Monologues is an audio publication. For each volume two participants are invited to pick and speak about a topic from a pre-selected list.

Monologues #1:

 Mark Fisher on The Poor and the Proletariat 

Sally O'Reilly on Wine and Milk

Cassette (EP4)
Listen to an extract here 
£6:00 inclusive of postage. 
Buy here

Sally O’Reilly is a writer, contributing regularly to many art and  culture publications. Her book The Body in Contemporary Art was published by Thames & Hudson in 2009. She has also curated and produced numerous performative events and was writer in residence at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (2010–11).

Mark Fisher is the author of Capitalist Realism (Zer0, 2009). His writing regularly appears in frieze, The Wire, Film Quarterly and Sight and Sound. He teaches at the University of East  London, the City Literary Institute and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Co-published by CT Editions and Entr'acte 

The Protagonist is now in its third year. Our current Protagonist is Bob & Roberta Smith, he is an artist who paints signs and writes. The blog genuinely documents his daily activities, from being in the studio to waiting at the bus stop. It’s going to be a visual experience rather than a literary one, with Bob & Roberta sharing his vision with us through photography and video. Personally I am really enjoying his videos, especially this one, Looking Leytonstone. You can find a Q&A I did with him here.

MAN-MADE: Frieze Art Fair: 16-19 October 2008

‘Objects are always signals to the imagination to begin its work. They are the furnishing of the mind’s eye.’

MAN-MADE is a commercial experiment that explores our relationship with commodities made by man. Things hold their intrinsic value by supplying the desires of the mind through their physical qualities and the personal associations we might bring to that thing. It is that want, and the why in want, that we are keen to explore.

MAN-MADE

MAN-MADE: Frieze Art Fair

16-19 October 2008

MAN-MADE was a commercial experiment that explored our relationship with commodities made by man. Things hold their intrinsic value by supplying the desires of the mind through their physical qualities and the personal associations we might bring to that thing. It is that want, and the why in want, that we are keen to explore.

"Things which are repeated are pleasing"

Based in the West End during the four days of Frieze, MAN-MADE will present and sell identical multiples of one object each day; MAN-MADE’s usp is that it removes the dilemma of choice – that great democratic idea that, if abused, can induce a sense of anxiety. The market is edited down and objects are chosen from hardware equipment to inflatable toys; the item is repeated to form an army of itself, provoking our customers’ imaginations and encouraging a sea of associations. The celebratoryand repetitive styling of the object will enforce its character upon the space and create a scene of colours, shapes and contours making a strong impression on the consumer (and hopefully) inducing them to buy.

Design historian Emily King has selected an item for sale; artist Oriana Fox responds to MAN-MADE with a performance titled Material Girl; and a site specific sound installation titled Consume from sound artist Shelley Parker will run for the four days. Bompas and Parr take us flavour tripping, and a free screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Why Does Herr R. Run Amok observes a measured man’s alienation in middle class conformity who one day can take no more. For further information please contact Charlotte Troy on man.made.pop.up@gmail.com or call on 07966 351 260.

Schedule

Thursday 16 October

Bloom’s Salami Chubs x 50: £3.50 each

Flavour Tripping with Bompas and Parr (tickets needed)

Friday 17 October 

5ft inflatable Incredible Hulk x 10: £25.00

Saturday 18 October 

File Magazine: General Idea, edited by Beatrix 

Ruf, published by JRP Ringier x 10: £125.00 each

Material Girl, performance by Oriana Fox

Sunday 19 October

Emily King selects: Hultafors folding rule x 25: £5.00 each

Why Does Herr R. Run Amok, Rainer Werner Fassbinder

On the 3rd September 2009 Charlotte Troy, a freelance publisher and editor, will open CT Pocket: the first arts bookshop in Southeast London’s Deptford. CT Pocket is a mini arts bookshop and will be located inside the contemporary art gallery BEARSPACE. Deptford is a fast growing arts ‘hub’, recently described by the New York Times as ‘a boisterous concoction of blue-collar aesthetics and intermittent hipsterism’ – and, with its high concentration of artists, a growing legion of galleries, Goldsmiths University, arts festival Deptford X; new Tate Trustee Bob and Roberta Smith recently declared the area as ‘sexy’. CT Pocket hopes to alleviate a local thirst for knowledge about contemporary art and aims to be a place for people to find out more and talk about art today.

To launch the venture, celebrated curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist has hand-picked 15 must-have new titles for any dis¬cerning reader (see p.2) to be featured and sold at the store. These include Michael Clark’s first monograph and Yoko Ono’s latest book, Anton’s Memory. In addition to this inspiring list, CT Pocket will stock a rigorously edited selection of new and second-hand books (and periodicals) dealing in artist monographs, theory, special editions, music and architecture; each in their own way inspiring, rich in content and meticulously produced. CT Pocket will also host occasional book launchs or talks, curated around the guest editor’s list of books.

Charlotte Troy publishes under her imprint CT Editions, and her personal work is interested in asking nosey questions of the culturally hot. For Q&A (2007), an experiment for a print publication, she sought answers from pop icons such as Terry Hall, Peter Saville and Susan Hiller; in Dispense and Connect (2008, part of the Hayward Gallery’s 100 Ideas), Charlotte brought together international editors Sina Najafi (Editor, Cabinet), Bice Curiger (Parkett), Barry Miles (writer and editor, Publisher of International Times, underground press syndicate), and Maria Fusco (The Happy Hypocrite) to discuss periodical art publish¬ing; and forMAN-MADE (2008) a pop-up shop which sold multiples of only one item daily (2008), she asked design historian Emily King to select an object for the store. For Charlotte Troy the bookshop is just the same as publishing: her goal being to disseminate ideas and enable correspondences; as David Hockney once said: ‘Art is about correspondences – making con¬nections to the world and to each other.’

