The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art
The Buenos Aires based contemporary activist collective Etcétera stages the International Errorista as a marine-style military invasion carried out directly below the flight-path of US President George Bush as he was arriving in the coastal resort city Mar del Plata for the Summit of the Americas in 2005. (Image courtesy of Etcétera.)
The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art
By Gregory Sholette
A timely and accessible exploration of contemporary activist art and artistic activism by a respected scholar and practitioner of many years' standing. Since the global financial crash of 2008, artists have become increasingly engaged in a wide range of cultural activism targeted against capitalism, political authoritarianism, colonial legacies, gentrification, but also in opposition to their own exploitation. They have also absorbed and reflected forms of protest within their art practice itself. The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art maps, critiques, celebrates and historicises activist art, exploring its current urgency alongside the processes which have given rise to activism by artists, and activist forms of art.
PAD/D (Political Art Documentation/Distribution) anti-gentrification stencil by Michal Anderson, 1984. (Gsholette archives).
Author Gregory Sholette approaches his subject from the unusual dual perspective of commentator (as scholar and writer) and insider (as activist artist). He describes a new wave of activist art taking place not only within community-based protest groups, as it has for decades, but also amongst professionally trained, MFA-bearing art practitioners, many of whom, by choice or by circumstance,refuse to respect the conventional borders separating painting from protest, or art from utility. The book explores the subtle distinction between activist forms of art and protest by artists, and proposes that contemporary activist art and art activism constitute a broader paradigm shift that reflects the crisis of contemporary capitalism.
Global Ultra Luxury Faction (GULF) and Gulf Labor Coalition intervention and occupation of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 1, 2015 to protest inhuman working conditions for migrant laborers in Abu Dhabi where a new museum is under construction. (photograph used with permission of Gulf Labor Coalition)
'Sholette has focused all of his work, his teaching, his writing and his life, on confronting systems of power that, left unchecked, could destroy us all.'
– Carrie Mae Weems
'Our present situation calls for an analysis of the ambiguities that prevail in art activism – and
Sholette's is so acute that it should be distributed far and wide as a reminder of where we are.'
– Slavoj Zizek
‘The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art is an indispensable book because it shows where serious art is taking place and how it can inspire true change also among other intellectual practices.'
– Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University and author of Why Only Art Can Save Us and Being at Large.
PAD/D (Political Art Documentation/Distribution) anti-gentrification stencil by Michal Anderson, 1984. (Gsholette archives).
AUTHOR
Gregory Sholette is an activist artist, writer and Professor of studio art at Queens College, CUNY. He has participated in, documented and written about activist art for over forty years.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
Title: The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art
Author: Gregory Sholette
Pub Date: September 2022 (November 2022 for North America)
Price: £29.99/$49.99
Binding: Hardback
Extent: 176 pages
Size: 130 (w) × 200 (h) mm
Illustrations: 20 b&w
ISBN: 978 1 84822 441 4
E-books available
Series: New Directions in Contemporary Art
Thousands of people organized using #SinMordaza gathered in the streets of Spanish cities to protest a national “gag law” making it a heavily finable offense to photograph or record police. Mounted photo enlargements of street art projects by Enmedio Colectivo. (Photograph Fotomoviento, www.fotomovimiento.org)
NEW DIRECTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY ART SERIES
The art world is changing rapidly as artists avail themselves of new technologies, travel ever more widely, reach out to new audiences and tackle urgent issues, from climate change to mass migration. This series addresses these and other changes in accessible, stimulating and polemical texts identifying key topics and trends in contemporary art practice and their impact on the wider art world and beyond. Books in this series include: Memory Art in the Contemporary Art World: Confronting Violence in the Global South by Andreas Huyssen, The Culture Factory: Architecture and the Contemporary Art Museum by Richard J. Williams, The Ends of Art Criticism by Patricia Bickers and Biennials: The Exhibitions We Love to Hate by Rafal Niemojewski.
For more information about this title and others from Lund Humphries, please visit their site here. They also can be found on Instagram.
