists. For that reason the book is called Außerirdische Zwitterwesen/Alien Hybrid Creatures. From such formulae the most gruesome and the most harmless actions and things can arise. Malice of course need not be splendid and magnificent.

”

— Extract from ‘Puberty in Painting’ Michael Krebber, translated Hugh Rorrison, published in Novel issue 1, p. 3 

Josef Strau ‘Bad Conscience’

Sam Lewitt

Barry MacGregor Johnston ‘In Word Shadows’

Marc Camille Chaimowicz ‘Partial Eclipse fifth and sixth section from Café de Reve’

Steven Claydon ‘Osmium & Wolfram’ 2007

colophon

Issue One
Edited Alun Rowlands & Matt Williams//
DesignedJames Langdon//
Newspaper Publication
pp.38
ISBN978-1-906424-07-7

Front Alastair MacKinven//
p.1 Mark von Schlegell In Lovecraft//
p.2 & 36 Megan Fraser Untitled//
p.3 Michael Krebber Puberty in Painting//
p.4-5 Hannah Sawtell Untitled Text//
p.6 Josef Strau Bad Conscience//
p.7 Edwin Burdis Escapism (it is a virtue not a vice)//
p.8-10 AC Gebbers / Luis Jacob Habitat, habitus and performativity//
p.11 & 31 Marc Camille Chaimowicz Partial Eclipse fifth and sixth section from Café de Reve//
p.12-13 Barry MacGregor Johnston In Word Shadows//
p.14-15 Michael Stevenson / Jan Verwoert Fables (extract)//
p.16-17 Sam Lewitt//
p.18-19 Steven Claydon Osmium and Wolfram//
p.20-24 Scott Lyall Lecture Meant to Accompany the Consumption of a Multiple//
p.25-28 Ei Arakawa interview//
p.29-30 RH Quaytman The Call of the Wind//
p.32-37 Henry Flynt Romance as Illumination//

We would like to thank all of the artists for participating and the following galleries for their kind support; AC Gebbers, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Daniel Buchholz Gallery, Cabinet, Gisela Capitain Gallery, Dicksmith Gallery, Greene Naftali, Hotel, Modern Institute, Christian Nagel Gallery, Croy Nielsen, Overduin and Kite, Reena Spaulings, Sutton Lane, Vilma Gold and Zabludowicz Collection.

NOVEL

Novel draws together artists writing, texts and poetry that oscillate between modes of fiction and criticism. Disconnected from any unitary theme these texts coalesce around writing as a core material for artists that traverse between script and transcript.

Novel is distributed through events, readings and screenings which are staged at venues that become the loci for reading; curated with artworks and related films that augment the fictioning of a scenario. This scenario will be the summation of multiple experiences and anxieties that demands new forms of critical fiction. These new strategies require an active protagonist, a polymath who can amalgamate them with fluency. Fiction is not made up, it is based on everything we can learn or use; a zone in which all sources of knowledge are valid.