"The best source of information about an artist is the artist." – John Baldessari, 1975

My new blog Artist-Talks is the first test in a new project I am looking to realise. This first go, works on a minimum viable product basis, within a strategy of make-test-learn where I see what I can achieve without any cost in digital media. The blog features collected video and audio from some of our most celebrated artists currently showing in our most popular institutions and museums.

Edited by Lucy Byatt and Charlotte Troy

For 100 years the Contemporary Art Society has played a unique and pivotal role in the formation of the UK's art collections. To mark the Contemporary Art Society's centenary year, the society developed a programme of projects, events and exhibitions in over thirty museums across the UK. 

What’s Next? 100 Years of the Contemporary Art Society: Inside Public Collections features the extensive output of these interventions alongside vital conversations about curating, patronage and the cultural identity of Museums and the significance of collections on the artist and creative practitioner. The book also includes its own collection of works on paper from some of the UKs most important and emerging artists, all of whom have been supported by the Contemporary Art Society. The Contemporary Art Society has worked as a catalyst for the visual arts in the UK, continuing to develop and support audiences, artists, curators, collectors and collections alike. Timely in its nature and explorative in its method, this book is essential for anyone interested in public art collections today and curious about their future.

For 100 years the Contemporary Art Society has played a unique and pivotal role in the formation of the UK’s art collections. To mark the Contemporary Art Society’s centenary year, the society developed a programme of projects, events and exhibitions in over thirty museums across the UK.

What’s Next? 100 Years of the Contemporary Art Society: Inside Public Collections features the extensive output of these interventions alongside vital conversations about curating, patronage and the cultural identity of Museums and the significance of collections on the artist and creative practitioner. The book also includes its own collection of works on paper from some of the UKs most important and emerging artists, all of whom have been supported by the Contemporary Art Society. The Contemporary Art Society has worked as a catalyst for the visual arts in the UK, continuing to develop and support audiences, artists, curators, collectors and collections alike. Timely in its nature and explorative in its method, this book is essential for anyone interested in public art collections today and curious about their future.

Featured artists, writers and curators include: Claire Barclay, David Batchelor, Pavel Buchler, Yane Calovski, Marcus Coates, Richard Cork, Michael Dean, Katy Dove, Seamus Harahan, Andy Holden, Fiona Jardine, Elisa Kay, Torsten Lauschmann, Rosalind Nashashibi, Elizabeth Price, Hannah Rickards, Lindsay Seers, Sarah Skinner, Bob and Roberta Smith, Jon Thompson, Emily Wardill and Sally O’Reilly.

Q&A was initially published as a zine in 2006 dedicated to our cultural icons of the past, present and future. Its aim was to investigate the psyche of those individuals who shape our cultural and social landscape. And to entertain, enlighten and inspire the reader.

An experiment in simple magazine making, using the Q&A formula as our primary method of investigation the paper features interviews with Terry Hall, Susan Hiller, Amos Vogel and Peter Saville - you can read all the interviews, now digitized, here.  The paper also included work by Jocko Weyland  who created a series of short stories for us; Jon Link from Modern Toss who drew portraits of the contributors; and artwork from Seb Patane. It was given away for free through art institutions and quality bookshops such as the ICA and Koenig Books, and on the tube and in the streets of London. I still have a few left so if you want a copy please tweet me on @Charlotte_Troy

Following the publication the style of the sharp and fast interview exploded, it suits our speedy minds and screen sized vision. The coming commonality of the style of the interview put me off to be honest and I never produced another issue. However, it continues to be one of the most valuable and searched for pieces of content I own. More than this everyone enjoyed it, the artists contributing, the readers engaging with the content and me as an editor searching and hunting down those artists and individuals who I feel have something to say in one way or another. With this in mind I think it’s time to dust the cobwebs off the questionnaire and bring it back to life, this time including my friends, joe public and the culturally Pop. 

If you like this you might also like The Protagonist and Artist Talks. And for regular updates please 'like" my Facebook page.

I would also like to ask for your help, is there someone popular who defines a moment for you? Who would you like to get personal with? What would you ask them? Would you like to answer one yourself?  Answers on a twitter feed please: @Charlotte_Troy_#Q&A.

I recently had the privilege of organising and producing a pilgrimage style performance for Grayson Perry around France, Antwerp and Germany. Grayson loves his motorbikes, just like he loves his dresses, and he designed this rather incredible beast, The AM 1,  which doubles up as a sort of Popemobile for Grayson’s benign dictator teddybear, His Royal Highness Alan Measles. Over ten days we visited sites of great cultural significance for Grayson and his work, from the Nurburgring to Mad King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle, made famous by Disney in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We were accompanied by a BBC film crew and a collection of Grayson's friends and even Alan Yentobb popped by for roast Pork and Beer. Neil Crombie's Imagine will be broadcast on the 3rd November 2011, more information on that here. You can also read Alan’s experience on the blog I set up for Grayson.

What is it like to be a fly on a psychotherapist’s wall? This compelling case study in the form of a graphic novel vividly explores a year’s therapy sessions as a search for understanding and truth. Told in a witty and thought-provoking manner, each engagingly illustrated scene is accompanied by deft commentary. Buy it here