Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 6 - 8 pm

Image: Noa Yafe, Red Star, 2016-17. Photo by Gal Deren.

Slought is pleased to announce The Kids Want Communism, a public conversation exploring the legacies and meaning of communism today. The event will feature writers and scholars including Marissa Brostoff, Kristen Ghodsee, Malcolm Harris, and Joshua Simon, and marks the publication of the book  Being Together Precedes Being: A Textbook for The Kids Want Communism  (Archive Books), copies of which will be available courtesy of Ulises, and is presented in partnership with Philly Socialists.

Specters are haunting the globe—the specters of anticommunism. From the European Union and its erosion to the disastrous “war on terror” and the destruction of the welfare state; from Wahhabism to neoliberalism; from debt economy to privatization; from game theory and disruptive innovation to cybernetics, and the surveillance of entertainment devices - all these anticommunisms are fighting one another, and collectively haunting us. What began with the implosion of real existing socialism almost thirty years ago comes full circle with the current collapse of the neoliberal arrangements that were then constituted.

The discussion will consider communist legacies and knowledge inside and outside of real-existing socialism, to address some urgent questions facing us today: automation and reproductive labor, human capital and algorithmic management, environmental capitalist reform and planning for zero growth. From the Cold War to Global Warming, from the Soviet Block to Blockchain technology, from the Space Race to Space X, the word communism stands again as the radical opposition for exploitation and inequality.

Being Together Precedes Being offers itself as a text book for The Kids Want Communism project, which was initiated towards the 99th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 as a series of exhibitions, symposiums and conferences, screening programs, publications and a summer camp around the world. In this textbook, communism does not merely describe an “us versus them” relation, but also offers that we are becoming the future. This trajectory of communism runs parallel to us at every single moment and its guiding principle is that being together precedes being.

This event is free and open to the public. 

For more information, please visit here.

FB event available here. 

Edited by Joshua Simon

Copies available here. 

Even as global capitalism’s extremes of inequality, violence, nationalism, and imperialism expropriate the lives and futures of most of the planet, hope for another future, one of justice, solidarity, equality, and life, continues to burn. The works collected here not only attest to the fact that the kids want communism. They fuel the desire for communism with new memories of its past and imaginings of what communism can be for us again.

— Jodi Dean, author of The Communist Horizon

We want what we got! This riotous, ravenous collection of communisms past, present and future is what we want and what we got, what we’ve had, what we have, and what we can have again. But the only way to have it is to share it. And the only way to share it is to share it all. So share this amazing book that was brought together to bring together.

— Stefano Harney, co-author with Fred Moten of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study

In the turmoil leading to the October revolution Lenin wrote about the importance of finding a new slogan that will capture the totality of a specific historical situation. “The Kids Want Communism,” the title of the series of exhibitions documented in this volume, may be the appropriate slogan for today. This book brings new passions and joys to the spirit of communism, and reminds us that communism may be the truly human way of being together.

— Noam Yuran, author of What Money Wants: An Economy of Desire

This volume offers so much more than an updated version of Sartre’s famous dictum that existence precedes essence. Combining theory and practice, art and philosophy, politics and aesthetics, it is a resounding call to make communism a thing of the present.

— Bruno Bosteels, author of The Actuality of Communism

Contributions by Bini Adamczak, Odeh Al Ashhab, The New Barbizon Group (Asya Lukin, Natalia Zourabova, Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Zoya Cherkassky) Toy Boy, Diego Castro, Angela Dimitrakaki, Paul Eluard, Max Epstein and Yuri Primenko, FAMU Archives (Piyasiri Gunaratna, Nosratollah Karimi, Nabil Maleh, Krishma Viswanath), Stano Filko, iLiana Fokianaki, Agnes Friedrich and Ivonne Dippmann, Tal Gafny, Jonathan Gold, Irena Haiduk, Nir Harel, Ronny Hardlitz, Raana Harlap, Micah Hesse, Yota Ioannidou, Nikita Kadan, Jakob Kösten, Konstantinos Kotsis, Mati Lahat, V.I Lenin, MAKI Archives, Alelsandr Medvedkin, Ohad Meromi, Olaf Nicolai, Tamar Nissim, Antonis Pittas, Praxis School Archive, Yakov Protazanov, David (Rabino) Rabinovici, Oleksiy Radynski, Yorgos Sapountzis, Joshua Simon, Tereza Stejskalová, Ian Svenonius, Kuba Szreder, Piotr Szulkin, Pelin Tan, The Union of Soviet Artists (Vasil Artamonov, Dominik Forman, Michael Hauser, Alexey Klyuykov, Avděj Ter-Oganjan), Vladimir Vidmar, Vangelis Vlahos, Nicole Wermers, Tony Wood, Noa Yafe, Dana Yoeli and Hila Laviv.

