David Riff - Böcker

Mikhail Lifshitz is a major forgotten figure in the tradition of Marxist philosophy and art history. A significant influence on Lukács, and the dedicatee of his The Young Hegel, as well as an unsurpassed scholar of Marx and Engels’s writings on art and a lifelong controversialist, Lifshitz’s work dealt with topics as various as the philosophy of Marx and the pop aesthetics of Andy Warhol. The Crisis of Ugliness (originally published in Russian by Iskusstvo, 1968), published here in English for the first time, presented with a detailed introduction by its translator David Riff, is a compact broadside against modernism in the visual arts that resists the dogmatic complacencies of Stalinist aesthetics. Its reentry into English debates on the history of Soviet aesthetics promises to re-orient our sense of the basic coordinates of a Marxist art theory.

Contemporary art, as well as our society in general, is - according to the diagnosis of the interdisciplinary art festival steirischer herbst ’21 - in a dead end. The Way Out of... features texts by international contributors to the festival’s discussion program that outlines ways out of the white cube, failed political art, and an unrestrained digital capitalism, and shows new paths for climate justice, a more critical race theory, and new activists. Accessible and pointedly written, this reader offers rich food for thought on the multiple crises of our times.

The exhibition 'A War in the Distance', the central project of the 2022 edition of steirischer herbst festival, took place at Neue Galerie Graz / Universalmuseum Joanneum and invited visitors to engage with historical and contemporary works directly or indirectly about wars past and present. Confronting lesser-known 19th- and 20th-century paintings from Neue Galerie Graz’s collection with works made by artists today, it uncovered hidden stories from the uncomfortable past. This richly illustrated publication documents this exhibition as well its surrounding festival program. Throughout, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine was ever present, like a filter, impossible to erase or forget.

Negotiating moral gray zonesIn a time of collapsing dichotomies and ethical quandaries, the 2023 edition of steirischer herbst turned to a character-driven storytelling strategy to explore how people navigate gray zones. It created a world populated by a cast of tricksters: a jazz-loving Nazi, an émigré artist, a dissident’s dissident, and a phantasmal heroine. This richly illustrated publication showcases the festival’s four group exhibitions held throughout Graz, including essays on the unusual protagonists, and documents the performances and cabaret shows.

Negotiating moral gray zonesThe discourse of crisis has recently been replaced by the discourse of evil. The crimes and human tragedies in Ukraine or Israel-Palestine have prompted us to point to monstrous, singular evils, yet we forget that evil lives among us. Even in our polarized world, there are vast moral gray zones, that authoritarian forces could weaponize. The 2023 edition of steirischer herbst, Humans and Demons, explored how people negotiate such gray zones, how to confront evil, and how ethical judgments can still be made. In a combination of essays and shorter literary texts, the festival reader further examines the return of radical evil.

Steirischer herbst ’24 explored nationalism, identity, and origins through exhibitions, performances, and essays, exposing the fictions and horrors of fatherland narratives. At a time of resurgent nationalism, steirischer herbst ’24 raised questions about nations, identities, and origins, playfully shedding light on fatherland narratives as well as the horrors that (re)emerge from these fictions. This richly illustrated publication showcases the festival’s central exhibition, which transformed Neue Galerie Graz into an imaginary museum of national complexes and dark fantasies. It also documents the other projects of the 57th edition—including performances and cabaret shows—and features essays on the subjects broached.

Horror Patriae, the 2024 edition of steirischer herbst, tackled nostalgic and imaginary constructions of nationhood, juxtaposing them with neglected and silenced stories of strange encounters, hybrids, and happy miscegenation Nationalism has made a spectacular comeback, with tribalism, particularism, and local pride embraced across the political spectrum. As the post–Cold War order erodes, the nation appears as a refuge, yet it remains an illusory one, an “imagined community,” as Benedict Anderson put it. Combining essays and conversations, the festival's reader further examines the new nationalisms and how to resist them.