“EXIT INTERVIEW”: BUCHLOH’S CRITICAL LEGACY, NOW IN SPANISH

Alias editorial presents Entrevista de salida, the Spanish translation of Exit Interview (No place press, United States, 2024), an extended conversation between art critics and historians Benjamin H. D. Buchloh (Cologne, 1941) and Hal Foster (Seattle, 1955). The volume was conceived as Buchloh's farewell after six decades of critical work between Germany and the United States. The translation is by Mexican artist Gabriel Kuri, with technical review by Juan Carlos Calvillo.

The conversation unfolds in three parts — Biographemes, Schisms, and Dissents — tracing Buchloh's intellectual and personal trajectory: his years in the Berlin communes, a period in London as a fiction writer, his return to Germany in 1971 to work in galleries, edit the influential journal Interfunktionen, and teach at the Düsseldorf Academy. From there, the dialogue moves toward his relocation to North America and his collaborations with Foster, including the journal October and the book Art Since 1900 (2004). Throughout, figures such as Michael Asher, Marcel Broodthaers, Louise Lawler, Gerhard Richter, Martha Rosler, and Lawrence Weiner emerge as recurring reference points.

What sets the book apart from a conventional interview is its dialectical depth. Foster does not interrogate Buchloh — he thinks alongside him, identifying the "fascinating contradictions" that structure his approach. The conversation preserves the intimacy of a frank exchange between two longtime colleagues while sustaining precise analysis of the ties between art, politics, and the social, institutional, and economic structures that shape artistic practice. The book closes with an epilogue by Buchloh reflecting on the potential of critical art in the face of the relentless commodification of everyday life.

Translator Gabriel Kuri noted that working on the book confirmed how much his own theoretical framework owes to both authors, but that the real reward came as surprises: "perhaps the most striking thing across their erudite, candid, and varied conversations is the scale of what they were unable to cover" — and with that, the reminder that criticism, theory, and art history are necessarily collective endeavors.

Entrevista de salida is now available through SP Distribuciones for bookstores in Mexico and at aliaseditorial.com, with distribution in Spain via MiraLookBooks, in Colombia via Saga Libros, and in Argentina via Big Sur. A series of presentations begins online and continues in person from July 19.