FORMER WEST: Art and the Contemporary after 1989, BAK/MIT Press, 2016

I worked as copy editor on this crucial reference book for post-Cold War art and politics, Former West: Art and the Contemporary after 1989.

What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? After the tripartite division of the world into first, second, and third has been superseded? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” like its supposed counterpart, the “former East”?

Released 10 March 2017, the publication is the culmination of an eight-year research project (2008-16) of the same name initiated and developed by BAK (basis voor actuele kunst), Utrecht, The Netherlands.

[Shelly Silver, Former East/Former West, 1994. German with English subtitles, 16 mm transfer to video, 62 min]

Edited by Maria Hlavajova and Simon Sheikh, the volume includes contributions by: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, Eyal Weizman.



Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836

For more information and to purchase: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/former-west

Thanks go to Maria Hlavajova, contributing editor Tom Clark for his generosity, and especially to managing editor Wietske Maas for her superb organisation and communication. Thanks, too, to all the writers for their amazing ideas.