Brian Holmes

Brian Holmes (1959, San Francisco) is a cultural critic who has worked with activists and artists in Europe and the Americas. He is interested primarily in the intersections of artistic and political practice. He holds a doctorate in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of California at Berkeley. Holmes was the English editor of publications for Documenta X, Kassel, Germany in 1997. He is a member of the groups Deep Time Chicago and Compass, and a former member of the graphic arts group Ne pas plier from 1999 to 2001, and the French conceptual art group Bureau d'études. He lives in Chicago.

Publications[edit]

Books[edit]

Hieroglyphs of the Future: Art & Politics in a Networked Era, Zagreb: Arkzin/What, How and for Whom, 2003, 294 pp.

co-editor, Continental Drift, Zagreb: What, How and for Whom/WHW, and Zagreb: AGM, 2008, 35 pp. Catalogue. (Croatian)

Unleashing the Collective Phantoms: Essays in Reverse Imagineering, New York: Autonomedia, 2008, 187 pp. [1]. Review: Biles (Chicago Artists' News).

Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society, Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, and Zagreb: WHW, 2009, 414 pp.

Profanity and the Financial Markets. A User’s Guide to Closing the Casino, Hatje Cantz (100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta Series), 2012. (English)/(German)

with Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann, Volatile Smile, Nürnberg: Moderne Kunst, 2014, 182 pp. [2] [3]

Driving the Golden Spike: The Aesthetics of Anthropocene Public Space, Deep Time Chicago, 2016, 19 pp. Pamphlet.

Translator[edit]

Félix Guattari, Suely Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil, trans. Karel Clapshow and Brain Holmes, Semiotext(e), 2008, 495 pp.

Clement Greenberg, Between the Lines, trans. Thierry de Duve and Brian Holmes, University Of Chicago Press, 2010.

Journal issues[edit]

editor, with Gerald Raunig, Brumaria 5: "Arte : la imaginación política radical", Madrid: Asociación Cultural Brumaria, 2005, 379 pp. TOC. Introduction. (Spanish)

Book chapters, essays[edit]

"Réveiller les fantômes collectifs. Résistance réticulaire, personnalité flexible", trans. Brian Holmes, Autonomie artistique 1, Paris, 2002; repr., transversal, Vienna, Dec 2002. (French)
- "Unleashing the Collective Phantoms. Flexible Personality, Networked Resistance", Mute 24, London, May 2002; repr., transversal, Vienna, Dec 2002.
- "Die kollektiven Phantome freisetzen. Flexible Persönlichkeit, vernetzter Widerstand", trans. Marion Hamm, transversal, Vienna, Dec 2002. (German)
- "Liberare i fantasmi collettivi. Personalità flessibile e resistenza in Rete", trans. Sandro Armezzani, transversal, Vienna, Dec 2002. (Italian)

"Liar's Poker", Springerin 1, Vienna, 2003; repr., Subsol 2: "Art of Commodification", n.d.

"Warhol au Soleil levant: art, sous-culture et production sémiotique", Multitudes 13, Paris, 2003, pp 59-67. (French)

"The Revenge of the Concept: Artistic Exchanges, Networked Resistance", in Confronting Capitalism: Dispatches from a Global Movement, eds. Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton-Rose, and George Katsiaficas, Brooklyn, NY: Softy Skull, 2004; repr. in Holmes, Unleashing the Collective Phantoms, 2008. [4] [5]
- "Maščevanje koncepta", in Holmes, Fleksibilna osebnost. Maščevanje koncepta, trans. Alvina Žuraj, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., 2005. (Slovenian)

"The Flexible Personality: For a New Cultural Critique", transversal, Nov 2006.
- "Der flexible Charakter. Für eine neue Kulturkritik", trans. Birgit Mennel, transversal, Nov 2006. (German)
- "La personalidad flexible. Por una nueva crítica cultural", trans. Marcelo Expósito, rev. Brian Holmes and Joaquín Barriendos, transversal 1, Nov 2006. (Spanish)
- "Fleksibilna ličnost: za novu kulturalnu kritiku", trans. Nataša Ilić, transversal, Nov 2006. (Croatian)
- "Fleksibilna osebnost", in Holmes, Fleksibilna osebnost. Maščevanje koncepta, trans. Alvina Žuraj, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., 2005. (Slovenian)

"The Potential Personality: Trans-Subjectivity in the Society of Control", in 3 escenarios, Las Palmas: CAAM, 2006, PDF.
- "Personalidade potencial: trans–subjetividade na sociedade de controle", trans. Filipe Ferreira, Cadernos de Subjetividade 8:13, São Paulo: PUC-SP, Oct 2011, pp 194-205, PDF. (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Future Map, or, How the Cyborgs Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surveillance", Sep 2007.

"Do-It-Yourself Geopolitics: Cartographies of Art in the World", in Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination After 1945, eds. Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp 273-293.

"Further: Wisconsin and Dreamtimes West", in A Call to Farms: Continental Drift through the Radical Midwest Culture Corridor, Viroqua, WI: Heavy Duty Press, 2008, pp 35-37. [6]

"Die Erfindung der Eventarbeit. Public Netbase in den 1990ern", in Vergessene Zukunft: radikale Netzkulturen in Europa, eds. Clemens Apprich and Felix Stalder, Bielefeld: transcript, 2012, pp 119-123. (German)

"Cartography With Your Feet: Workshop Proposal for “Beneath the University, the Commons”", in Deep Routes: The Midwest in All Directions, eds. Rozalinda Borcila, Bonnie Fortune and Sarah Ross, Wisconsin: White Wire, 2012. [7] [8]

"Continental Drift 2011: Argentina / China", in Deep Routes: The Midwest in All Directions, eds. Rozalinda Borcila, Bonnie Fortune and Sarah Ross, Wisconsin: White Wire, 2012. [9] [10]