Authors: Nina Felshin
ISBN-13: 9780941920292, ISBN-10: 0941920291
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Bay Press
Date Published: November 1994
Edition: (Non-applicable)
(YLR)((This groundbreaking anthology describes the emergence and cultural evolution of community-based activist art. Each chapter focuses on a particular artist or artist collective and is profusely illustrated.[art][political][literature]
The dozen essays here focus on a variety of artistic and cultural practices that help to define the ``art'' of public art and the ``activism'' of the activist artist. Informative and helpful new material on the Women's Action Coalition, the Guerrilla Girls and The Art and Homeless Collaborative comes late in this volume, after a great deal of eulogizing and laundry-list art history. The writers here-with the exception of Jan Avgikos, Elizabeth Hess and Tracy Ann Essoglou-too often take the claims of artists and the art world at face value, producing uncritical texts as propagandistic as the art they champion. Public art/activist art today exists at a critical junction in the social history of this country, questioning the nature of art, the political process, public perception and insidious forms of control and domination-including the often didactic and well-intentioned artist who condescendingly helps certain social groups for personal advantage. Only Avgikos, Hess, Essoglou and Andrea Wolper manage to rise above the tide of informational prose to question if such art actually fufills the good intentions of its creators. And only Avgikos suggests the advantage of calling these practices ``art''-they fill artistic requirements, not according to abstract criteria, but according to the big money of granting organizations and museums. Lastly, poor photographs and the difficulties of describing this art ex situ deprives it of much of its power. (Feb.)
Introduction | 9 | |
Ch. 1 | The Invisible Town Square: Artists' Collaborations and Media Dramas in America's Biggest Border Town | 31 |
Ch. 2 | This Is to Enrage You: Gran Fury and the Graphics of AIDS Activism | 51 |
Ch. 3 | Group Material Timeline: Activism as a Work of Art | 85 |
Ch. 4 | The American Festival Project: Performing Difference, Discovering Common Ground | 117 |
Ch. 5 | Ecopolitics/Ecopoetry: Helen and Newton Harrison's Environmental Talking Cure | 141 |
Ch. 6 | Maintenance Activity: Creating a Climate for Change | 165 |
Ch. 7 | Is It Still Privileged Art? The Politics of Class and Collaboration in the Art Practice of Carole Conde and Karl Beveridge | 195 |
Ch. 8 | The Body Politics of Suzanne Lacy | 221 |
Ch. 9 | Making Art, Reclaiming Lives: The Artist and Homeless Collaborative | 251 |
Ch. 10 | Peggy Diggs: Private Acts and Public Art | 283 |
Ch. 11 | Guerrilla Girl Power: Why the Art World Needs a Conscience | 309 |
Ch. 12 | Louder Than Words: A WAC Chronicle | 333 |
Notes and Bibliographies | 373 | |
Contributors | 405 | |
Photo credits | 411 |