GRAW, Isabelle; HUBER, Leonie; KÖLBL, Antonia; SINOFZIK, Anna (eds.)
Texte Zur Kunst 35/137 (März 2025) Death Drive and Sublimation

The escalation of ecological, military, and capitalist destruction has dominated current developments in many places. This issue of TZK puts forward two psychanalytical concepts that lend themselves to describing destructive tendencies, as well as to possible ways of redirecting aggression away from violence and into creative work: the death drive and sublimation. Contributions subject these concepts to a discursive stress test and set them in relation to historical and contemporary examples of artistic production. Although this does not alleviate structural hopelessness and its affective dimension, it makes these amenable to negotiation. [publishers’ note]

With contributions by Helmut Drawler, Daniel Birnbaum, Arielle Friend (on Unica Zürn), Nils Fock (on Georges Bataille), Peter Rehberg, and others; a conversation between Cynthia Fleury and Isabelle Graw; a portfolio of works by Rodrigo Ramírez Rodríguez; obits by Fiona Alison Duncan on Pippa Garner, by Bruce Hainley on Gary Indiana, and a collective homage to Walter Dahn.

Published by Texte Zur Kunst, 2025
Periodicals / Art Criticism