Paul B. Preciado's 'An Apartment on Uranus' Chronicles Trans Experience and Political Decay

Paul B. Preciado's book 'An Apartment on Uranus' assembles newspaper columns from 2013 to 2018 into a chronicle of personal and political transition. The work connects gender transition with migration through what Preciado terms 'somatopolitical dissidence.' He frames his trans condition as a new form of Uranism, referencing Karl Heinrich Ulrichs's 1864 concept of Uranians. The columns track Europe's recent history, including Occupy, the Indignados, the Greek debt crisis, the migration crisis, the Catalan independence movement, and Donald Trump's election. Preciado documents his own medical transition from Beatriz to Paul B., begun in 2014, detailing physical changes and bureaucratic hurdles. He argues that processes of transition illuminate global political shifts, equating sex change and migration as practices challenging patriarchal colonialism and nation-state boundaries. The book employs lists and proliferates critical terminology, such as 'necro' prefixes, to dissolve normative language. Preciado's style, translated by Charlotte Mandell, draws from theorists like Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. The text critiques the art world's limitations, referencing Documenta 14's move to Athens and its quick bailout compared to Greek governments. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in softcover for £12.99, the book appeared in the March 2020 issue of ArtReview.