There stands a lonely pine-tree
In the north, on a barren heights;
…
He dreameth of a palm-tree
Far in the sunrise-land,
[1.]
This poem by Heinrich Heine articulates the well-know northerner’s longing for the South and the sun, particularly pronounced among the Romantics. However, read today, the sentiment that strikes us most acutely is the obvious inability of the pine tree, literally rooted on its spot, to move. This physical impossibility to move, to travel to other countries, to different climates, or even between cities, was brutally imposed upon us over last two years with varying intensity. We, the art professionals, are accustomed to a high level of international mobility. And so much of what artists do depends on physical objects traveling between places, often in different countries, and usually requires people to travel along with them. Indeed, Rosalind Krauss wrote that mobility, or sitelessness in her word, is one of essential conditions of modern art, especially for sculptures. So being grounded by the pandemic has been quite a shock. But there is no better moment to reflect on something than when we are deprived of it, or at least when it is significantly curtailed. So here is the first issue of Agency, dedicated to the theme of travel.
Agency is a new publishing initiative founded by Vienna-based artists Andrés Ramírez Gaviria, Elisabeth Kihlström and Yuki Higashino.
As is often the case with collective projects, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact moment of their inception. The concept for this publication grew slowly during conversations about what we perceived was a general feeling of societal stagnation imposed by the pandemic.
At the end of 2020, in the midst of an ever-expanding precarious cultural environment, where both private and public institutions were unsure of their futures, we felt a strong need to work collectively. Yet hampered by the lack of cultural opportunities, we asked ourselves: How can we work collaboratively when most of the contexts in which we normally operate are paused indefinitely?
We are motivated by the desire to gain some degree of control in how and when our works go out into the world and this publication project is our first attempt at recapturing that small measure of agency. We opted for the format of a journal as our first effort because the pandemic meant that for some time, books were the only form through which we could physically experience art, as well as being a material format that could travel without too many difficulties. Although, when we initially conceived this project in the autumn of 2020, we did not think we would still be heavily affected by the pandemic in 2022.
Additionally, the history of modernist journals offered us many helpful principles for how to put together a magazine edited by artists. In developing this project, we examined examples such as G published by Hans Richter or Mavo edited by Tomoyoshi Murayama. And all three of us do love books as artifacts.
Our chief concern is to publish writing and works for printed pages by artists. We will also publish contributions by practitioners of other artistic disciplines, for instance musicians or architects, in future issues. Our focus is to offer these pages to artists without any mediation by others, such as critics, curators and historians, and if they so choose, the contributors can play these mediating roles themselves. So in this issue, there is a piece of art criticism by an artist, and an attempt at translation by another. When we do approach art writers, it is only when their outputs include creative writing, say poetry, fiction or the personal essay.
Our process of selecting contributors, beyond this broad guideline, is less straightforward. Essentially, we will strive to choose those who via their contributions can carry on interesting and intriguing conversations, while still highlighting the different idiosyncrasies of style, tone, and even the subject matter of each contribution.
The criteria for our selections can be best summarized in Brian Dillon’s assertion when (channeling Friedrich Schlegel): “Wit is the art of bringing unlikely things or ideas together in such a way that the scandal or shock of their proximity arrives alongside a conviction that they have always belonged together.” [2.]
Noting Dillon's description of wit once again, “In the aesthetic theory of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, wit is opposed to judgment, which is the skill of making fine distinctions.” In other words, in our publication, we will strive for selections that, while compelling, are also arrived at intuitively rather than just rationally.
Given the circumstance under which this project was developed, the theme of “travel” came quite naturally.
The contributors were asked to respond to the theme in any way the saw fit. Johan Österholm narrates the remarkable story, both cosmic and human, around Isaac Newton’s apple. Lorna Bauer shared examples of her photographic works taken in different locations. Andrés Ramírez Gaviria narrates a transitional moment in the life of Samuel Morse from a frustrated artist to the inventor of Morse code. Gregor Eldarb produced a graphic and humorous response to the theme by gathering historical materials related to the notion of travel. Elisabeth Kihlström contributed pictures from her photographic series based on her grandmother’s experience of displacement during the Second World War. Mladen Bizumic examined the function of mobility in the practice of Walead Beshty. Yuki Higashino translated poems by Hosai Ozaki, a Japanese modernist poet whose life was marked by the constant wandering and poverty. Laura August recounts her experience of moving to rural New Mexico in the midst of a pandemic. And Julien Bismuth created a new piece using photographs taken during his stay in Brazil. In addition, we are republishing “Les Goddesses” by Moyra Davey, a sprawling essay that shifts between travels by historical figures and her own personal journeys.
To mitigate some of the costs of an artist-run publication such as ours, and promoting a more personal economy of exchange, we will offer our contributors a limited edition artwork in return for their contributions.
The first of these, produced by Andrés Ramírez Gaviria, is a print the image of which depicts radio waves from Quasar J1427+3312 that were emitted when the universe was still in its infancy and then steadily traveled 12.7 billion light years to reach Earth.
This work is a remnant of a previous project realized between 2009 and 2012, entitled Sources wherein radio signals from astronomical objects were digitized and translated into a series of two-dimensional images, a light installation, and a sound performance.
Given the theme of our first issue, this representation of a faint signal that traveled from the outer reaches of the universe to reach us here on Earth, seems remarkably fitting.
Lastly, the graphic design was done by Elisabeth Kihlström. Again, we wanted to keep the control of how our works are presented, and decided to keep the decisions on the appearance of this publication in-house so as to explore how to have a degree of agency in our output.
[1.]Heine, Heinrich. Heinrich Heine Poems & Ballads, translated by Emma Lazarus. Hartsdale House, 1947.
[2.]Dillon, Brian. Essayism, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017.