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ARTIST / WORK / LISSON

Edited by Ossian Ward Lisson Gallery, £60 (softcover)

‘On the outside a book is part of the world structure, part of what makes it such an of it, as she puts it – like seeing past, present
of human appearances, but inside it is governed interesting read (despite it being 1,152 pages and future all on one page. Some will find this
by a code.’ So says John Latham in an extract long) is its dogged adherence to its own simple annoying – although not this reader.
from a conversation between the artist and John alphabetical and numerical logic. The entry Aside from an association with cool design,
A. Walker taken from a 1987 edition of Studio for each artist features a text, in the form what makes this more than just a history of
International. Latham is talking about his of a contemporaneous catalogue essay, review Lisson, a gallery established almost by accident
use of books as a material on the occasion or Q&A, followed by an illustrated chronological by an art student (see B for beginnings) and
of his exhibition at Lisson Gallery that same record of all their solo shows, plus a list of the which champions international minimal and
year. It’s a statement that could apply more group shows in which they have participated. conceptual artists, is the wider picture it reveals
directly to the book it’s reprinted in, ARTIST / An index of artists featured is at the front and about artists and the changing nature of their
WORK / LISSON, created to mark another Lisson an index of authors at the back. That there are relationships to the artworld within which they
occasion, the gallery’s 50th anniversary. no page numbers assigned to either results work. This is seen from the pre-email hand-
This book takes the form of an illustrated in the reader only being able to find individual written and often illustrated correspondence
alphabetical record of the 150-plus artists who artists by employing the alphabet, and only artists sent to the gallery, to how and by whom
between them have held more than 500 solo finding individual authors by chance. they were written about. It also throws up the
shows at the gallery’s spaces in London, Milan Working with Lisson, the instigator question of what it might mean that some
and New York, between 1967 and 2017 – Ai of that logic is the book’s Dutch designer artists, Jene Highstein, for example, had only
Weiwei, Hussein Chalayan, Shirazeh Houshiary, Irma Boom. It’s Boom’s own thin but tough one solo show with the gallery, in his twenties,
Derek Jarman, Richard Long, Yoko Ono, Joyce translucent archival paper (IBO One) upon whereas others, such as Anish Kapoor, have had
Pensato and Andy Warhol among them. which the book’s pages are printed, giving 16 solo shows and counting. Highstein didn’t
Interspersed under the appropriate letters are it, not unintentionally, the dimensions and disappear from the artworld – he moved back
anecdotes and insights from director Nicholas weight of an old British telephone directory. to the States and continued his career there;
Logsdail and other senior members of the gallery The clear acetate cover features an artwork a reminder that Lisson’s history is only one
team, alongside thematic chronologies of group in red by Daniel Buren, with limited- and of many parallel stories.
shows and main events in Lisson’s history, that special-edition covers by other gallery artists That this history could be presented at all
highlight the gallery’s evolution and ethos. also available. The other effect of using is because the gallery has maintained its physical
For example, there’s F for Family, G for Global, Boom’s paper is that with each page there archive. There’s a piece of advice once given to
P for Private Views, N for New York and R for is intentional show-through of the one that Logsdail that he likes to retell: ‘If you don’t look
Relationships. If the subjects of these insertions follows. This is usually something to avoid after your history, then you won’t have one’.
are the most random element of the book’s in book production, but Boom makes a feature Helen Sumpter

Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design

by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley Lars Müller Publishers, €19 (softcover)

Written by the curators of the 2016 Istanbul From this base, however questionable, per se that define humans, but the creative
Design Biennial, Are We Human? interrogates the authors – whose writing style is didactic impulse that goes into their reforming and
both the basic definition of the discipline without being stuffy – whiz through the repurposing, and the capacity to go beyond
and the broader sphere that design has come more-than-200,000-year history of humanity’s what is needed.
to encompass today, as it permeates every layer attempts to shape its environment (and the And yet, however compelling this design-
of our world, from cities to genetic codes; from range of disciplines it has harnessed to do so) centric history of humanity is, it carries
chemical engineering to systems of knowledge. in a little more than 250 pages. One of the undertones of a creationist mythology.
As a starting point for their study, the authors 16 chapters collected here considers how the If design is indeed what makes us human,
take the earliest archaeological evidence of the evolution of the human body has been shaped maybe it’s time to rethink our ‘humanity’
development of tools and proceed from there both in reaction to our designs (chemicals in a world that feels increasingly (and irre-
to give design ontological status: they make it and their impact on a geological level) and versibly) shaped to accommodate our presence.
a necessary condition of being (human). In line to fit norms projected by our designs (through For if design is about evolution and change,
with thinkers like Peter Sloterdijk, they posit architecture, fashion, etc). Another muses it’s not always certain that that change is
that there is no world ‘outside’ design: design on the role of ornament as a generator for the better. Perhaps that is something
is not just a consequence of our existence but of evolutionary forces, drawing on papers that can be studied in this year’s edition
the very motor of our being; as much as we by Darwin, archaeological research and art of the biennial, titled A School of Schools and
design tools, we are redesigned by them. theory to demonstrate that it’s not the tools opening in September. Louise Darblay

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