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A leading thinker and an essential artist come together in a manifesto-style book.
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The Power of Words
Jacques Rancière & Alfredo Jaar
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A book that explores the tension between what words reveal, what images convey, and what eludes both.
With this new volume, JBE Books brings together an iconic work by Alfredo Jaar and an unpublished essay by Jacques Rancière, accompanied by an interview between the two authors. Rancière, a major figure in contemporary philosophy and aesthetics, has profoundly shaped current thinking on politics, art, and the distribution of the visible.
Presented as a preview at the Venice Biennale, then launched at Art Basel alongside the presentation of a historic work by Alfredo Jaar, the book is already circulating within some of the most influential platforms of the international art world. It reflects the ongoing relevance of Jaar’s practice and its sustained presence in major exhibitions and critical debates on the politics of images.
It is available now, online and in bookstores.
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The Power of Words
JBE Readings Collection
With a previously unpublished essay by Jacques Rancière
And an emblematic work by Alfredo Jaar
Followed by a conversation between Jacques Rancière and Alfredo Jaar
Published by JKG×JBE Books
Format: 12.5 × 19 cm
Price: €19
Publication: June 2026
ISBN (French edition): 978-2-36568-137-7
ISBN (English edition): 978-2-36568-138-4
Translated from the French by Lucas Faugère
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The Power of Words brings together two powerful voices to examine our image-saturated age.
It features an essential essay by Jacques Rancière on the contemporary disconnect between words and images, and on the effects this divide has on our modes of perception and thought.
In parallel, Alfredo Jaar’s work The Power of Words (1984/2021) offers an incisive visual reflection on the power of images and their circulation in the contemporary media landscape.
Between the two, an interview extends the dialogue and opens up a shared critical space.
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“The Power of Words “(1984/2021) consists of a reproduction of a found photograph of a typewriter whose upper section—where a sheet of paper bearing a typed text would normally be placed—has been cut out to make room for a projected sequence of sixteen press photographs depicting women, men, and children in painful situations. This series of images suggests the artist’s outrage in the face of various crises, although he provides no textual information about the context of each image, as if the typewriter’s capabilities were outdated, or conversely, dangerous. Behind the photograph of the typewriter is a neon sign whose red glow washes over the projected images and illuminates the space.
Rancière sees in this a decisive shift: no longer the thing itself, but the effect it produces. And he reminds us that art and politics arise when the ordinary division between words and things breaks down.
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“There are many texts in Alfredo Jaar’s installations.
Putting texts on the walls of a gallery is, it is thought, to drive out the images.
But that is to think in terms of entities and not in terms of devices. The image, precisely, is not defined solely by the presentation of the visible. Words, too, are material for images.”
— Jacques Rancière
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First encounters: Venice and Basel
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The book first appeared in Venice during the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, within the exhibition “In Minor Keys” curated by Koyo Kouoh, alongside Alfredo Jaar’s installation The End of the World.
It will its journey at Art Basel, during the presentation of a historic work by Alfredo Jaar.
JBE & JKG Books, in collaboration with Rosso Granada, are pleased to invite you to the launch of JBE & JKG’s latest book, The Power of Words, by Jacques Rancière and Alfredo Jaar.
Conversation with Alfredo Jaar and Jean-Kenta Gauthier
Wednesday, June 17, at 5:30 p.m.
Private salon: Jean-Kenta Gauthier x Rosso Granada
A 5-minute walk from Art Basel
Reservations required
Two key moments within major international art platforms, where Jaar’s work once again affirmed its place at the centre of contemporary artistic and political reflection.
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David Desrimais, director of JBE Books, Alfredo Jaar, artist, and Jean-Kenta Gauthier, gallerist,
at the Venice Biennale, May 2026
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Jacques Rancière is a philosopher. His work explores intellectual emancipation, politics, and aesthetics. He develops a philosophy of radical democracy at the intersection of literature, cinema, and modes of perception.
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, photographer, architect, and filmmaker. His work, widely exhibited internationally, has been presented at the Venice and São Paulo Biennales and at Documenta in Kassel, among others. He examines the conditions of visibility of images and their political significance.
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A book to read right away,
available now online and in bookstores.
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