Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens
Tools that Measure the Intensity of Passionate Interests

If the exchange of goods and services are like twigs and branches floating along a complex network of rivers, streams and canals called the global economy, then how can we account for the undercurrents that brew deep below the surface without which the whole enterprise would remain in a state of perpetual stagnation? This is the very question explored by Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens in a book of emblems that take as a starting point the spread of beliefs and desires as well the affective impressions that participate in the processes of economic valorisation. Between conceptual writing and poetic expression, Tools that Measure the Intensity of Passionate Interests is a contemporary version of the Baroque book of emblems that combines “textual snapshots” along with original designs and mottos to provide distilled visions of the subterranean landscape of contemporary capitalism.

Published by Horse and Sparrow Editions
ISBN: 978-0-9881170-0-6
17.6×25 cm, 40 pp, Black and white risograph, staple binding, 2012
Edition of 200
10 CAD

More info: http://www.ibghylemmens.com

Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens have been working in collaboration since 2002. In their practice, they heighten the allusive and deconstructive features of language to interrogate knowledge-formations, institutional contexts, and social and political entanglements. Their work is characterized by a minimalist approach to the form and construction of the art object and a use of materials as a way to make ideas visible. Recent projects explore how desire and belief influence economic discourse and practices, sustain current economies, but also carry the potential for inciting new forms of doing economy. Their work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway, Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow; 10th Sharjah Biennial, UAE; Ausland, Berlin; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; Owens Art Gallery, Sackville; Western Front, Vancouver, Labor K1, Berlin; Trafó, House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest, and the European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions include I’d gladly surrender myself to you, body and soul, G Gallery, Toronto (2012); Real failure needs no excuse, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012); The Space of Observation, 221A, Vancouver (2011); Demand Curves for Transcendence, Galleria Alkovi, Helsinki (2011), and The afterlives of books that set about changing society, Centre VU, Quebec City (2010). Their artistic projects and writings have been published in Le Merle, C-magazine, New Social Inquiry, and Pyramid Power.

Horse and Sparrow Editions is the publishing branch of Horse and Sparrow, an umbrella project initiated in 2008 by Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens. The project develops through in-house research and field work, as well as through commissions and publications.

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