The Ensayos series was launched in late 2021, coinciding with the start of a wide-ranging research project aimed at redefining—from a feminist and, to the extent possible, decolonial perspective—the canon that historiography has established for the artist’s book genre. The aim of this series is to present partial research findings in a variety of printed formats. While disseminating information and content, the publications in the series experiment with alternative formats to the channels through which academic research is usually disseminated.
The first of the “publishing experiments” in the Ensayos series is devoted intentionally to essay writing, and discusses three publications in which the authors employ different approaches to weave other voices into their own discourse.
“Ensayo 1: El ensayo (polifónico) discusses three publications that, at first glance, would not appear to be closely related. Carla Lonzi, Joyce Wieland, and Lucy Lippard—American, Canadian, and Italian, respectively—never worked together, though Lippard and Wieland knew each other. Besides, these three publications of theirs have had very uneven reach: while Lippard’s Six Years… has been considered for decades a fundamental bibliographic reference for the history of 20th-century art, Autoritratto, which has just been translated into English and has not yet been translated into Spanish, has circulated much less widely, and Pierre Théberge’s interview with Joyce Wieland has scarcely been read.
These three books, however, share important features. To begin with, they were published around the same time, and their authors were women with deep feminist convictions who shared an interest in the intersection of art and political activism. Furthermore, although two of them are presented as essays and the third appears to be an exhibition catalog, their texts constitute examples of essayistic writing where various voices are combined—in each case, through a different method.
Thus, each in its own way, these three essays formally transcend the traditional boundaries of the essayistic genre, opening paths toward forms of textual experimentation that continue to be potentially inspiring for critical and academic writing on art.”
Madrid: self-published, December 2021
Concept, texts, photographs: Mela Dávila Freire
Graphic design: Cosmic, Barcelona
14.5 x 21 cm, 24 pages
Digital printing, 4+4 colors, stapled binding
Printed at Workcenter, Barcelona
1st edition: 50 ex.
Texts in Spanish
With the support of Desiderata Editorial, Madrid, and in the framework of the residency program 2021-2022 of the Paul Klee Summer Academy, Bern University of the Arts HBK, Bern.
Distributed through the exchange program of the Library of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid – Out of stock.
