Kodwo Eshun – författare

"The point of departure for the book Black Ark with Lee “Scratch” Perry (1936–2021),a Jamaican musical and visual artist who was based in Switzerland, is a detailedinventory of photographs and writings (Spring 2021) from the Black Ark Studios inKingston, Jamaica, where Lee produced his music from 1973 on. He was a seminalpioneer of dub, an electronic subgenre of reggae that uses sampling, looping,remixing, reverb and echoes to create new songs as well as rework and appropriatepre-recorded songs and tracks.Black Ark Studios was one of the cradles of dub. It’s also where Lee “Scratch”Perry’s musical approach found an enduring visual counterpart in the form ofcontinuously evolving mural paintings and drawings as well as shape-shiftingassemblages of records, instruments, found objects, posters, newspaper andmagazine clippings, and appropriated books. The artworks form actual layers uponlayers that are rhizomatically intertwined with the studio building itself as well as withthe furniture inside—and with Perry’s biography and persona.Perry created his very own, dense and eclectic world—a world that is documented inBlack Ark, before it disappears for good: the premises have recently been sold. Thephotographic documentation of the studio was supplemented by efforts to secure andpreserve Perry’s cultural objects as part of a joint project with various culturalinstitutions.Black Ark which reflects the rhythm and layering effects of collage both in its contentand the materials used to craft the book. Perry was involved in the conception of thebook in its early stages. It also interweaves various media and chronologies. The newphotographs of the Black Ark Studios will be juxtaposed with stills from olddocumentaries and archival photos.The idea of a “house” serves as both a working hypothesis and a metaphor. It will bethe starting point and endpoint of various thematic strands, both visual and textual:for example, the book will explore the Black Ark as a “spiritual yard” in the context ofAfrican diaspora, as well as looking into archeomusicological aspects. Furthermore,extended captions by Perry’s biographer will provide the backdrop for a kaleidoscopicpanorama of Perry’s eclectic and ingenious work."

This collection, the first of three new volumes, brings together unpublished and inaccessible writings on counter-cinema, anti-imperialist politics and revolutionary Mexican art. Playful, theoretically rigorous and historically precise, Peter Wollen's writing reinvented criticism as a formally experimental practice indexing the intellectual, political and artistic histories of the twentieth century.Arrows of Desire presents texts on Eisenstein and Godard alongside essays and interviews tracing developments in film and video from the 1970s to the 1990s. It tracks the political energies running through Wollen's filmmaking and writing on global politics and culture in relation to Iran, Indonesia, Palestine, Aden and Zanzibar. Wollen's rereading of the avant-garde extends into expansive projects linking Mexican muralism, Native American abstraction and US abstract expressionism. These essays and proposals demonstrate his commitment to contesting the dominant histories and geographies of modernism and modernity.

What were the conditions of possibility for art and music-making before the era of neoliberal capitalism? What role did punk play in turning artists to experiment with popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s? And why does the art and music of these times seem so newly pertinent to our political present, despite the seeming remoteness of its historical moment? Focusing upon the production of post-punk art, film, music, and publishing, this book offers new perspectives on an overlooked period of cultural activity, and probes the lessons that might be learnt from history for artists and musicians working under 21st century conditions of austerity. Contemporary reflections by those who shaped avant-garde and contestatory culture in the UK, US, Brazil and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. Alongside these are contributions by contemporary artists, curators and scholars that provide critical perspectives on post-punk then, and its generative relation to the aesthetics and politics of cultural production today.

What were the conditions of possibility for art and music-making before the era of neoliberal capitalism? What role did punk play in turning artists to experiment with popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s? And why does the art and music of these times seem so newly pertinent to our political present, despite the seeming remoteness of its historical moment? Focusing upon the production of post-punk art, film, music, and publishing, this book offers new perspectives on an overlooked period of cultural activity, and probes the lessons that might be learnt from history for artists and musicians working under 21st century conditions of austerity. Contemporary reflections by those who shaped avant-garde and contestatory culture in the UK, US, Brazil and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s. Alongside these are contributions by contemporary artists, curators and scholars that provide critical perspectives on post-punk then, and its generative relation to the aesthetics and politics of cultural production today.