Writings by the conceptual artist Michael Asherincluding notes, proposals, exhibition statements, and letters to curators and criticsmost published here for the first time.
An examination of a major 1992 installation by a pioneer of site-specific experimentation.
Michael Asher (born in 1943), one of the foremost installation artists of the Conceptual art period, is a founder of site-specific practice. Considered a progenitor of institutional critique, he spearheaded the creation of artworks imbued with a self-conscious awareness of their dependence on the conditions of their exhibition context.
In the work Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Asher removed the radiators from all the museum's exhibition spaces and reassembled them in its entryway gallery. Metal pipes connected the relocated radiators to their original sockets; these tubular conduits, coursing in linear fashion along the Kunsthalle's walls, kept the steam heat flowing and endowed the installation with directional lines of force. This "displacement of givens" offers a perfect example of site-specific practice, one that took the gallery space and the institution itself as its subject. In this detailed examination of Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Anne Rorimer considers the work in the context of Asher's ongoing desire to fuse art with the material, economic, and social conditions of institutional presentation.
Rorimer analyzes Kunsthalle Bern 1992 in relation to the earlier innovations of such minimalist artists as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, and Dan Flavin as well as to such conceptualist contemporaries as Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, and Maria Nordman. She also considers the installation in the context of other works by Asher that have used non-art, functional elements, including walls, or that have investigated museological issues.
October 1942: Egypt The battle for North Africa rages fiercely along the length of the Egyptian coast . . . Punching their way deep behind enemy lines, the newly formed SAS - under the enigmatic Lt Col David Stirling - carries out daring raids against the Germans.
Lt Tom Caine leads a small squad of SAS men on a desperate mission far into hostile territory. His brief - to sabotage a terrible weapon being secretly developed by the Nazis in the desolate Libyan hills . . . If he fails the Axis forces will almost certainly be unstoppable.
Caine faces the full force of the German military might, but what he doesn't know is that there is a traitor amongst his own men. Ultimately, his fate will rest in the hands of one woman, Special Ops agent Betty Nolan.
Only one thing is for certain in this war - who dares wins . . .
On 4 May 1980, seven terrorists holding twenty-one people captive in the Iranian Embassy in London's Prince's Gate, executed their first hostage. They threatened to kill another hostage every thirty minutes until their demands were met. Minutes later, armed men in black overalls and balaclavas shimmied down the roof on ropes and burst in through windows and doors. In seconds all but one of the terrorists had been shot dead, the other captured.
For most people, this was their first acquaintance with a unit that was soon to become the ideal of modern military excellence - the Special Air Service regiment. Few realized that the SAS had been in existence for almost forty years, playing a discreet, if not secret, role almost everywhere Britain had fought since World War II, and had been the prototype of all modern special forces units throughout the world.
In The Regiment, Michael Asher - a former soldier in 23 SAS Regiment - examines the evolution of the special forces idea and investigates the real story behind the greatest military legend of the late twentieth century.
The British campaign in the Sudan in Queen Victoria's reign is an epic tale of adventure. Sent to evacuate the country, British hero General Gordon was murdered in Khartoum by an army of dervishes led by the Mahdi. This work presents an account that sheds light on this tale of honour, courage, revenge and savagery of late Victorian times.
'Bravo Two Zero' was the code-name of the famous SAS operation: a classic story of bravery in the face of odds. This book reveals the stories in "Bravo Two Zero". It talks about the heroic tales of taking out tanks with rocket launchers, mowing down hundreds of Iraqi soldiers, the silent stabbing of the occasional sentry, and more.
Le Coran est-il antisémite ? L'islam véhicule-t-il une « haine du Juif » qui le rend incompatible avec les valeurs occidentales ? Le regard de l'islamologue est indispensable pour dépassionner le débat et sortir des jugements à l'emporte-pièce. Sans rien masquer des aspects les plus problématiques, le grand savant Meïr M. Bar-Asher fait le point sur ce dossier brûlant. Il passe en revue l'image des « fils d'Israël » et des « Juifs » dans le Coran et le Hadîth, ainsi que les bases coraniques du statut de dhimmi. IL s'attarde également sur l'apport extraordinaire de la tradition juive à l'exégèse musulmane du Coran, ainsi que sur les parallèles entre les lois religieuses juive et musulmane, halakha et sharia. Il montre surtout que la question du rapport de la tradition islamique à la figure du Juif et au judaïsme est complexe, et qu'on ne saurait la ramener à la caricature qu'en donnent tant les prédicateurs islamistes que les islamophobes.
Un ouvrage accessible, essentiel pour comprendre les enjeux de société actuels.
