Reflections from curators, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, architects, and writers on the cultural and political conditions of European exhibition practice since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This is the first monograph fully dedicated to critically investigating the political, economic, artistic, urban, and societal relationships of Manifesta – European Biennial of Contemporary Art, a European nomadic biennial initiated in the post-Cold War era. Despite being one of the most important recurrent exhibitions taking place in Europe, surprisingly little has been written about it since the mid-2000s, Manifesta, Art, Society and Politics provides a deeply-researched and engaging analysis of the the critically overlooked Manifesta exhibitions, as well as it's changing goals and discourse since the first edition in 1996. The book is split into four parts, divided by theme and following the exhibitions chronologically. Providing a comprehensive overview of one of the most important biennials in Europe, Manifesta, Art, Society and Politics investigates the relationship between large-scale art exhibitions, culture-led regeneration, and urban transformation. It is essential reading for students and researches of exhibition and curatorial studies, art history, and cultural studies.
As migration is described as a problem, mobility is seen as a goal. In a 'Europe without Borders', a place that prides itself on multiculturalism while struggling with racism, two opposing paradigms characterise contemporary discussions surrounding migrants. Breaching Borders: Art, Migrants and the Metaphor of Waste aims to interrogate the familiar debates, evolving new textual and interdisciplinary approaches to European cultural policies and unmasking the assumptions of the essentialist identity politics that go undeclared at the borders of cultural discourse. Twelve leading figures in post-colonial and translation studies, political philosophy, art, radical aesthetics, policy-making and sociology, reflect on the political and cultural meanings of migration; their arguments framed by artworks that provide glimpses of cross-cultural encounters. Essays - including a meditation on "wasted lives" by internationally renowned academic Zygmunt Bauman - explore the challenges of migration, history and integration and attempt to develop radical new figurations of migrant identity, underlining the necessity of an imaginative reach towards "The Other". This book brings together the roles of translation and of art in the central metaphor of waste - the trail of rubbish left behind by mechanisms of mobility; the excised narratives of wasted identities and people.
AGENDA is a catalog of 365 days, like a diary or journal: a collective narrative, personal and subjective. It documents the work and thinking of JDS Architects over a specific year marked by crisis, beginning on September 15th, 2008, the day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The form of the book exploits the double meaning of its title, presenting the absurdities of day-to-day architectural practice while also staking our intent. Rather than a definitive direction, our agenda is a definitive attitude - of eagerness, enthusiasm, and optimism, of criticality and concern, of fun and inquiry. It is a directive, a motivation to act, at times without clear knowledge of where our agenda will lead. "Change," the buzzword of the last U.S. presidential campaign, is the order of the day, and the task of AGENDA is to explore what kind of change will be needed if architects are to assume a political and social agency in this new landscape. Bringing together diverse forms of content, AGENDA is a product of vigilant observation, introspection, and engagement with outside thinkers and collaborators - artists, curators, politicians, authors, economists, journalists, developers, educators, and architects.
This innovative new history examines in-depth how the growing popularity of large-scale international survey exhibitions, or 'biennials', has influenced global contemporary art since the 1950s. Provides a comprehensive global history of biennialization from the rise of the European star-curator in the 1970s to the emergence of mega-exhibitions in Asia in the 1990s Introduces a global array of case studies to illustrate the trajectory of biennials and their growing influence on artistic expression, from the Biennale de la Méditerranée in Alexandria, Egypt in 1955, the second Havana Biennial of 1986, New York’s Whitney Biennial in 1993, and the 2002 Documenta11 in Kassel, to the Gwangju Biennale of 2014 Explores the evolving curatorial approaches to biennials, including analysis of the roles of sponsors, philanthropists and biennial directors and their re-shaping of the contemporary art scene Uses the history of biennials as a means of illustrating and inciting further discussions of globalization in contemporary art
The early 21st century has seen contemporary art make continued use of audience participation, in which the spectator becomes part of the artwork itself. In this book, Kaija Kaitavuori claims that the `participator' is a new artistic role that does not fall under the auspices of artist or spectator and in proving such she devises a four-group typology of involvement. Her classification distinguishes between different forms of engagement and identifies their specific features. The key criteria she proposes are how concepts of authorship and ownership shift in relation to collectively created work, how contracts regulating the use and production of shared work are arranged and the extent to which involvement in making art can be regarded as democratic. This highly original book thus offers students and teachers the tools with which to improve their understanding of participatory art and removes the confusing terminology that has characterized so many other discussions.
Artists always react to the times in which they live. They may celebrate them or criticize them, often trying to change them. But this is the first time in history that technology controlled by private companies is offering to replace the work of writers, musicians, illustrators and visual artists. What impact will generative AI have on how we create art and how we understand what art is for? How will it affect the role of the artist in the future and the conditions under which artists will work? Jan Svenungsson tackles these questions, investigating what AI might do for art, and what it might change, circling the core issue of what it is in human art-making that cannot be replaced.
A trailblazing look at the historical emergence of a global field in contemporary art and the diverse ways artists become valued worldwide Prior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of “international” contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins. The Global Rules of Art examines how this discriminatory situation has changed in recent decades. Drawing from abundant sources—including objective indicators from more than one hundred countries, multiple institutional histories and discourses, extensive fieldwork, and interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallerists, and auction house agents—Larissa Buchholz examines the emergence of a world-spanning art field whose logics have increasingly become defined in global terms. Deftly blending comprehensive historical analyses with illuminating case studies, The Global Rules of Art breaks new ground in its exploration of valuation and how cultural hierarchies take shape in a global context. The book’s innovative global field approach will appeal to scholars in the sociology of art, cultural and economic sociology, interdisciplinary global studies, and anyone interested in the dynamics of global art and culture.
Feminist networks, new biennials, and performance -- Painting and the image condition at the millennium -- Materiality, ephemerality, and haptics -- Language, the documentary, and art in a discursive mode -- Infrastructure, collaboration, and the cut -- Conclusion : Infrastructure is not (only) a metaphor.