Category=AJCD
contemporary issues
critical theory
cultural critique
Davos
economic discourse
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
global politics
globalization
international relations
media and society
political satire
power and influence
World Economic Forum
Product details
- ISBN 9783037786482
- Dimensions: 230 x 300mm
- Publication Date: 25 Mar 2021
- Publisher: Lars Muller Publishers
- Publication City/Country: CH
- Product Form: Hardback
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In the context of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an absurd practice has emerged in Davos over the last few years: for the short time of the event, the main street is almost entirely rebuilt. Thus, a pop-up industry has grown up that generates an enormous short-term demand for reusable spaces, blank walls and empty rooms. The street scene of the alpine city is altered in favor of the self-representation of companies, corporations and organizations. The existing infrastructure is transformed, at horrendous prices, into a space of communication for the respective agenda.
In his most recent series Davos Is a Verb, the Swiss photo artist Jules Spinatsch focuses on something that is typical of events around the world: the temporary appropriation of local spaces and infrastructures by major international corporations. In view of the debates over the WEF’s future, this photobook gains its relevance and presents itself as a contemporary witness of the WEF in Davos. By using photo-essayistic, conceptual and investigative artistic strategies, Spinatsch documents the aesthetics and actions of the financial, technological and new media industries as well as the various political agents. The British ecological economist Tim Jackson, known for his critical attitude towards growth, comments on the hegemonic practices in Davos and the world in an extensive essay.
JULES SPINATSCH (born 1964 in Davos) briefly studied sociology in Zurich, then photography at the International Center of Photography ICP in New York. Since 2000, he has been working mainly on his own projects, which are published as monographs and shown as exhibitions, e.g. at the MoMA (NY) and the Tate Modern. In 2019 the comprehensive publication of the solo exhibition Semiautomatic Photography 2001–2020 at the Centre de la Photographie Genève was published. Temporary Discomfort won the prize for the best photography book in Arles in 2005.
TIM JACKSON, born 1957, is a British ecological economist and professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey. He is the director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity and the author of Prosperity Without Growth (2017).
