
Living as Form
Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011
Nato Thompson(Editor)
MIT Press
Published on 11. August 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-262-53439-0 (ISBN)
Description
A monumental, lavishly illustrated book that offers the first global portrait of a complex and definition-defying genre of cultural production.
Over the past twenty years, an abundance of art forms have emerged that use aesthetics to affect social dynamics. These works are often produced by collectives or come out of a community context; they emphasize participation, dialogue, and action, and appear in situations ranging from theater to activism to urban planning to visual art to health care. Engaged with the texture of living, these art works often blur the line between art and life. This book offers the first global portrait of a complex and exciting mode of cultural production-one that has virtually redefined contemporary art practice.
Living as Form grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a thirty-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of color images. The artists include the Danish collective Superflex, who empower communities to challenge corporate interest; Turner Prize nominee Jeremy Deller, creator of socially and politically charged performance works; Women on Waves, who provide abortion services and information to women in regions where the procedure is illegal; and Santiago Cirugeda, an architect who builds temporary structures to solve housing problems.
Living as Form contains commissioned essays from noted critics and theorists who look at this phenomenon from a global perspective and broaden the range of what constitutes this form.
Contributing authors
Claire Bishop, Carol Becker, Teddy Cruz, Brian Holmes, Shannon Jackson, Maria Lind, Anne Pasternak, Nato Thompson
Over the past twenty years, an abundance of art forms have emerged that use aesthetics to affect social dynamics. These works are often produced by collectives or come out of a community context; they emphasize participation, dialogue, and action, and appear in situations ranging from theater to activism to urban planning to visual art to health care. Engaged with the texture of living, these art works often blur the line between art and life. This book offers the first global portrait of a complex and exciting mode of cultural production-one that has virtually redefined contemporary art practice.
Living as Form grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a thirty-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of color images. The artists include the Danish collective Superflex, who empower communities to challenge corporate interest; Turner Prize nominee Jeremy Deller, creator of socially and politically charged performance works; Women on Waves, who provide abortion services and information to women in regions where the procedure is illegal; and Santiago Cirugeda, an architect who builds temporary structures to solve housing problems.
Living as Form contains commissioned essays from noted critics and theorists who look at this phenomenon from a global perspective and broaden the range of what constitutes this form.
Contributing authors
Claire Bishop, Carol Becker, Teddy Cruz, Brian Holmes, Shannon Jackson, Maria Lind, Anne Pasternak, Nato Thompson
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
250 farbige Abbildungen, 50 s/w Abbildungen
250 color illus., 50 b&w illus.; 300 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 251 mm
Width: 193 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
939 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-53439-0 (9780262534390)
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

Book
03/2012
1st Edition
MIT Press
€42.09
No shipping information available
Person
Nato Thompson is Chief Curator at the New York-based public arts institution Creative Time. He edited The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life and Becoming Animal (both published by the MIT Press) and curated the MASS MoCA exhibitions they accompanied.