Specters are haunting the globe—the specters of anticommunism. From the European Union and its erosion to the disastrous “war of terror” and the destruction of the welfare state, from Wahhabism to neoliberalism, from debt economy to privatization, from game theory and disruptive innovation to cybernetics and the deployment of computerized surveillance/entertainment devices—all these anticommunisms are fighting one another, and they are now haunting us. What began with the implosion of real existing socialism almost thirty years ago comes full circle with the current collapse of the neoliberal arrangements that were then constituted.

Being Together Precedes Being offers a text book for the project “The Kids Want Communism,” which was initiated towards the 99th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution of October 1917 as a series of exhibitions, symposiums and conferences, screening programs, publications and a summer camp. In this textbook, communism does not merely describe an “us versus them” relation, but also offers that we are becoming the future. This trajectory of communism runs parallel to us at every single moment and its guiding principle is that being together precedes being.

Also see here. 

Thursday, March 21, 7pm

Join the first gathering of Communists Anonymous in Philadelphia, a celebration of the constitutive book “Solution 275–294: Communists Anonymous” (edited by Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon, Sternberg Press, 2017), with Hammam Aldouri, Mark Johnson, Pavel Khazanov, Kate Kraczon, Marina McDougall Vella, Joshua Simon, Helen Stuhr-Rommereim, and everyone interested in sharing their relations to communisms present, past, and future.

The members of Communists Anonymous (COMA) suffer from an incurable belief in communism. They don’t share any particular school, but they do share an extreme sense of empathy and justice, and therefore detest more or less any form of private property. Because there is currently no communist state in existence, acting out their passion would hopelessly distress them, at best curbing and stabilizing the brutalities of capitalist society.

COMA is meant to evolve into a worldwide cluster of self-help groups where incurable communists can discuss their recent temptations and relapses in the futile fight against capitalism. COMA’s “fearless moral inventory” challenges the historical manifestations of communism as being substantially incomplete in thought and practice and places communism again where it originates—in the realm of fiction. COMA believes that the most vital dialectics in human history are at play in fiction contradicting reality. Only as fiction can communism manifest itself again beyond doubt.

“Solution 275–294 Communists Anonymous,” Ingo Niermann, Joshua Simon (Eds.) Contributions by Santiago Alba Rico, Heather Anderson, Ann Cotten, Fiona Duncan, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Boris Groys, Elfriede Jelinek, Georgy Mamedov and Oksana Shatalova, Metahaven, Momus, Ingo Niermann, David Pearce, Frank Ruda, Georgia Sagri, Joshua Simon, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Timotheus Vermeulen

See the Facebook event here. 

Ulises  
31 E Columbia Ave  
Philadelphia, PA 19125  

http://www.ulises.us/

Edited by Joshua Simon. Published by Archive Books. 

Link to PDF preview here.

Specters are haunting the globe—the specters of anticommunism. From the European Union and its erosion to the disastrous “war of terror” and the destruction of the welfare state, from Wahhabism to neoliberalism, from debt economy to privatization, from game theory and disruptive innovation to cybernetics and the deployment of computerized surveillance/entertainment devices - all these anticommunisms are fighting one another, and they are now haunting us. What began with the implosion of real existing socialism almost thirty years ago comes full circle with the current collapse of the neoliberal arrangements that were then constituted. 

Being Together Precedes Being offers a text book for “The Kids Want Communism,” which was initiated towards the 99th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution of October 1917 as a series of exhibitions, symposiums and conferences, screening programs, publications and a summer camp. In this textbook, communism does not merely describe an “us versus them” relation, but also offers that we are becoming the future. This trajectory of communism runs parallel to us at every single moment and its guiding principle is that beingtogether precedes being.

Even as global capitalism’s extremes of inequality, violence, nationalism, and imperialism expropriate the lives and futures of most of the planet, hope for another future, one of justice, solidarity, equality, and life, continues to burn. The works collected here not only attest to the fact that the kids want communism. They fuel the desire for communism with new memories of its past and imaginings of what communism can be for us again.

— Jodi Dean, author of The Communist Horizon

We want what we got! This riotous, ravenous collection of communisms past, present and future is what we want and what we got, what we’ve had, what we have, and what we can have again. But the only way to have it is to share it. And the only way to share it is to share it all. So share this amazing book that was brought together to bring together.

