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Side Magazine
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Side Magazine is conceived as a site of research for the fourth edition of Bergen Assembly convened by artist Saâdane Afif. Afif has invited Berlin-based Yasmine d’O. as curator of the edition and executive editor of Side Magazine.
Side Magazine is dedicated to the seven characters in The Heptahedron, a play written by the French poet, essayist, and scholar Thomas Clerc in 2016. In order of apparition these characters are the Professor, the Moped Rider, the Bonimenteur, the Fortune Teller, an Acrobats, the Coalman, and the Tourist.
Yasmine d’O. says, “The seven characters in The Heptahedron resemble a game—a tarot deck—and that’s handy, because my work as a curator requires a certain level of divination. I am becoming better acquainted with them, exploring and discovering them through their puzzling names. I consider Side Magazine a tool of poetic prospection, if you will. It is neither an art magazine, nor an academic magazine. Instead, it gives a body to the seven faces of The Heptahedron, physicalising the questions that they raise. Subsequently, they will become the motifs guiding the seven exhibitions that will shape the seven sides of the upcoming Bergen Assembly.”
Seven issues of Side Magazine will be released in the run up to the opening of Bergen Assembly 2022, each comprised of seven articles respectively. A special eighth issue includes installation images, which will be published after the opening days. This, combined with the existing seven issues, make up the collection that constitute the exhibition catalogue and guide.
The Professor
The first issue of Side Magazine is dedicated to the figure of the Professor. It features seven articles, each of which explores the identity, role, and position of the Professor. Contributors include Uli Aigner and Valérie Chartrain, Jörg Heiser, Christian Nyampeta, Lili Reynaud-Dewar and Yasmine d'O., Tatiana Rybaltchenko, Marjorie Senechal, and Vivian Slee.
The editorial committee for the first issue is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Ingrid Haug Erstad, Jonas von Lenthe, John McKiernan, Yasmine d’O., Tatiana Rybaltchenko, and Pit Stenkhoff.
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THE MOPED RIDER
What are you hiding under your helmet, dear Moped Rider? Where will your wanderings lead you and what encounters might they bring?
The second issue of Side Magazine is dedicated to the manifold figure of the Moped Rider, approached differently by seven contributors. The full list of contributors includes: Haci Akman, Michèle Bernstein, Lou Ferrand, Pierre-Henry Frangne, Patrick Jagoda, Yasmine d’O., Lars Ole Kristiansen, Marcella Lista, and Kristian Vistrup Madsen.
The editorial committee for The Moped Rider is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Tatiana Rybaltchenko, and Pit Stenkhoff.
The Moped Rider is supported by the City of Bergen, Arts Council Norway, and Fundació Antoni Tàpies.
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The Bonimenteur
Coming from the French word bonir (to tell stories in a nice way), their speech is often exaggerated, and aims to please, convince, and seduce—illusionary tricks often used as a means to an end.
Seven contributors explore the soul of this talkative figure: Aurélien Gambonianalyses Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Conjurer (1502); Polly Wiesnerdiscusses storytelling at night among the Ju/’hoansi (!Kung Bushmen); a reprint of Marion Baruch’s NAME DIFFUSION links commodity with cultural production; Helmut Draxler looks at the relation between art and its display;Deborah Bowmann harnesses neoliberalism’s individuation; Jean Breschandputs Pier Paolo Pasolini’s masterpieces in the frame; and finally, Jacqueline Barus-Michel explores belief and our desire for meaning.
The editorial committee for The Bonimenteur is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Ingrid Haug Erstad, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Tatiana Rybaltchenko, Pit Stenkhoff, and Kirsten Wandschneider.
Bergen Assembly thanks the City of Bergen, the Arts Council of Norway, Mehdi Chouakri and the French Ministry of Culture for supporting this project.
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The Fortune Teller
Divine Fortune Teller, what do the cards say today? Won’t you fill the void of our hypothetical futures?
Professor Alain Schnapp’s abyssal knowledge of ruins was called upon to offer an unmissable forecast. The message delivered by the oracle Franco “Bifo” Berardi at the temple of Apollo in Delphi to the students of the Dirty Art Department (Amsterdam) is transcribed. Good fortune often flows from the outsider; Aage Borchgrevink recounts how the geologist Farouk al Kasim, an Iraqi immigrant, helped establish the Norwegian oil industry. The reproduction of selected pages from Verena Dengler’s diaries offer the possibility that the voices of all ages who wrote them cast spells on her future as an artist. Sébastien Wit reveals the nuances that inhabit chance by recalling two famous artistic disputes. Could the bookseller be a kind of fortune teller? This is the question asked to siddhartha lokanandi and Theresa Clasen. Concluding with the sounds of the Saami drums, Fredrik Prost tells us stories about this divinatory instrument.
The editorial committee for The Fortune Teller is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Eirini Fountedaki, Ingrid Haug Erstad, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Pit Stenkhoff,and Kirsten Wandschneider.
Bergen Assembly thanks the City of Bergen and the Arts Council of Norway for supporting this project.
