Cally Spooner: A Hypothesis of Resistance

Join us for the book launch of A Hypothesis of Resistance (Mousse, 2024) with Cally Spooner.

A Hypothesis of Resistance contains five essays on Asynchronicity, Rehearsal, Undetectability, The Present Tense, and Duration. Each attempts to resist the doctrine of “performance,” the symptom of a society, stratified by how we perform​—​economically, socially, digitally. As we become ripe for consumption, caught in an economy of perpetual readiness, basic needs remain unmet and it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between what is alive and what is dead.

Published by Mousse, 2024
Edited and designed by Will Holder
120 pages / Softcover, open-binding, with dust-jacket

Cally Spooner is an artist who exhibits performances that unfold across media—through sound, on film, in text, as objects, and as illustrated in drawings or scores. Institutional solo exhibitions include: Graham Foundation, Chicago; O— Overgaden, Copenhagen; Cukrarna, Ljubljana; Kunstraum Leuphana, Lüneburg; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint- Martens-Latem; Parrhesiades, London; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Swiss Institute, New York; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva; Whitechapel Gallery, London; New Museum, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Her live performances been staged at, amongst others,Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London; Performa 13, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum M, Leuven; and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London. Her work has appeared in recent group exhibitions including at Museion, Bolzano; Palais de Tokyo, Paris and CAPC, Bordeaux (all 2024). Spooner is the author of recent monographs in the form of novellas, scripts, scores, essays: Collapsing in Parts (Mousse Publishing, 2012); Scripts (Slimvolume, 2016); False Tears (Hatje Cantz and Madre Museum, 2020); SWEAT SHAME ETC. (Lenz Press, 2024) and, A Hypothesis of Resistance (Mousse Publishing, 2024). Spooner is British Italian, and lives and works in Turin.

Host or Publisher Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts