Magma has unveiled its third volume, Archive of the Future, a bold experiment in art publishing that redefines the archive as both a political and poetic space. Bringing together twenty-five artists, writers, filmmakers, and composers from across the globe, this edition asks how artistic forms can anticipate the world to come in a time when history feels fractured and the future uncertain.
Launched with the support of Bottega Veneta, which has championed the project since its inception, Archive of the Future will be celebrated with two exhibitions: a solo presentation of Merry Alpern’s work at Tramps gallery in London (October 13th, 2025) and a major group show at FORMA in Paris’s Marais district (October 19th–November 19th, 2025).
A new language for art publishing
Hans Ulrich Obrist, who contributes the foreword, describes Magma as a collection of artist archives that serve not as static repositories but as prototypes for the future. Founder Paul Olivennes underscores that the archive is political, a reflection of what societies choose to preserve, believe, or silence—yet its truth lies in the breaches and ruptures that reveal other possibilities.
In this spirit, Archive of the Future brings together over one hundred previously unpublished works, spanning painting, photography, literature, sound, and performance, each piece extending the boundaries of art publishing.
Highlights from the Archive
Among the contributions, several stand out for their depth and daring:
- Elizabeth Peyton continues her exploration of portraiture, distilling centuries of painting into intimate depictions of the face as a site of presence and mystery.
- Precious Okoyomon offers a sachet of cosmos seeds alongside poetry, a gesture that transforms the book into a living, growing archive.
- Stephan Crasneanscki opens the cinematic and personal archives of Jean-Luc Godard, accompanied by a text by Patti Smith, illuminating the filmmaker’s late-life decision to put his chaos in order.
- Charles Ray shares five dawn recordings from his walks in Los Angeles, weaving together memory, solitude, and hallucinatory introspection.
- Pol Taburet introduces Ultra Half Negro Symbolism, a series in which black is not a color but a syntax, unfolding through minimal drawings, texts, and poems.
- Merry Alpern’s Dirty Windows, censored in the 1990s, is reissued three decades later, revealing raw images of Wall Street’s hidden nightlife.
- Jonas Mekas contributes seven Polaroids from a 1971 Fluxus dinner with Yoko Ono and John Lennon, a fragment of art history now preserved anew.
- Michelangelo Pistoletto presents two unseen mirror paintings, reproduced on mirrored pages that extend his dialogue with reflection and presence.
Other contributions—from Sissel Tolaas’s olfactory bookmark to Michel Journiac’s haunting La Guillotine—push the publication beyond the page, engaging the senses in unexpected ways.
‘Archive of the Future’: a total editorial experience
Blending text, image, film, sound, and scent, Archive of the Future embodies Magma’s ambition to weave correspondences between eras, disciplines, and worlds. It is less a book than an encounter: a memory in the making and a blueprint for futures yet to be imagined.
Supported by Bottega Veneta, this third edition confirms Magma’s unique role in redefining art publishing—not as a closed archive of the past, but as an open space where tomorrow takes shape.
Photography courtesy of MAGMA
Spacial thanks to LUCIEN PAGÈS COMMUNICATION
