Mousse #86 - Winter 2024

Mousse #86 - Winter 2024

In this issue:

Monograph: In Your Head: The Art of Ali Eyal

Fiction: After the Volcano

Survey: Anna Oppermann

Droste Effect

Subversion of the Subject

Dan Byers, Phung-Tien Phan, and Wendy Vogel discuss the reasons why Anna Oppermann’s (1940–1993) practice still remains relatively unknown. In conversation, they consider the intricate and reflective nature of the work, and fundamental questions about what it means to be a “different” kind of person in the world. Nicholas Tammens, in his examination of the artist’s “ensembles,” delves into Oppermann’s refusal to distinguish between the ontology of artistic experience and the praxis of artistic production.

Monograph: Aleksandra Kasuba’s Spaces for Senses

Inesa Brašiškė pens an essay on the work of Lithuanian-born sculptor Aleksandra Kasuba (1923–2019), who believed in an interdependency between the spaces we inhabit and the way we feel, and who sought strategies to achieve an alternative sensorial activation of the subject.

Thinkers: Samuel R. Delany: Tête-Bêche

To Mark von Schlegell, Samuel R. Delany’s books are more than resonant cultural artifacts as science fiction, packed with pulp characters whose adventures generate a picaresque readability; unlike mainstream literature of their era, they self-reflect on gender boundaries and cultural perspectives, incorporating post-structural theory into their narratives. 

Reprint: “Long Distance Music” (1977) and five text pieces

Lauren Cornell selects “Long Distance Music” (1977) and five other text pieces by Maryanne Amacher (1938–2009), a US composer and audio artist known for her pioneering use of sound, often taking the form of immersive, site-specific installations that pushed the boundaries of perception and acoustics. Anticipating technological advancements in the field via networked culture, these documents evidence Amacher’s aspirations to transcend music’s limitations through collective, remote, yet interconnected music making.

Criticism: A Dance to the Music of Fucked-Up Time

“I suspect that behind every muse once lay a critic, the kind of person who never assumes she is anything in her own right but always a mind in relation to another.” Anahid Nersessian, invited by the column’s overarching editor Kerstin Stakemeier, considers the muse’s critical potential, and amorous poetry’s ability to negotiate criticism’s misogynistic shortcomings.

Curators: Overcoming the Self-Constraints of International Survey Exhibitions 

Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu outline a curatorial approach that privileges historical specificity as a means of understanding and empathizing with complex issues in the present. For the upcoming 8th Yokohama Triennale, the duo aims to reconstruct an imaginary world informed by transcendental concepts, promoting a transnational union of active individuals that challenges the market’s influence on contemporary art. 

Tidbits 

Benoît Piéron by Alex Bennett; Maria Toumazou by Gianmaria Andreetta; Coumba Samba by Camila Palomino; Kiyan Williams by Philipp Hindahl

Visual: Everything at Once

“The pictures you take could be the middle of the story and not the end.” A visual essay by Roe Ethridge, featuring a conversation between the photographer and Stephanie LaCava.

Book reviews by Asad Raza

Mousse is a contemporary art magazine. Established in 2006 and publishing four issues every year. Mousse is made of interviews, conversations, and essays by some of the most important figures in international criticism, visual arts, and curating today, alternated with a series of feature columns.