Autoreduction

“To expand is to reduce, to affirm is to negate; the problem is how not to let any of these moments crystallize into a position or a program via the fetishism that transforms relations into objects.”—Marina Vishmidt

Autoreduction is a project initiated by Dora Budor at Progetto (Lecce, Italy) in the summer of 2021 that began with detouring a solo exhibition onto a collaborative course to traverse the itineraries of work, leisure, and consumption in southern Italy. Conceived as a companion to the exhibition, the book features commissioned texts by Noah Barker and Marina Vishmidt, with contributions by all the artists originally participating in the exhibition (Noah Barker, Dora Budor, Michèle Graf and Selina Grüter, Niloufar Emamifar, and Ser Serpas), together with an addendum by Stefano Faoro.

In “Case of Enrichment” Noah Barker assesses how the exhibition and region of Puglia instantiate what Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre have called the enrichment economy –  which is characterized by the enrichment of existing things and places and modelling of the consumer on the collector. In “Why Must You Reduce Everything to Money?” Marina Vishmidt casts reduction as a political and artistic strategy; from a form of resistance developed by Italian Autonomists to its aesthetic application as a mode of refusal. Informed by the industrial history of the Salento region, which once featured a heavily feminized and militant tobacco workforce and now sees this legacy sanitized as a heritage for luxury tourism, Autoreduction rides the carousel of capital’s value-forms eliciting critique and complicity in tandem.

____

«Expandirse es reducir, afirmar es negar; el problema es cómo evitar que cualquiera de estos momentos se cristalice en una posición o un programa mediante el fetichismo que transforma las relaciones en objetos». —Marina Vishmidt

Autoreduction es un proyecto iniciado por Dora Budor en Progetto (Lecce, Italia) en el verano de 2021, que comenzó desviando una exposición individual hacia un curso colaborativo para recorrer los itinerarios del trabajo, el ocio y el consumo en el sur de Italia. Concebido como un acompañamiento de la exposición, el libro presenta textos comisionados de Noah Barker y Marina Vishmidt, con contribuciones de todos los artistas que participaban originalmente en la muestra (Noah Barker, Dora Budor, Michèle Graf y Selina Grüter, Niloufar Emamifar y Ser Serpas), junto con un apéndice de Stefano Faoro.