LOOMPANICS
Museum of Arte Útil, Van Abbe Museum, Einhoven, 2013 Pumphouse gallery, London, 2009 Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, 2009 CCA Glasgow, 2009 Naked Life, MOCA, Taipei, 2006/2007 Teasing Minds, Kunstverein Munchen, Munich, 2004 Exposorium, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 2003 White Box, New York, 2001

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Loompanics Publishers has a website: www.loompanics.com. They publish slightly subversive book, balancing on the edge of the tolerable, legal and illegal. In 2001, Bik Van der Pol temporarily used the windows of White Box Gallery in New York that thus functioned as a window vitrine and advertisement space for Loompanics. Loompanics publishes on ''Money-Making Opportunities, Underground Economy, Privacy And Hiding Things, Fake I.D.'s, Conducting Investigations, Crime And Police Science, Prison, Locks And Locksmithing, Self Defense, Revenge, Guns, Weapons, Bombs, Explosives, Guerrilla Warfare, Murder, Death, and Torture, Survival, Self Sufficiency, Shelter, Paralegal Skills, Heresy/Weird Ideas, Outlaw History, Anarchism and Egoism, Reality Creation and How to sneak into the movies without paying, and How to disappear completely without being found....'' Loompanics unlimited is, as the publishers say themselves on their website, for knowledge, fun and pleasure. For the unlimited possibilities of each individual, the spirituality of human freedom and resistance against tyranny.

CCA Glasgow

Some books in Loompanics' catalogue deal with activities and methods which, when really executed, would conflict with federal, state- en local law. Loompanics however insists on the fact that they do not advocate breaking law: their books are sold for information purposes only. Loompanics Unlimited recommends interested readers to contact the authorities before realizing a project based on the information in their books. The books published by Loompanics Unlimited, emphasize the tension between free speech, thinking, and taking responsibility for action. During thirty years, Loompanics has been publishing books on the edge of the tolerable. The collection—now an archive—occupies an important niche. Everything produced by a society can, in reality, also be used against it. Balancing on this ambiguity of what defines a democracy, the books published by this radical company claim, through its output, a free space where one can think. In january 2006, Loompanics went out of business, and following this, Bik Van der Pol collected 140 books from Loompanics Unlimited publishers, Washington.

Each book has become a collector's item now; Bik Van der Pol have nevertheless decided to make the content available. Users are invited to read the publications and make copies of the manuals, so they can potentially follow instructions and realise projects on their own. In 2007, Loompanics was acquired by Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven and is now part of their collection.

Centre for the aesthetic revolution

Van Abbe Museum (NL)

White Box, NY

MOCA Taipei

Bard College

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