This inaugural volume from Oslo Editions gathers edited transcripts from a series of talks held at the Mandrake, an artist-run bar in Los Angeles, on the theme of ''contra mundum'' or ''against the world.'' Taking its cue from Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, the contributors consider the collective potential of (anti)sociality and the possibility of building your own world. Subjects include the furniture of Donald Judd, private issue New Age records, the animal as a subject in Hollywood, self-banishment in Shakespeare, zombie films, pirates and piracy, and Mark E. Smith, legendary vocalist for post-punk band, the Fall. Featuring contributions from artists Rupert Deese, Elad Lassry, Anthony Pearson and Frances Stark, and critics Aaron Kunin, Matthew Taylor Raffety, and Evan Calder Williams.

Contra Mundum I - VII

Arts & Photography

Anthony Pearson

Jan Tumlir

Rupert Deese

Aaron Kunin

Elad Lassry

Michael Metzger

Jon Pestoni

Matthew Taylor Raffety

Frances Stark

Evan Calder Williams

Wendy Yao

History & Criticism

Oslo Editions

The second volume from Oslo Editions, Roman Letters is a collection of urgent missives addressed to unnamed friends, written from Rome by Evan Calder Williams. Initially intended to pick up the thread of ongoing conversations and debates, Roman Letters pursues theory by epistolary means, swerving through philosophy, travelogue, polemic, prose poem, speculative fiction and political reflection. Set against the backdrop of Berlusconi's Italy and the ruins of late capitalism, Roman Letters traverses a landscape of its own design, passing from contingency to trains, dogs to wolves, tourists to partisans, graffiti to ashes, real estate to cities of the dead, ornament to bones, rage to swagger, and from pessimism to communism. A writer and theorist, Evan Calder Williams is also the author of Combined and Uneven Apocalypse (Zero Books, 2010).

Roman Letters

Literature & Fiction

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Books by Evan Calder Williams