TALKS, READINGS, PERFORMANCES
Launch: Trains of Europe by John Holten
Burley Fisher Books
400 Kingsland Rd, London E8 4AA
20 June, 2024
6.30pm
Join us for this event to mark the launch of Holten's new novel, Trains of Europe.
This is Holten's third novel and he will be appearing with the young UK writers Caitlin Ingham, Kandace Siobhan Walker, and Louis Mason, and the Canadian writer and art critic Mitch Speed
With support from Culture Ireland
Cabinet Magazine, Berlin, November 7, 19-22h 2019
Cabinet, Ebersstrasse 3, Berlin-Schöneberg (note; not Ebertstrasse)
‘Freedom of Movement’: A reading by John Holten followed by an open discussion with Darko Dragičević
Please join us for an evening of reading, discussion and drinks to mark the re-issuing of The Readymades.
As the novel tells the story of a group of artists who move across Europe, dealing with travel restrictions and prejudice, as well as by our own recent experiences, we thought to frame the evening with a look at the concept of Freedom of Movement in Europe, who benefits and loses from it - and like the many Serbian artists in the novel - what it means to not be a citizen of the European Union.
When first published The Readymades won universal acclaim by those who managed to acquire a copy, being dubbed one of 'the best Irish novels of the last decade.' It tells the story of a collection of friends who took part in the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s, before going on to become celebrated artists. It recounts their loves, their struggles and the weight of history as they blaze a trail across Europe. Its publication came with a number of interventions in the world by The LGB Group, the art group Holten created in the novel, with work created in collaboration with Serbian artistDarko Dragičević.
Having mostly existed as an extended fiction project within the contemporary art world, The Readymades received less attention and readership in the literary world than it deserved, leading novelist Rob Doyle to declare, 'One of the most remarkable novels of recent years, The Readymades has been read by relatively few people.' Its republication sees a novel whose story and characters take on the very forces so pertinent today: the reemergence of nationalism, civil war, refugees and the need for art to challenge any and all prejudices and preconceived notions of what it means to be an individual.
As part of its participation in Berlin Art Week, Büro BDP is very proud to announce the exhibition-cum-novel project And When The Panic Rises You Shall Have This City’s Sympathy by John Holten. This ‘exo-novel’ is spread across the city on fly-posters in the days running up to Berlin Art Week. First appearing in BQ Gallery as a potential book authored by a seemingly different John Holten, this project sees BDP’s editor-in-chief marry the practices of novelist, artist and publisher to create a work of fiction that is extended throughout the city of Berlin. Telling a story in the second person, it has its climatic crescendo in an installation at the project space Büro BDP with a VR scene created by Icelandic artist Mundi Vondi. For this scene, the audience will occupy the point of view of the main character. Envisioned in collaboration with Holten’s installation, Mundi recreates this environment made on one of the newest visualizing technologies – Oculus’ yet-to-be released medium. Telling a fiction with a centuries old medium of fly-posters, in the city, and the most contemporary technologies extent, the project points toward new ways of storytelling in the post-digital age.
John Holten is a novelist, artist and publisher whose work often occurs at the meeting point of these domains. His work has been shown internationally in places such as Malmö konsthall, The White Building, David Zwirner Gallery (with Aengus Woods), NGBK, Agora, Villa Romana, Plan B Gallery, Sans Serriffe and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. His novels The Readymades (2011) and Oslo, Norway (2015) have both been published by Broken Dimanche Press, which he co-founded in 2009
Mundi Vondi is an Icelandic artist, filmmaker and designer. His work and collaboration has been shown most recently at Manifesta, the Serpentine London and BQ Gallery Berlin. He created over a dozen fashion collections the most recent of which SnowBlind launched at Harpa, Iceland's famous opera house, as part of a collaboration with the outerwear brand 66° North.
Oculus medum combines art and play in an unprecedented manner. Medium is a specially developed application that enables the user to model virtual sculptures, to paint in the virtual environment and create objects that feel realistic.
Conglomerate.tv with Renata Har, Hanne Lippard and Peles Empire
Introducing Sophia Le Fraga at Buro BDP, summer 2016
‘A Soft Tragedy’ by Lorenzo Sandoval, Kinderhook and Caracas, Berlin summer 2016
‘What Have Trees Got to do With It?’ Talk with Jessamyn Fiore, Katie Holten at The Kitchen, New York City, 2015
Performance for Dafna Maimon, Centre for Contemporary Arts Uzajdowski (Warsaw) 2014
