How practices that enact the art of constructing open secrets in markets can be mobilized to unfold magic making.

Curating has evolved into much more than creating interesting exhibitions, promoting artists, and selling artwork. Art worlds have fused with business worlds and transformed capitalism from the inside out. To “curate capitalism” implies new ways of management that go far beyond the simple commercialization of art and artist.

Economic Ekphrasis proposes a new model for arts-based business education. Using the Stockholm-wide exhibition “Standard Length of a Miracle” by conceptual artist duo Goldin+Senneby as a case study, the book rethinks relevant business studies with art created inside the back-office realities of financialized capitalism.

Can objects be traumatized? How does the commercial value of an art object relate to its aesthetic qualities? How do objects interact? These are some of the questions addressed by Graham Harman, the originator of object-oriented philosophy and a central figure of the Speculative Realism school of thought in contemporary philosophy.

Translated into English for the first time, The Black City is a portrait of New York written by Hubert Fichte between 1978 and 1980. Fichte researched the city as the center of the African diaspora, conducting interviews and composing essays about syncretism in culture and the arts, material living conditions in the city, and political and individual struggles based on race, class, and sexuality. 

A compendium of essays, scripts, poems, and proposals, in relation to a Spectator: was compiled by Studio for Propositional Cinema—an anonymous artist collective founded in 2013—for their eponymous exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover. The book investigates notions of the script, staging, and the conditions of the exhibition itself.

In 1992, Helke Bayrle began videotaping the installation of each exhibition at the Portikus exhibition space. These videos form a remarkable and intimate archive of the storied Frankfurt contemporary art institution and the artists who have worked within it. This publication pays tribute to Bayrle’s extraordinary work, through a comprehensive timeline, video stills, and statements by past and current directors and curators.

What role does historiography play in the formation of the present? How does contemporary experience inform the commemoration of historical events or lack thereof? Minouk Lim explores history in the present tense—its media representation, collective memory, ritual, and trauma—through her exhibition, publication, and broadcasting station United Paradox.