The LGB Group discussed by Aengus Woods at David Zwirner, New York

1. 'The Appearance of a Conversation about the LGB Group in the David Zwirner Gallery Inventory'
   Aengus Woods with John Holten
   Video, 36:34, 2012
   

   
   

   
   

   PEOPLE WHO WORK HERE

   Curated by Rawson Projects

   David Zwirner 525 West 19th Street New York, NY  10011

   July 11 – August 10, 2012

   Opening reception: Wednesday, July 11, 6 – 8 PM

   Cy Amundson, Justin Davis Anderson, Ben Berlow, Josh Brown, Aidan Sofia Earle, Joel Fennell, Brent Harada, Sam Martineau, Chris Medina, Dave Miko, Clive Murphy, Liz Nielsen, David Ording, Justin Phillipson, Ramon Silva, and Aengus Woods with John Holten.

   
   |Press release|

   
   

Coming soon

Lives and Works in Berlin | John Holten Broken Dimanche Press The Readymades

Lives and Works in Berlin | John Holten Broken Dimanche Press The Readymades
Review by Ali Fitzgerald in Art21.
Extract:

I could write multiple portraits of John Holten, Berlin-based _________.  One as the publisher ofBroken Dimanche Press, a three year-old project committed to publishing the adventurous works of various authors, artists, and designers.  Another could be: John Holten, ambitious novelist, who, with The Readymades, forged into being an entire Serbian art collective.  About this, Holten says, ”The LGB Group is a group of artists I assisted in bringing back into the public realm and helped re-align within the history of art. The Readymades goes a way to telling how this process started, and indeed contains the definitive account of the group.”

John Holten could also be the charismatic Irish gallerist managing the burgeoning careers of his Eastern-Bloc progeny through his own Galerie Gojkovic, working alongside Serbian filmmaker Darko Dragicević on the realisation and exhibition display of the LGB group’s body of work.

Holten could also be an archivist, culling information from Balkan war crime tribunals as well as the work of pioneering collectives like the Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art) in order to construct and contextualize his artists’ careers.

Finally, John Holten could be John Holten, the main character of The Readymades who both taps into and shares our artforum-diary obsession with cultural backstory, engineered persona and group sex.  This John is slated to make an appearance at David Zwirner’s gallery forPeople Who Work Here, in a video discussing the aims of the LGB group with Aengus Woods...
[Continue reading...>>>>]

Review in Art in America of The Readymades / The LGB Group

Group Exhibition in FREIEN MUSEUM BERLIN June 1

Danny Aldred (GB) / Enrico Bertelli (IT) / Alexine Chanel (FR) / Jean-Ulrick Desert (US) / Maurice Doherty (IE) / Frank Eickhoff (DE) / Laura Gorski (BR) / Pierre Granoux (FR) / Julien Grenier (FR) / Joao Gridfonte (PT) / Eveline van de Griend (NL) / Kate Hers (US) / John Holten (Broken Dimanche Press) (IE) / Ce Jian (DE) / Nicholas Kashian (US) / Elana Katz (US) / Max Kersting (DE) / Rosemary Lee (US) / Marta Leite (PT) / Sara-Lena Maierhofer (DE) / Nicolas Manenti (FR) / Arturo Martinez Steele (PT) / Fanny Maugey (FR) / Damir Radovic (BA) / Inken Reinert (DE) / Melissa Steckbauer (US) / Madeline Stillwell (US) / Henrik Strömberg (SE) / Tian Tian Wang (CN) / Latefa Wiersch (DE)


I will also have writing in a publication that will appear alongside a show in FREIEN MUSEUM in September 2012

Interview in Lodown Magazine

The Readymades in Lodown Magazine - Interview Coming Soon...

Reading To Warmann

John Holten from Paris who edited To Warmann by Djordje Bojic in an empty gallery in Brussels. Milos Lubarda from The LGB Group and the public are invited to create anew the text.

