Art critic and historian Claire Bishop's book on the heated debate on the role of participatory art in the contemporary art world. Theorising the aesthetic, political and ethical dimensions of the proliferation of socially engaged art from the 1990s, Bishop reviews the history of this art as promoted by curators and theorists.

'Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson.
Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as “social practice.” Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Paweł Althamer and Paul Chan.
Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In Artificial Hells, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.' —from back cover

Please note that only Asian artists mentioned in the book are listed.
Access level

Onsite

author
Location code
REF.BIC2
Language

English

Publication/Creation date

2012

No of pages

390

ISBN / ISSN

9781844676903

No of copies

1

Content type

monograph

Chapter headings

Introduction

The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents

Artificial Hells: Historic Avant-Garde

Je Participe, Tu Participes, Il Participe...

Social Sadism Made Explicit

The Social under Socialism

Incidental People: APG and Community Arts

Former West: Art as Project in the Early 1990s

Delegated Performance: Outsourcing Authenticity

Pedagogic Projects: 'How do You Bring a Classroom to Life as if it were a Work of Art?'

Conclusion

Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship
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Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship