The Populism Reader

Texts by Marius Babias, Ina Blom, Anthony Davies, Mads Ted Drud-Jensen & Lars Erik Frank, Simon Frith, Brian Holmes, Ernesto Laclau, Dieter Lesage, Bart Lootsma, Chantal Mouffe, Vanessa Joan Müller, Iver B. Neumann, Ingo Niermann, Piotr Piotrowski, Pierre-André Taguieff, Niels Werber, Audrone Zukauskaite

“Populism has many different faces. Many different things can be called populism for very good reasons. We may not necessarily agree on the meaning of the term populism. And maybe the term populism should not necessarily have only one meaning. The usefulness of a term with different meanings resides in the fact that it may hint at family resemblances between different phenomena called populism.” Dieter Lesage, “Populism and Democracy”

The Populism Reader accompanies Populism, an exhibition project in four European cities (Vilnius, Oslo, Amsterdam, Frankfurt am Main) exploring the relationships between contemporary art and current populist cultural and political trends. Conceived as an anthology, the publication comprises essays covering various aspects and approaches to the populist experience. The book is designed by M/M (Paris) and illustrated by Atelier Van Lieshout; contributions stem from amongst others activists, journalists, art critics, philosophers and political scientists.

The Populism Reader goes beyond academic styles in order to respond to historical and current aspects of the populist experience, as they surface in relation to art, activism, the role of the intellectual, political desires, religion and other issues.