Title: Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us
Author: Bill Burns
Contributors: Dan Adler, Jennifer Allen, Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda, Jennifer Matotek and Stuart Reid
Date: 2015
Format: Hardcover
Size: 9.25 x 6.25 inches, 224 pages
ISBN: 978-1-910433-06-5
Publisher: YYZ Books
Descriptions:
Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us is a collection of writings exploring the transgressive and transdiciplinary nature of Burns’ Practice. The publication is richly illustrated with material representing Burns’ work across photography, performance, writing and artists’ books.
In her foreword to the publication, Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda recognizes that the after-effect of Burns’ work is deeply disillusioning, breaking up and foreclosing the harmonious unity of identity, micro and macrocosmic alike. Curator and art historian Dan Adler draws attention to the meaningless while casting doubt on the venerable. Lastly, art critic Jennifer Allen uncovers some of the forces at work within Burn’s narrativisation of his personal life and reflection on his role as an artist, asserting the act of forgetting is structural to Burns’ overall narrative composition.
Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us also includes a first-person narrative by Burns, telling the story of his life through episodes that, although seemingly incongruous, have played a formative role in the development of the artist’s career. This history, like memory, is less contiguous than spontaneous, more preoccupied with prophecies and mood swings than the sterileness of factuality.