From February 12 to March 6, 2022, Pure Fiction presented an exhibition and performance program at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne titled Shifting Theater: Sibyl’s Mouths. The starting point was a collective reading of Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, in which the narrator discovers a collection of scribbled oak leaves scattered in a cave outside Naples.

Contributions by Rosa Aiello, Gerry Bibby, Coleman Collins, Ayanna Dozier, Annie Ernaux, Amelia Groom, Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Ellen Yeon Kim, Bitsy Knox, Dan Kwon, Erika Landström, Enad Marouf, Katrin Mayer, Aislinn McNamara, Kamila & Jasmina Metwaly, Luzie Meyer, Vera Palme, Theresa Patzschke, Georgia Sagri, Mahsa Saloor, Elif Saydam, Mark von Schlegell, Simon Speiser, Elaine Tam, C.S. Tolan, Mikhail Wassmer, Anna Zacharoff.

Produced on the occasion of the group exhibition Der Stand der Dinge,  29 October–23 December, 1994 at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, curated by Udo Kittelmann.

Including artists Lawrence Carroll, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Urs Frei, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Martin Kippenberger, Matthew McCaslin, Thom Merrik, Laurie Parsons, Joe Scanlan, Andreas Techler, Rikrit Tiravanija, Birgit Werres and Erwin Wurm.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Eduardo Paolozzi: Work in Progress at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, 19 October–11 September, 1979.

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was one of the most innovative and irreverent artists of the 20th century. Considered the ‘godfather of Pop Art’, his collages, sculptures and prints challenged artistic convention, from the 1950s through to the Swinging Sixties and advent of ‘Cool Britannia’ in the 1990s.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

Produced on the occasion of Jutta Koether’s exhibition Fantasia Colonia at the Kölnischer Kunsteverin, Köln 26 May–13 August, 2006 and Kunsthalle Bern, 19 January–11 March, 2007.

Texts by Diedrich Diederichsen, Isabelle Graw, Martin Prinzhorn, Michael Kerkmann and a conversation with Jutta Koether, Sam Lewitt and Eileen Quinlan.

Bob Nickas’ review of the Kölnischer Kunsteverin exhibition can be found here.

Adapted from writings by artists and critics appearing in magazines, catalogs, and other recent publications, The Auratic Narrative was conceived by Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda as a framing device for their exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in 2019. The text-as-artwork offers a dramatic account of an unnamed artist’s ambivalence toward their professional milieu. Here the narrative is presented in its entirety along with bibliographical notes and an introduction by artist and writer Ariane Müller. Photographic documentation of the exhibition—the first survey of the artists’ collaborative practice—accompanies the work. Taken together, word and image chart a course through the show and the artists’ oeuvre.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition Univerzálne Futurologické Operácie at Kölnischer Kunstverein 19&nbspJuly–21&nbspSeptember, 2003.

Július Koller (1939–2007) was one of the most important Eastern European artists working since the 1960s. From the mid-1960s he designed Antihappenings and Antipictures, creating a playfully ironic oeuvre that combined a Dadaist spirit with radical-skeptical stance. Koller painted object-images in white latex and pictures of question marks that became the universal symbol of his critical view of everyday life and reality. Koller saw tennis and table tennis as participatory art forms and here too he combined sport with political statement by demanding that the rules of the game and fair play be adhered to—as the basis of all social action. After the Prague Spring was put down, Koller began his U.F.O.naut series that challenged reality with “cultural situations” and utopias of a new, cosmohumanistic culture and future.

More on Július Koller can be found here.