The LGB Group in Brussels at D.O.R. Gallery

LGB 12/11/2011 - 02/12/2011 Vernissage 11/11/2011 19.00 - 22.00 Finnissage 02/12/2011 19.00 -

The tripartite exhibition at Gallery D.O.R. has its starting point in the novel The Readymades written by John Holten (Broken Dimanche Press, 2011) which tells the story – through a unique use of montage of found historical and contemporary documents – of The LGB Group. In order to execute the fiction of this book a collaboration with Serbian artist Darko Dragicevic resulted in the realm of the novel being extended into the world of contemporary art through the creation of a body of work corresponding to The LGB Group. Seminal works from the oeuvre of the group will be presented at D.O.R. through supporting structures such as the LGB art collection of Galerie Gojkovic, performative public interpretations of The Readymadesand relational social happenings over the course of the exhibition. Djordje Bojić, Zukunft I / Future I oil and varnish on canvas, 3 x 1,5m. Private collection 2007 CHAPTER 1: Djordje Bojić LGB years: 1995-2008 Djordje Bojić. Vernissage: November 11, 19.00 - 22.00 A curated selection of some of the seminal works of LGB artist Djordje Bojić, an artist born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1974. He studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade before abandoning his degree after the success of the show LGB with Aleksandar Gojković and Miloš Lubarda. His text based work dating from 1995 was interested in form and the concretisation of everyday realities. He was also the curator of some of the LGB Group’s seminal exhibitions. Notable shows include LGB 1995-2005, a retrospective in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (25 February - 20 March, 2008) and Around is Back Again, Today, 20 May - August 4, 2002, in Gallery Michael Jetzer. He died in Paris in 2008. His estate is managed by Galerie Gojković. CHAPTER 2: It‘s already a success! Saturday, November 19th – Friday, November 26th Over the course of the second week of the LGB exhibition there will be a performative act by the publisher John Holten (Broken Dimanche Press) who is responsible for the publication of the manuscript “To Warmann“ by Djordje Bojić. Bas Jan Ader’s work from 1972, The Boy Who Fell Over Niagara Falls will be reinvigorated by Holten in order to further facilitate the work of Bojić. Ader, in 1972, sat twice daily in an empty gallery, reading a short story. During his gallery readings, Holten will be accompanied by Bojić’s best friend and collaborator, another LGB artist, Miloš Lubarda. He will pick up certain words that play homage to Bojić’s project, each day creating a different story, different meanings. Twice daily performace: 13h – 14h & 18h – 20h CHAPTER 3: Three course meal Sunday, November 27th – Friday, December 2nd In 2011 German artist Jan Offe invited guests once more for dinner, feeling that the time was ripe to revisit the primal social scene of life: the communal dinner. The tropes of late 1990s relational aesthetics have become associated with Offe, and his dinners, replacing cutlery with our readymade human utensils, have put him squarely in the lineage of Spoerri to Tiravanija. At once a nostalgic homage to the late 1990s, when we were all that little bit younger, but also a social occasion to celebrate the on-going legacy of the LGB Group with one of the key names of the group, Herr Offe, Gallery D.O.R. will play host to the time before we’re all still in the process of over-coming. Jan Offe 3 Course Dinner beet root, carrot, apple, pesto, ricotta, spaghetti, mango, strawberries, blue syrup, white wine, red wine 220 x 180cm. Courtesy the artist. 2011 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Darko Dragičević (b. 1979, Belgrade) studied Visual Arts at The International College of Arts and Sciences in Milan where he received a Master Degree in Art Direction. Since then he ́s been working in Europe and USA as a Visual Artist and Filmmaker. His works have been featured in Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (won the 3rd price with the video “Ah!“), Ann Arbor Festival Michigan, Future Shorts London, as in various solo and group shows. Upcoming events count the exhibitions at mianki Galerie Berlin, D.O.R. Gallery Brussels and an auction in Berlinische Galerie in collaboration with KUNST Magazin Berlin. Currently he lives and works in Berlin. www.darkodragicevic.net John Holten (b. 1984 in Ireland) is a writer and editor living in Berlin. He has a BA International from University College Dublin in Ireland having completed an Erasmus year at Paris IV-Le Sorbonne in France and an MPHIL from Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland. He has curated, together with Line Madsen Simenstad and Ida Benche The Kakofonie – A European Journal of Art and Literature since 2009, showing the edited work in various European art institutions including Gallery Block T (Dublin), Stattbad (Berlin) and Pygmalion (Dublin) amongst others. He has had fiction and poetry published extensively, most recently in Lamination Colony and the AADK Press. The curated book project he co-edited represented Ireland at the prestigious Charlemagne Youth Prize in 2010, coming second out of 27 countries. His writing on art has been most recently published by The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. During the summer of 2011 he co-curated and ran the series ‘Exhibiting Literature’ at Buro BDP, Berlin. In 2011 he received a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. His first novel,The Readymades, was published in September 2011 by Broken Dimanche Press. www.johnholten.com Broken Dimanche Press (b. 2009, Berlin) is a work of fiction. All characters, situations, conversations, scenarios, art and cultural occurrences are the invention of the publisher. www.brokendimanche.eu New General Opening Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 15.00 - 18.00 or by appointment

