Exhibitions: The Twelve Theses on Attention

“True attention loves the real into existence” — declare the peaceful guerillas of the underground collective known as the Friends of Attention.  Working to devise, defend, recover, effect, and share forms of attention that defy commodification, the Friends seek friends (and allies) to “bring forth the astonishing reality of things and persons.” Formed in the wake of the 2018 São Paulo Biennial, this international coalition of artists, activists, scholars, and writers has led a series of annual workshops on “The Politics of Attention,” promoted community-based Attention Labs in New York City, and published a manifesto (“The Fuse; Its Refusal”) in October. Their new book Twelve Thesis on Attention (Princeton, 2022) documents their film at the 2021 Glasgow International, and lays out a radical vision of attentional worldmaking.  To celebrate the release of this important publication, the Monira Foundation hosts a benefit exhibition of one hundred individually unique handmade lithographs of the “Twelve Theses,” produced at the anarchist squat/atelier in Paris called the DOC, under the direction of French “Friends” Alex Balgiu and Quentin Julien-Saavedra. All proceeds to benefit the work of the Friends of Attention and the Monira Foundation.