The latest installment of e-flux journal (no. 157, October 2025) contains my essay “Propositional Politics,” which looks into the politics and the poetics of various propositional practices in contemporary art. Other authors in this issue include a certain Walter Benjamin, with his essay on Max Kommerell’s book the German writer Jean Paul. I am happy to learn that Jean Paul is finally being translated into English; check out the Logbook of Giannozzo the Balloonist for starters.

Image: Lidwien van de Ven, Paris, 15/06/2024 (Léon Blum). This work is not discussed in “Propositional Politics,” but was on my mind when writing the passage on the Nouveau Front Populaire. It should be considered part of the constellation of images accompanying the text, rather than the public domain photo of a 1930s rally.

The destruction of cultural infrastructure in the Low Countries continues with the Flemish government’s decision to downgrade the M HKA (the museum of contemporary art in Antwerp) as a museum, integrating its collections into the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, and turning the M HKA into some kind of art centre. The L’Internationale Confederation has issued a support statement, and the by now sadly familiar petition can be found here.