Artistic and theoretical perspectives on evil

If Alice is the devil and the devil is a squirrel, what will be evil? Alba D’Urbano raises this question on page 85 of the publication Evil is a squirrel, which, amounting to a total of 1680 pages, reflects several years of critical confrontation with the subject “of evil” and the exhibition project by the same name of the intermedia class at the Academy for Visual Arts (HGB).

Under the direction of Franz Alken, Alba D’Urbano and Angelika Richter, more than 50 HGB students as well as international artists put “evil on trial” back in 2009 already. The exhibition, which was put on display at the Leipzig Regional Court, also included a film and lecture series in the large courtroom of the Federal Administrative Court and several performances in an urban environment.

Now the book is finally available. But rather than saying it is now at hand, it feels like a brick lying in your hands: A highly compact book with numerous illustrations which, above and beyond the documentation of individual pieces of art, reflects the many years of theoretical confrontation with the subject issue (in German and English by, for example, Philip G. Zimbardo, Christoph Türcke, Karl Marx, Angela Melitopoulos/Antonio Negri, or Mary Jane Dean) and the manifold ways of dealing with a condition that is part of the human existence. It’s a good thing that the temporary exhibit has been successfully transformed into a permanent medium and shame on you if the book, devised by Marc Lotzman, should remind you of a bible.