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The TOURIST
Dear Tourist, what have you brought back from your wonderful travels? Which memories are spinning under your bucket hat?
Abdelmajid Arrif takes us to a “Territory of Misunderstandings,” Marrakech’s famous Jemaa el-Fna square; Saint Augustine analyses the governing mechanisms of his own memories in his Confessions, written towards the end of the fourth century; Daniel Buren’s text from 1988, which relates to his Photo-Souvenirs series, reminds us of the difference between the photograph of a work and the work itself; Maggie Popkin reflects on the phenomenon of souvenirs; Xavier de Maistre’s voyage around his room from 1794, written during his house arrest in Turin, is interwoven with photographs by the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster; and Moses März refers to Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation to explore the issues of borders, migration, and political communities in contemporary Germany. Finally, Ida Lødemel Tvedt reflects on her relationship to her hometown through the lens of Ragnar Kjartansson’s monumental sculpture which no traveler arriving by plane can miss, asking: BERGEN?
The editorial committee for The Fortune Teller is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Eirini Fountedaki, Ingrid Haug Erstad, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Pit Stenkhoff, and Kirsten Wandschneider.
Bergen Assembly thanks the City of Bergen and the Arts Council of Norway for supporting this project. Thanks also goes to Ministère de la Culture, Institut Français, Perspektive, and PSSBL for supporting Side Magazine The Tourist.
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The Coalman
Coalman, Coalman! Which stories are hidden beneath the burden you carry, bending your body like a fragile blade of grass under the morning dew?
Charles-François Mathis discusses the two historical bodies of King Coal —its physical form and symbolic capital— looking at how its rule began, and the march to-wards its end. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Nivaggioni situates the experience of the miners in 1984, as they were striking for their right to exist, along-side the LGBT groups who came to support them. Continuing our series of individual painting analyses, Isolde Pludermacher digs into Gustave Courbet’s A Burial at Ornans (1849). In the spirit of honouring the Victorian era, when coal was oh so revered, Richard H. Horne’s series The True Story of A Coal Fire is reprinted as it was originally published in Household Words, edited by none other than Charles Dickens. Denis Herlin sings to the sweet tunes of Claude Debussy’s last composition, Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (“Evenings Lit by the Burning Coals,” 1917), produced for his coal merchant, Monsieur Croquin. Professor Irena Bukowska-Floreńska explores the tradition of coal being used by Polish miners as a material for sculpture, and finally, Gabbi Cattani writes an elegy to all of the dead organisms that gave rise to coal.
The editorial committee for The Coalman is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Eirini Fountedaki, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Pit Stenkhof,
and Kirsten Wandschneider.
Bergen Assembly thanks the City of Bergen and the Arts Council of Norway for supporting this project. Thanks also goes to Ministère de la Culture, Institut Français, and Perspektive for supporting Side Magazine The Coalman.
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AN ACROBATS
Dear Acrobats, what kind of incredible figures are you going to unravel today before our stunned eyes?
Seven contributors shed light on this figure: Jörg Heiser takes us on an ever-twisting journey through the universal force of gravity; Anton Escher looks at how a group of Moroccan acrobats have been invited around the world to demonstrate their prowess, participating in the modern tradition of highly-skilled migration; Anri Sala and Tacita Dean contextualise Sala’s work A Spurious Emission (2007); Gerald Bär tells us how Fernando Pessoa used specific literary strategies to encourage the sense of strangeness in himself; Eran Schaerf brings to life his many inner voices, which inhabit the script of his performance Blinded in Remembering the Present? Ask Franz; and finally, curator Marcella Lista offers us a journey through La Ribot’s conceptual Distinguished Pieces series, with selected pages from the legendary choreographer’s notebooks published as facsimiles.
The editorial committee for an Acrobats is comprised of Saâdane Afif, Anna Bühler, Alix Chambaud, Louisa Elderton, Eirini Fountedaki, Jonas von Lenthe, Yasmine d’O., Pit Stenkhoff, Kirsten Wandschneider, and Asya Yaghmurian.
Bergen Assembly thanks the City of Bergen and the Arts Council of Norway for supporting this project. Thanks also goes to Ministère de la Culture, Institut Français Deutchland, PERSPEKTIVE and CRAVAN for supporting Side Magazine An Acrobats.
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Executive Editor: Yasmine d’O.
Chief Editor: Louisa Elderton
Associate Editor: Jonas von Lenthe
Concept: Saâdane Afif
Editorial Coordinator: Alix Chambaud
Research Assistant: Eirini Fountedaki
Translator: Nina Kettiger
Proofreader: Hannah Satz
Graphic Design: Neue Gestaltung
Side Magazine is published by Wirklichkeit Books
Executive Editor: Yasmine d’O.
Chief Editor: Louisa Elderton
Associate Editor: Jonas von Lenthe
Concept: Saâdane Afif
Editorial Coordinator: Alix Chambaud
Research Assistant: Eirini Fountedaki
Translator: Nina Kettiger
Proofreader: Hannah Satz
Graphic Design: Neue Gestaltung
Side Magazine is published by Wirklichkeit Books
