The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics

349 Pages·2015·8.425 MB·English

by  Randy Martin (ed.)

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO ART
AND POLITICS
The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics offers a thorough examination of the complex rela-
tionshipbetweenartandpolitics,andthemanyformsandapproachestheengagementbetween
them can take.
Thecontributors—adiverseassemblyofartists,activists,andscholars fromaroundtheworld—
discuss and demonstrate ways of making art and politics legible and salient inthe world.As such,
the 32chapters inthisvolume reflect onperformingand visualarts; music, film,and newmedia;
as well as covering social practice, community-based work, conceptual, interventionist, and
movement-affiliated forms.
The Companion is divided into four distinct parts:
(cid:1) Conceptual Cartographies
(cid:1) Institutional Materialities
(cid:1) Modalities of Practice
(cid:1) Making Publics
Randy Martin has assembled a collection that ensures that readers will come away with a
wider view of what can count as art and politics; where they might find it; and how it moves
in the world. The diversity of perspectives is at once challenging and fortifying to those who
might dismiss political art on the one hand as not making sufficient difference and on the
other to those embracing it but seeking a means to elaborate the significance that it can make
in the world.
The Routledge Companion to Art and Politics brings together a range of issues and approaches
and encourages critical and creative thinking about how art is produced, perceived, and
received.
Contributors:CaronAtlas,WafaaBilal,ClaireBishop,SwatiChattopadhyay,PatriciaTiciento
Clough, Dudley Cocke, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Critical Art Ensemble, Eduardo de la Fuente,
Ricardo Dominguez, Mark Driscoll, Boris Groys, Jack Halberstam, Stefano Harney, Shannon
Jackson, Joasia Krysa, Suzanne Lacy, Lisa Le Feuvre, André Lepecki, Ana María Ochoa, Toby
Miller, Svetlana Mintcheva, John Roberts, Ned Rossiter, Keng Sen Ong, Jacques Servin,
Gregory Sholette, Robert Stam, Diana Taylor, Marta Moreno Vega, Marina Vishmidt,
Soenke Zehle, Ultra-red.
Randy Martin is Professor and Chair of Art and Public Policy and founding director of the
graduate program in Arts Politics at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He is
author of books on the politics of dance, theatre, war, finance, and education.
THE ROUTLEDGE
COMPANION TO
ART AND POLITICS
Edited by Randy Martin
(With editorial assistance from Victor J. Peterson, II)
Firstpublished2015
byRoutledge
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TheRoutledgecompaniontoartandpolitics/editedbyRandyMartin.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Arts—Politicalaspects.I.Martin,Randy,1957-editor.
NX180.P64R682014
700.1’03—dc23
2014025554
ISBN:978-0-415-64510-2(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-73669-3(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements x
Notes on Contributors xi
Introduction 1
PARTI
Conceptual Cartographies 13
1 On the Zoopolitics of the Voice and the Distinction Between Nature and
Culture 16
Ana María Ochoa
2 The Aesthetic Subject and the Politics of Speculative Labor 25
Marina Vishmidt
3 Art and the Politics of Time-as-Substance 37
John Roberts
4 The Choreopolitical: Agency in the Age of Control 44
André Lepecki
5 Thinking Contradictory Thoughts: On the Convergence of Aesthetic and
Social Factors in Recent Sociologies of Art 53
Eduardo de la Fuente
v
Contents
6 Becoming Revolutionary: On Russian Suprematism 67
Boris Groys
7 Failure Over Utopia 75
Lisa Le Feuvre
8 What Did You Hear? Another Ten Theses on Militant Sound Investigation 83
Ultra-red
PARTII
Institutional Materialities 91
9 Institutional Critique Redux 95
