Marie de Brugerolle's 'Premières critiques' Published by Presses du réel / JRP Ringier

Presses du réel and JRP Ringier have co-published 'Premières critiques', a collection of essays by Marie de Brugerolle. The book explores original concepts for understanding contemporary art in light of late 20th-century aesthetic revolutions, including a lucid analysis of sampling as a new 21st-century paradigm, reflections on what remains of performance after the 20th-century's happenings and events, and a definition of the 'scenic object' based on a detailed reading of Guy de Cointet's work. De Brugerolle also authored the first monograph on Cointet, a French artist exiled in Los Angeles, described as a missing link in conceptual art history bridging Rousselian surrealism, futurism, and West Coast conceptual art. Cointet pioneered a new form of performing art with nonlinear narratives and scenic objects, and was a language artist fond of cryptographs and coded languages. A preface by Larry Bell, for whom Cointet worked as an assistant, pays homage to the artist nicknamed 'the Duchamp of LA', whose influence on Californian artists from Mike Kelley and Richard Jackson to a new generation (Dora Garcia, Julien Bismuth) continues to grow.