An affordable edition of a seminal African American text, illustrated by Christina Quarles 
Upon its publication in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois’ classic The Souls of Black Folk made history as a work of sociological thought, and would go on to become a cornerstone of African American literature. In it, Du Bois combined history and memoir to advance a vital message of resistance in the dehumanizing context of the Jim Crow era. It was in this book that Du Bois, in the essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” wrote of the “double consciousness” experienced by the Black subject—“a sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” Refusing this fate, Du Bois passionately and creatively makes the case for the rights of Black people of the South to be treated with equality and justice. 
Over a century later, Los Angeles–based artist Christina Quarles (born 1985) brings new energy to Du Bois’ unfinished project, speaking to his melodious text with her own distinctive vibrancies of color and line, testing and inverting the “double consciousness” idea. Like Du Bois, the central focus of her practice is to find political power in categories used to undermine particular populations.

Of Our Spiritual Strivings: Two Works Series Volume 4

Arts & Photography

DU BOIS, W.E.B.

History & Criticism

Walther König, Köln/Afterall Books

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s landmark essay in decolonial thought is animated for a new generation with art by Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza 
In 1985, Indian scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 1942) published what would become a landmark essay in the academic study of colonialism. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” interrogates the obstructions that prevent certain subjects from being heard and how this state-enforced silence maintains the degradation of those at the peripheries of society. Over three decades later, Spivak’s piece is perhaps even more compelling in its affirmation of Marxism’s relevance to contemporary decolonial thought. This volume revives Spivak’s text for yet another generation of thinkers, placed in dialogue with artwork by Ecuadorian artist Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza (born 1978). Loaiza’s preoccupation with questions of occlusion and the need for and absence of image makes for an art series that shares a clear kinship with Spivak’s line of reasoning. Loaiza’s visual vocabulary echoes and refracts the central ideas put forth by Spivak in a compelling new interpretation of this essential text.

Can the Subaltern Speak?: Two Works Series Volume 1

SPIVAK, GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY

Angela Davis’ iconic 1985 essay on the role of art in social and racial liberation, illustrated by painter Tschabalala Self 
In her stirring and influential essay “Art on the Frontline,” American scholar and activist icon Angela Y. Davis (born 1944) asked, “how do we collectively acknowledge our popular cultural legacy and communicate it to the masses of people, most of whom have been denied access to the social spaces reserved for arts and culture?” 
Originally published in Political Affairs, a radical Marxist magazine, in 1985, the essay calls into question the role of art in the pursuit of social and racial liberation, and asserts the inequities exacerbated by the art world. Looking to the cultural and artistic forms born of Afro-American struggles, Davis insists that we attempt to understand, reclaim and glean insight from this history in preparing a political offensive against the racial oppression endemic to capitalism. 
Working in the context of 2020’s racial uprising some 35 years later, New York–based painter Tschabalala Self (born 1990) responds to Davis’ words with new, characteristically vibrant and provocative collaged works on paper. Her three series emerge collectively as something greater than their parts, suggesting a joyfulness in their ebbs and flows. 
Angela Davis (born 1944) is an American political activist and educator, most recently a professor at the Department of History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is known internationally for her commitment to prison abolition and racial justice. Her books include Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Women, Culture and Politics (1989) and Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974).

Art on the Frontline: Mandate for a People´s Culture: Two Works Series Vol. 2 (Two Works, 2)

Davis, Angela Y.

A new, affordable edition of French Marxist and proto-Situationist Henri Lefebvre’s classic text on the everyday, illustrated by Julie Mehretu 
The work of French Marxist sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre radically transformed the discourse of political geography. Witness to the rapid urbanization of the 20th century, Lefebvre conceptualized public space as socially produced―a mirror image of capitalist ideology―and levied a humanitarian slogan in response: “the right to the city,” a notion that has energized the thought of leading American geographers such as David Harvey and Edward Soja. Lefebvre also worked closely with the Situationist International, collaborating with them on urban experiments in the ’50s and ’60s. Arguably his greatest legacy, however, is his theory of “the everyday”―a topic he returned to throughout his life, culminating in his three-volume magnum opus, The Critique of Everyday Life. Like public space, Lefebvre argued, the everyday is a social structure concurrent with modernity: “the everyday is a product, the most general of products in an era where production engenders consumption.” 
In this edition of Lefebvre’s classic but largely unavailable text, New York–based artist Julie Mehretu responds to Lefebvre’s 1987 essay, reflecting upon its implications during a time when conceptions of “the everyday” are both heightened and obscured. She identifies thematic connections between his text and her own work, casting into relief the enduring relevance of Lefebvre’s consideration of time, space and place. 
An immensely prolific author, Henri Lefebvre (1901–91) is best known for his books Critique of Everyday Life (1947–81), The Production of Space (1974) and The Urban Revolution (1970).

The Everyday and Everydayness: Two Works Series Vol. 3 (Two Works, 3)

Lefebvre, Henri

An anthology of essays on art’s relation to the public realm since 1989 
This critical anthology explores the myriad histories and worlds through which art is produced and experienced. It is guided by the following questions: How are the “global” and the “located” shaped and understood in disparate contexts and times? How have artists experimented with modes of exhibition-making and public presentation? 
Key essays previously published by Afterall are included alongside new image-led presentations, translated material and commissioned texts. The anthology addresses the topic in both theoretical terms and through case studies. 
Contributors include: Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Miguel A. López, Eddie Chambers, Francesca Recchia, Pablo Lafuente, Philippe Pirotte, Ntone Edjabe, Clémentine Deliss, Khwezi Gule, Charles Gaines, David Teh, Ekaterina Degot, Ana Teixeira Pinto, María Berríos, Mujeres Creando, Comunitario del Valle de Xico, Tonika Sealy Thompson and Stefano Harney.

Art and Its Worlds: Exhibitions, Institutions and Art Becoming Public: Exhibition Histories Volume 12