AMBruno Artists
Sharon Kivland

Books: I have produced books for many years, as a writer, artist, editor, and publisher. I am a keen reader, thinking about what is put at stake by art, politics, and psychoanalysis. I fear I may be a wild reader, subject to both digression and whimsy, and this may characterise my approach. With one or two exceptions (in one, the production values are absurdly excessive in their luxury, and in another, so basic as to be equally risible), my books are machine-printed, off-set or digital depending on funds; editions may be large or small, according to whim or publisher; some are no more than slim pamphlets, while others carry more weight. There may be a somewhat scholarly tone or look, but some books consist only of pictures, selected and classified. Often a book provides a way I may think about the material on which I am working.

Short films: I have only made five films; to call them films seems somewhat grandiose, much as I loved making them (and indeed, imagine that there are more to come). The first three have the collected title Reisen, each with the same subtitle or description: Every year Sigmund Freud went on holiday with his brother, Alexander. They show the smoke of steam trains, the snow on Alpine peaks, and the limpid waters of mountain lakes. I think of these as the holiday films Freud did not make. To this, one may add the Super-8 film Anna & Sigm., filmed by Lucy Reynolds for her project 'Anthology' at Camden Arts Centre in 2013, and a film entitled Juin en vacances, made from fifty images taken from French women's magazines of 1968.

Sharon Kivland: I am an artist and writer working in London and France. Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University, I am also a Research Associate of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London. I walk the streets in pursuit of Marx and Freud, in the shadow of Lacan. My practice is one of stupid refinement, trapped in archives, libraries, the arcades, and at the intersection of public political action and private subjectivity.

www.sharonkivland.com

A Lover's Discourse / Un discours amoureux is part of AMBruno's [sic] collection. Unsolicited 'encounter' emails, received over a year, are read as if they are intended for me alone, in a sincere desire for a real love relation, translated into English from French as they are written from my position as recipient, and with their original text. The book echoes the format of the French edition of Roland Barthes's Fragments d'un discours amoureux ("Tel Quel", Seuil 1977). Edition of 100. Digitally printed. Perfect bound. 104 pages.

LALANGUE is part of AMBruno's words collection. Lalangue is a report of language without words, where words are replaced by images, and mouths are blocked. To be a body is to be woven from language. The body of the speaking being is imprisoned and determined by the signifiers of maternal speech.

MES MARIANNES is part of AMBruno's Red collection. The Parisian sans-culottes displayed their revolutionary ardour and plebeian solidarity in 1789 by wearing the Phrygian cap, the bonnet rouge. Herein there are only women, Mariannes who are all bonnet, who are nothing but phallic silhouettes, which oscillate between difference and equality.

Last Year: The garden and frozen figures with their shadows is part of AMBruno's Stills collection of limited edition prints. A single still, the famous scene of the garden and the frozen figures with their shadows, from L'annáe dernière à Marienbad, from which I have erased the figures, leaving only the shadows of where they once may have been supposed to stand, last year. Archival digital print on Hahnemuhle paper

THE UNACHIEVED is part of AMBruno's Lists collection. This is a book of failed collections. Herein are postcards whose taxonomy I have already determined, filing each image under a provisional title according to the set of properties it will share with others yet to be found, but which have not accrued in sufficient quantity to constitute a proper collection according to my stern, rigorous, and internalised rules. Edition of 25. Digitally printed, signed and numbered.

LA LISEUSE is part of AMBruno's I'm telling you stories. Trust me collection of limited edition prints. A woman is reading, la dame en blanc. She is wearing a liseuse. She is a reader and she wears a reader. Archival digital and inkjet print on Hahnemuhle paper.

Jeux de Lignes is part of AMBruno's Lines collection. The notes on corsets, girdles, and brassieres from a French lingerie journal of the 1950s are translated in a rather literal fashion. There are no illustrations save for a drawing at the beginning and at the end, for I am sure my reader has a playful imagination and will embellish the words with ease. Edition of 50. With 2 hand-coloured tipped-in illustrations.

Le Style XVI is part of AMBruno's 16 collection. A small catalogue of Louis XVI furniture, which makes rapport between style and revolution, furniture and its naming, femininity and the neo-classical. The ambience will be welcoming, despite its sobriety and whiff of the Terror. Edition of 25. Signed and numbered. 6 duotone photographic plates tipped in by hand.

Mes Mouches is part of AMBruno's Black Circle collection. Usually a beauty spot is a lesion caused by melanocycotic nevus, but sometimes it is applied as a 'mouche' in velvet or silk or as makeup. I have selected from my collection of photographs of women, adding an inked beauty spot. Edition of 100. 14 pages, stapled. 21 b&w photographic illustrations. DOMOBAAL editions ISBN 987-1-905979-27-9

Ma Nana is part of AMBruno's One-Fold Books collection. It is uncertain if this is a book or a drawing, as uncertain a thing as Nana a person. Edition of 3. Pencil on Canson paper.

La mer est si bleue is part of AMBruno's Blue collection. Hello from Stella beach where I am spending a nice holiday, despite the bad weather. Best wishes, Marie-Claire. DOMOBAAL editions ISBN 987-1-905957-11-8 Edition of 100. 28 pages. Stapled. 12 black and white photographic illustrations.