— Stefano Harney, co-author with Fred Moten of The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study 

In the turmoil leading to the October revolution Lenin wrote about the importance of finding a new slogan that will capture the totality of a specific historical situation. “The Kids Want Communism,” the title of the series of exhibitions documented in this volume, may be the appropriate slogan for today. This book brings new passions and joys to the spirit of communism, and reminds us that communism may be the truly human way of being together.

— Noam Yuran, author of What Money Wants: An Economy of Desire

This volume offers so much more than an updated version of Sartre’s famous dictum that existence precedes essence. Combining theory and practice, art and philosophy, politics and aesthetics, it is a resounding call to make communism a thing of the present.

— Bruno Bosteels, author of The Actuality of Communism

Bini Adamczak, Odeh Al Ashhab, The New Barbizon Group (Asya Lukin, Natalia Zourabova, Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Zoya Cherkassky), Toy Boy, Diego Castro, Angela Dimitrakaki, Paul Eluard, Max Epstein and Yuri Primenko, FAMU Archives (Piyasiri Gunaratna, Nosratollah Karimi, Nabil Maleh, Krishma Viswanath), Stano Filko, iLiana Fokianaki, Agnes Friedrich and Ivonne Dippmann, Tal Gafny, Jonathan Gold, Irena Haiduk, Nir Harel, Ronny Hardlitz, Raana Harlap, Micah Hesse, Yota Ioannidou, Nikita Kadan, Jakob Kösten, Konstantinos Kotsis, Mati Lahat, V.I Lenin, MAKI Archives, Alelsandr Medvedkin, Ohad Meromi, Olaf Nicolai, Tamar Nissim, Antonis Pittas, Praxis School Archive, Yakov Protazanov, David (Rabino) Rabinovici, Oleksiy Radynski, Yorgos Sapountzis, Joshua Simon, Tereza Stejskalová, Ian Svenonius, Kuba Szreder, Piotr Szulkin, Pelin Tan, The Union of Soviet Artists (Vasil Artamonov, Dominik Forman, Michael Hauser, Alexey Klyuykov, Avděj Ter-Oganjan), Vladimir Vidmar, Vangelis Vlahos, Nicole Wermers, Tony Wood, Noa Yafe, Dana Yoeli and Hila Laviv. 

Please join us on Wednesday, November 7 at 7pm at e-flux for the first gathering of Communists Anonymous in New York, and a celebration of the constitutive book Solution 275–294: Communists Anonymous (Sternberg Press, 2017) with editors Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon; contributing authors Heather Anderson, Fiona Duncan, Anthony Dunne, and Alexander Tarakhovsky; and guests Chiara Bottici, Tali Keren, Ohad Meromi, McKenzie Wark, and Nechama Winston.

Communists Anonymous:
First gathering in New York
Wednesday, November 7, 7pm

e-flux
311 E Broadway
New York, NY 10002

The members of Communists Anonymous (COMA) suffer from an incurable belief in communism. They don’t share any particular school, but they do share an extreme sense of empathy and justice, and therefore detest more or less any form of private property. Because there is currently no communist state in existence, acting out their passion would hopelessly distress them, at best curbing and stabilizing the brutalities of capitalist society.

COMA is meant to evolve into a worldwide cluster of self-help groups where incurable communists can discuss their recent temptations and relapses in the futile fight against capitalism. COMA’s “fearless moral inventory” challenges the historical manifestations of communism as being substantially incomplete in thought and practice and places communism again where it originates—in the realm of fiction. COMA believes that the most vital dialectics in human history are at play in fiction contradicting reality. Only as fiction can communism manifest itself again beyond doubt.

We look forward to seeing you on East Broadway. Please visit here for more information, or contact program@e-flux.com.

Photo credit: Ingo Niermann

Also check out coverage of the COMA event in NY by Gregory Sholette (@gregsholette) here.

Please also see here and here.  

Ana Texeira Pinto on “Parapolitics: Freedom and the Cold War,” Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; and “The Kids Want Communism,” Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin

“Dirty words. We all use them, but there are some that we never use, because their meaning is too littered with painful associations and potential shame. But what about words that are not just tainted with the stain of history, but whose use in the present feels outmoded or undesirable? Like Cold War and Communism?

Accordingly, Ana Pinto comments on two recent exhibitions in Berlin that dared to speak those names, and wonders if there is anything to the unfashionableness of these terms today. Art has always been a well-spring of the forgotten and outmoded, but is it up to this difficult task?”

See here for the full review.

— Issue No. 109 of Texte zur Kunst is Kunst ohne Regeln? / Art without Rules?

Texte zur Kunst #109. Photo: Nimrod Kamer.