Critical Art Ensemble
10 Social Turns: In Theory and Across the Arts 104
Shannon Jackson
11 The Politics of Contemporary Curating: A Network Perspective 114
Joasia Krysa
12 Perverse Joy: The Paradoxes of Censorship 122
Svetlana Mintcheva
13 Art Is Garbage 129
Toby Miller
14 Grass Stage’s Theater of Precarity in Shanghai 139
Mark Driscoll
15 Evangelicalism and the Gay Movement in Singapore: Witnessing and
Confessing Through Masks 148
Keng Sen Ong
16 A Transformative Initiative for Achieving Cultural Equity: Community Arts
University Without Walls 159
Marta Moreno Vega
17 Hapticality in the Undercommons 173
Stefano Harney
vi
Contents
PARTIII
Modalities of Practice 181
18 Charming for the Revolution: Pussy and Other Riots 184
Jack Halberstam
19 The Yes Men 194
Jacques Servin
20 16 Notes on Collectivism and Dark Matter 200
Gregory Sholette
21 Some Notes about Art, Code, and Politics under Cloudy Empire(s) 205
Ricardo Dominguez
22 The Aesthetics of Algorithmic Experience 214
Ned Rossiter and Soenke Zehle
23 Computational Aesthetics in the Practices of Art as Politics 222
Patricia Ticiento Clough
24 Toward Participatory Aesthetics: An Interview with Claire Bishop 230
Claire Bishop with David Riff and Ekaterina Degot
25 The Politics of Popular Art in India 237
Swati Chattopadhyay
PARTIV
Making Publics 249
26 Living Politics: The Zapatistas Celebrate their Twentieth Anniversary 252
Diana Taylor
27 Carnival, Radical Humor, and Media Politics 261
Robert Stam
28 Dynamic Encounters and the Benjaminian Aura: Reflections on the New
Media, Next Media, and Connectivity 272
Wafaa Bilal
29 Seeking a Theater of Liberation 278
Dudley Cocke
vii
Contents
30 By Any Means Necessary 288
Jan Cohen-Cruz
31 If You Really Care about Change, Why Devote Your Life to Arts and
Culture? Reflections of a Cultural Organizer 298
Caron Atlas
32 Pedagogies in the Oakland Projects 309
Suzanne Lacy
Index 321
viii
FIGURES
Figures
9.1 Public Misery Message: A Temporary Monument to Global Economic Inequality.
Documenta 13, 2012. Courtesy of Critical Art Ensemble. 99
9.2 PriortotheopeningofDocumenta13,ahelicopterplacesasculpture inthepark.
Courtesy of Critical Art Ensemble. 100
9.3 WinningHearts and Minds, Documenta 13, 2012. CourtesyofCritical Art Ensemble. 102
13.1 BP Grand Entrance at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 134
18.1 Sharon Hayes “In the Near Future, New York,” 2005. Courtesy of the artist. 190
25.1 Nationalist poster with Ramkrishna Biswas’s family-style portrait. Courtesy of
West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata. 241
25.2 K. Shankar Pillai, Cartoon of B. S. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru, Shankar’s
Weekly, 1948. Courtesy of Children’s Book Trust, New Delhi. 243
25.3 Wall-writinginCalcutta; ElectioncampaignbyCongress (I).CourtesyofChitrabani. 245
26.1 Junta del Buen Gobierno, Oventic. 2009. Photo: Lorie Novak. 253
29.1 Roadside Theater performs Red Fox/Second Hangin’ in a tent pitched in Pound,
Virginia, 1981. Courtesy of Roadside Theater/Appalshop, Inc. 279
29.2 Three generations listen as Roadside Theater performs in a tent in Pound,
Virginia, 1981. Courtesy of Roadside Theater/Appalshop, Inc. 280
29.3 Ron Short/Roadside Theater and John O’Neal/Junebug Productions perform
Junebug/Jack, a play about the history of race and class in the American South.
Courtesy of Roadside Theater/Appalshop, Inc. 283
29.4 Roadside Theater conducts a Story Circle with Imagining America. Courtesy of
Roadside Theater/Appalshop, Inc. 285
29.5 Idiwanan An Chawe, of Zuni, New Mexico, and Roadside Theater Perform in
Arizona State University’s Untold Stories Festival, 1997–1999. Courtesy of
Roadside Theater/Appalshop, Inc. 286
31.1 Founders John O’Neal and Dr. Doris Derby release doves at the 50 Year
Anniversary Reunion of the Free Southern Theater. 307
ix