Marking a symbolic hundred years since Malevich painted his iconic Black Square, this publication investigates the continued potential of abstract art as a disruptive, iconoclastic or radical practice. Taking the form of a pastiche and integrating fictional elements within a theoretical framework, this book offers an experience of contextual abstraction, while using the specific case of abstract painting today to reflect on the role of narrative constructions in our experience of contemporary art. Twelve authors and six artists respond to a theoretical proposal put forth by the Belgian artist and curator Ludovik Vermeersch. Vermeersch suggests that in order to allow paintings to successfully "perform" their abstraction, one has to subvert the narrative framework they operate in. The book is a carefully composed attempt – a script, in fact – to do exactly that. Edited by Ludovik Vermeersch with Zoë De Luca, Emily Doucet. Published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle (Ghent).
304 pages, 23 x 16.5 cm, softcover, MER. Paper Kunsthalle (Ghent).