Also see here.

By Sarrita Hunn

Source: EXBERLINER

Contemporary artists have their say on the centennial in Israeli exhibition The Kids Want Communism.

“Started as an exhibition series at Israel’s Museums of Bat Yam last year, The Kids Want Communism arrived at Kreuzberg’s Kunstraum Bethanien in September courtesy of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. With works by 20 artists, many of them Israeli-based, it’s conceived as an opportunity to discuss socialism in the 20th century along new dialectical horizons.

Curator Joshua Simon states: “Everywhere capitalism is shown, it always brings communism as an option for its radical denial.” However, this engaging and thought-provoking exhibition does not just offer an “us against them” ideology, but considers socialism as an alternative axis that prioritizes all forms of “being together”. In one literal example, New Barbizon, a female collective born and raised in the Soviet Union, presents current-day paintings depicting their childhoods alongside original paintings they made as children.

The exhibition as a whole spans vaster territory, from Olaf Nicolai’s Communist Manifesto illustrated via step-by-step yoga instructions to Ohad Meromi’s “Structure for Rest”, an IKEA-like modular bunk bed built for “daydreaming other worlds”.

Particularly noteworthy is Micah Hesse’s 3D video Types of Stereo, which invites us to think beyond (binocular) human vision itself. Israel’s own history with communism doesn’t go unremarked on, with historical documents from the communist Jewish-Arab Brotherhood and its early struggle against Israel-Palestine ethnic segregation. Join in on the celebration on November 7 with readings and a party!”

Ingo Niermann, Joshua Simon (Eds.)

Sternberg Press 

Contributions by Santiago Alba Rico, Heather Anderson, Ann Cotten, Fiona Duncan, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Boris Groys, Elfriede Jelinek, Georgy Mamedov and Oksana Shatalova, Metahaven, Momus, Ingo Niermann, David Pearce, Frank Ruda, Georgia Sagri, Joshua Simon, Alexander Tarakhovsky, Timotheus Vermeulen
 
The members of Communists Anonymous (COMA) share an extreme sense of empathy and justice, and therefore detest more or less any form of private property. COMA members restrain themselves from any effort to overcome capitalism before there is a new convincing model at hand of how to actually implement communism. The speculative self-help of COMA understands the historical incarnations of communism as substantially incomplete in thought and practice, and places communism where it originated—in the realm of fiction. Only as fiction can communism manifest itself again beyond doubt.  

Solution 275–294: Communists Anonymous is a document of some imageries of communism and a testament to the current predicament of our political imagination. Atomized, privatized, and deprived of any infrastructure for solidarity—without any internationalist project, with moralizations compensating for the disappearance of political organization, with micro-politics replacing macro-politics—communists can only be anonymous in this world of ours. Edited by writer Ingo Niermann and curator Joshua Simon, this collection of essays and stories—written from the fields of art, literature, law, philosophy, activism, design, and science—proposes resolutions to current social contradictions, covering topics such as bacteria, bliss, immortality, queerness, interculturality, poetry, transportation, childhood and motherhood, and all-encompassing sensual love.  

Design by Zak Group
December 2017, English

See more here.

Also see here and here for the Solution: Communism symposia that took place earlier this year.

Photos below from the event hosted by Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.

Veranstaltung: Dienstag, 07. November 2017, ab 19 Uhr

See more info here.

Finissage and party for the exhibition series The Kids Want Communism and 100 years to the October revolution! ☭

See more here.

Photos below by Ariel Blitz:

12 earths: Conversation between curator Joshua Simon and artist Michael Jones Mckean

12 earths: Conversation between curator Joshua Simon and artist Michael Jones Mckean

12 earths: Conversation between curator Joshua Simon and artist Michael Jones Mckean

A Hole in the roof: Tal Gafny on Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, Atidim, MoBY and the Soviet Cosmos

A Hole in the roof: Tal Gafny on Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, Atidim, MoBY and the Soviet Cosmos

A Hole in the roof: Tal Gafny on Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, Atidim, MoBY and the Soviet Cosmos

A Hole in the roof: Tal Gafny on Ilya Kabakov’s The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment, Atidim, MoBY and the Soviet Cosmos

Bat Galim: Conversation between artists Michal Helfman and Tal Gafny

Artists Ivonne Dippman and Agnes Friedrich : The Kids Want Communism collection fashion show

Artists Ivonne Dippman and Agnes Friedrich : The Kids Want Communism collection fashion show

“Two, One, Zero”: sound work + DJ set by Netaly Aylon

“Two, One, Zero”: sound work + DJ set by Netaly Aylon