Kathrin Böhm Art on the Scale of Life

A comprehensive overview of artist Kathrin Böhm’s multifaceted, deeply collaborative, and durational practice and networks.

This volume critically profiles, contextualizes, and theoretically elaborates the unique practice of the UK-based German artist Kathrin Böhm. Combining visual and textual material, it offers an overview of Böhm’s exceptional modus operandi that is rooted in a highly original artistic synthesis of a range of practices. Over the last three decades, Böhm has expanded the terms of socially engaged ways of working to an unprecedented scale and breadth by producing complex organizational, spatial, visual, and economic forms. These often entail the production of complex infrastructures, manifested via projects such as Culture is a Verb (2018–21), The Centre for Plausible Economies (2018–ongoing), Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks (2014–ongoing) and the Eco-Nomadic School (2010–ongoing). The book follows a major mid-career exhibition at The Showroom, London, in 2021.
 
Offering a significant addition to debates on contemporary art and architecture, social action, and public culture, Kathrin Böhm brings together critical reflections by internationally acclaimed contributors. Spanning a wide range of critical positions and disciplines, these include prominent art theorists such as Dave Beech, Stephen Wright, and Gregory Sholette, and leading curatorial voices such as Elvira Dyangani Ose and Céline Condorelli. Perspectives drawn from radical economic theorist Katherine Gibson and architectural theorist Doina Petrescu complement critical reflections by Mick Wilson and Paul O’Neill. In addition, material derived from Böhm’s international networks and projects provides an in-depth impression of the deeply ingrained collaborative and durational nature of her way of working.
 
Photographic, diagrammatic, and typographical imagery runs through the book, demonstrating the rich visual and spatial languages embedded in Böhm’s work. This visual register of the book is therefore much more than a series of illustrations and acts as a counterpoint to, and extension of, the ideas elaborated in the texts. The book is designed by the innovative design studio An Endless Supply, Bristol, who have previously worked with Böhm on several publications and a website.

Paul O’Neill is a curator, artist, writer, and educator. He is the Artistic Director of PUBLICS, a curatorial agency and event space with a dedicated library and reading room in Helsinki. Previously O’Neill was Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS) at Bard College, New York. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Culture of Curating and the Curating of Culture(s) (MIT Press).
 
Mick Wilson is an artist, educator, and researcher based in Gothenburg and Dublin. He is Professor of Art and Director of Doctoral Studies at Hdk-Valand, University of Gothenburg, and Visiting Professor, at the Art Academy of Latvia (2021–22). Edited volumes include “On the Problem of Exhibition,” parts I–III, PARSE Journal (2021); Public Enquiries: PARK LEK and the Scandinavian Social Turn; the anthologies Curating after the Global: Roadmaps for the Present, How Institutions Think, and The Curatorial Conundrum (all MIT Press) with Paul O’Neill, Lucy Steeds, and Simon Sheikh.