Review of The Readymades...

Read the full review here

Violence as a gift

By Anna Aslanyan

The Readymades, John Holten, Broken Dimanche Press 2011

Last July Birkbeck College held “the first” symposium on Tom McCarthy’s work (quotes are not mine – McCarthy’s). It comes as no surprise that so many people now are not only reading Remainder, Men in Space, C, but also researching them – that his novels should find an audience was only a question of time. Young writers could do worse than take a leaf from McCarthy’s book; John Holten, for one, whose debut The Readymadescontinues the European tradition without trying to pass itself as a book by a Continental author. To say that McCarthy’s shadow is hanging over it would be unfair – rather, his themes are played anew, at times convincingly, at times tentatively, but for the most part boldly and with an honesty bordering on desperation.

Tomorrow I'll Be Happy @ Motto Berlin

The tour continues with one of our biggest exhibitions yet of LGB art. One of my favourite bookshops will be the venue for a unique vitrine exhibit of work from The Readymades.

If in Berlin, come along!

To mark the German launch of The Readymades by John Holten, Broken Dimanche Press are pleased to announce an exhibition by Darko Dragičević at Motto Berlin.

Found within the pages of The Readymades is the seminal text on The LGB Group (1995-2007) by one of the group's leading stars: Djordje Bojić. Extending the world of the book, BDP in conjunction with Galerie Gojković, are pleased to transform Motto's courtyard vitrines with some of the group's more renowned works.

The liminal space of Motto's courtyard will play host to work from The Readymades by:
Aleksandar Gojković (SR)
Miloš Lubarda (SR)
Elaine Pettifer (US/SZ)
Ivan Veselin (HU)
Matthias Nagry (HU)

Serbian artist and filmmaker Darko Dragičević has created the artwork.

The exhibition is presented in conjunction between BDP, Galerie Gojković and FUK Laboratories Berlin (www.fuklab.org)

The Golden Bough - Publication

I have an essay in this Hugh Lane Gallery publication about artist Brian Duggan which I'm very excited about. My sister Katie is also in it, so that's nice!

Brian has work in Dublin Contemporary.

The Private Notes of Philip M. Dearne

I have writing and some translation in a new book by the AADK Press. Its release is part of four day long performance festival in Berlin AADKunexpected. The project has been quite an experience: expanding a short, strange text from the inside and in tandem with Decottignies and Green. We've gone places we never imagined going...

The Private Notes of Philip M. Dearne

By Adam Green, Thierry Decottignies, John Holten – The AADK Press (Bilingual English and French).

"'A painting is not a construction of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of this at the same time'
(CoBrA, in 'Connaissance des arts' n° 666)

'It was only then that I noticed the position of her hand. In the course of what could only be described as some kind of fit, all be it a seemingly happy one, her dress had ridden up and revealed, bunched up above a pair of near translucent legs, the white shocking mass of her undergarments, and completely inexplicably her hand nestled inside. She was looking straight at me....'

-The Private Notes of Philip M. Dearne, a collaborative literary project by Adam Green, Thierry Decottignies and John Holten, will be presented as part of the 4-day event AADKunexpected at Galerie161 - featuring a live installation with performance artist Vania Rovisco.“

Saturday 16th July, 4 pm-6 pm, Galerie161 (Torstr. 161), U8 Rosenthaler Platz, Bus 142// www.torstrasse161.de