Since his arrival in New York in 1969, the French artist Michel Auder (b. 1945, Soissons, France) has authored more than five hundred video works that chart five decades of the medium's history. Employing new video formats as they become available, many of which have quickly fallen into obsolescence, Auder has prolifically produced short and feature films as well as video installations and photography that transgress genres, gleaning the fields of art history, literature, commercial television, and experimental cinema. At once poetic and critical, cruel and confessional, Auder's casually virtuosic oeuvre continues to disrupt traditional perceptual habits of moviegoers and art audiences alike, subverting notions of filmic narrative and process.
This new monograph includes “Twenty Film-Poems for M. Auder,” a series of mini-essays on selected videos by Quinn Latimer, an American poet and critic based in Basel, as well as “Portrait of the Marauder,” an extensive interview with the artist by Adam Szymczyk, director of Kunsthalle Basel. The book which also includes a catalogue raisonné of Auder's video works, was designed by Julia Born, a Swiss graphic designer who lives and works in Berlin.
This book was conceived on the occasion of the exhibitions “Stories, Myths, Ironies, and Other Songs: Conceived, Directed, Edited, and Produced by M. Auder,” on view at Kunsthalle Basel, June 9–August 25, 2013, and curated by Adam Szymczyk; and “Michel Auder: Selected Works,” on view at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, October 31–November 17, 2013, and curated by Sophie von Olfers.
