Artificial Hells
Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship
Published on 10. January 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-83976-775-3 (ISBN)
Description
The award-winning, highly acclaimed Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as "social practice." In recent decades, the art gallery and the museum have become a place for participatory art, where an audience is encouraged to take part in the artwork. This has been heralded as a revolutionary practise that can promote new emancipatory social relations. What was it is really?
In this fully updated edition, 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, Pawel Althamer and Paul Chan.
Bishop challenges the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art this practise. She not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. In response 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.
In this fully updated edition, 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, Pawel Althamer and Paul Chan.
Bishop challenges the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art this practise. She not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. In response 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.
Reviews / Votes
Claire Bishop has articulated an important historical overview of the global emergence of participatory art ... Her controversial and thought-provoking conclusions courageously trouble our assumptions about the effectiveness of political artworks, questioning their oppositional quality, their effects on the audiences they reach, and their relation to the institutions that promote them. * Frank Jewett Mather Award, 2013 * Bishop's arguments are convincingly supported and potentially very contentious...A critically challenging work of vital scholarship. * Publishers Weekly * An essential title for contemporary art history scholars and students as well as anyone who has witnessed a participatory art 'happening' and thought, 'Now that's art!' or 'That's art?' * Library Journal * Bishop seeks a standard for judging participatory works...She draws on the writings of French philosopher Jacques Ranciere to argue that art must maintain a degree of autonomy and unreadability in order to resist co-option by the political and economic forces intent on imposing a false social consensus. -- Eleanor Heartney * Art in America * Pellucid -- Alexander Provan * New York Observer * The good intentions of contemporary artists frequently pave a road to hell. Claire Bishop follows their descent into the inferno and invites her readers to share her fascination with what she finds along the way. Artificial Hells combines vast historical knowledge with a precise analysis of individual artistic practices. So much so that at the end of her new book we have begun to fall in love with hell-under the condition that it remains artificial. -- Boris Groys, author of <i>Art Power</i>More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
446 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83976-775-3 (9781839767753)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2012
Verso Books
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Available for download
Previous edition
Book
07/2012
Verso Books
€44.75
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Person
Claire Bishop is a British art historian, critic, and Professor of Art History at The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York. Bishop is known as one of the central theorists of participation in visual art and performance, Her books have been translated into over eighteen languages and she is a frequent contributor to art journals including Artforum and October. She is also the author of Radical Museology, or, What's Contemporary in Museums of Contemporary Art.