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Item: The Baader-Meinhof Affair

Erin Cosgrove

2002

Book, 17.1 x 10.8 cm, 245 p, language: English, publisher: New York : Printed Matter, Inc., ISBN: 0-8943901-0-4.
Materials: ink, paper

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2025/473).

Literary synopsis

Erin Cosgrove takes the romance novel for a ride through revolutionary terrain to produce a tempestuous tale of terrorism and true love. In the cloistered environment of an exclusive East Coast college, the young and the restless fall in love while romancing the ghosts of the Baader-Meinhof gang active in 1970s Germany. It’s a hilarious send up of the romance genre complete with earnest interjections from the author who supplies historical cliff notes and commentary for the confused. A page-turning tour de force of the dangerous passions and politics of the privileged.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Erin Cosgrove is interested in engaging complex moral, political content. To this end her work has three constants: an excess of content, multiple layers and access points to the content, and satire. The strategy is to create art that is pointed in its subject matter without being a bumper sticker. Cosgrove may use books, videos, drawings, paintings and installation in a single project. Multiple mediums can sustain a narrative playfully—relaying meaning without being didactic or shallow. She hopes that her work is also a proposal for accessible artwork that is subversive and seductive.

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The M HKA is a museum for contemporary art, film and visual culture in its widest sense. It is an open place of encounter for art, artists and the public. The M HKA aspires to play a leading role in Flanders and to extend its international profile by building upon Antwerp's avant-garde tradition. The M HKA bridges the relationship between artistic questions and wider societal issues, between the international and the regional, artists and public, tradition and innovation, reflection and presentation. Central here is the museum's collection with its ongoing acquisitions, as well as related areas of management and research.

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