UVlNG AS FORM: SOCIALLY ENGAGED ART FROM 1991-~011

EDITED BY NATO THOMPSON

CREATIVE TIME BOOKS. NEW YORK THE MIT PRESS. CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSFTTS AND LONDON ENGI ANn l.V IL... CONmm

FOREWORD 7 PROJECTS 94 Bronwyn Lace and Anthea Moys 177 Marion von Osten 244 Anne Pasternak Ai Weiwei 96 Suzanne Lacy 178 Peter Watkins 246 Ala Plastica 98 Land Foundation 180 WikiLeaks 246 LIVING AS FORM 16 Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla 100 Long March Project 182 Elin Wikstrom 247 Nato Thompson Lara Almarcegui and Begona Movellan 102 Los Angeles Poverty Department 183 WochenKlausur 249 Alternate ROOTS 104 Mammalian Diving Reflex 184 Women on Waves 250 PA RTICIPATION AND SPECTA CLE: 34 Francis Alys 105 Mardi Gras Indian Community 186 WHERE ARE WE NOW? Appalshop 108 Angela Melitopoulos 188 THE LEONORE ANNENBERG PRIZE Claire Bishop Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle 108 Zayd Minty 190 FOR ART AND SOCIA L CHANGE 252 Claire Barclay 112 The Mobile Academy 191 The Yes Men 254 RETURNING ON BIKES: 46 Barefoot Artists 114 Mujeres Creando 192 Rick Lowe 256 NOTES ON SOCIAL PRACTICE Basurama 116 Vik Muniz 194 Jeanne van Heeswijk 258 Maria Lind BijaRi 119 Navin Production Stud io 195 Bread and Puppet Theater 120 Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) 196 THANK YOU VERY MUCH 261 DEMOCRATIZING URBANIZATION AND 56 Tania Bruguera 121 Nuts Society 197 THE SEARCH FOR A NEW CIVIC IMAGINATION CAMP 122 John O'Neal 198 CREDITS 262 Teddy Cruz Cemeti Art House 122 ada Projesi 199 Paul Chan 125 Park Fiction and the Right COLOPHON 263 MICRO UTOPIAS: 64 Mel Chin et al. 127 to the City Network Hamburg 200 PUBLIC PRACTICE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE Chto Delat? (What is to be done?) 129 Pase Usted 202 Carol Becker Santiago Cirugeda 130 Piratbyran (The Bureau of Piracy) 203 Cambalache Colectivo 130 Platform a 9.81 204 EVENTWORK: THE FOURFOLD MATRIX 72 Phil Collins 132 Public Movement 206 OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade 134 Pulska Grupa 208 Brian Holmes Cornerstone Theater Company 136 Pedro Reyes 210 Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann 138 Laurie Jo Reynolds 212 LIVING TAKES MANY FORMS 86 Minerva Cuevas 140 Athi-Patra Ruga 213 Shannon Jackson Decoloniz jng Architecture Art Residency 140 The San Francisco Cacophony Society 214 Jeremy Deller 142 The Sarai Programme at CSDS and Ankur 214 Mark Dion, J. Morgan Puett, Christoph Schlingensief 215 and collaborators 146 Florian Schneider 216 Marilyn Douala-Bell and Didier Schaub 148 Katerina Sed a 217 Election Night. Harlem, New York 148 Chemi Rosado Seijo 218 Fallen Fruit 150 Michihiro Shimabuku 220 Bita Fayyazi, Ata Hasheminejad, Buster Simpson 222 Khosrow Hassanzadeh. Farid Slanguage 224 Jahangir and Sassan Nassiri 152 SU PERFLEX 226 Finishing School 154 Apolonija SuSterSit 228 Free Class Fran kfurt/M 156 Tahrir Square 230 Frente 3 de Fevereiro 157 Taller Popular de Serigrafia Theaster Gates 160 (Popular Silkscreen Workshop) 231 Alonso Gil and Federico Guzman 162 Temporary Services 232 Paul Glover 164 Torolab 233 Josh Greene 165 Mierle Laderman Ukeles 233 Fritz Haeg 166 Ultra-red 235 Haha 168 United Indian Health Services 236 Helena Producciones 170 Urban Bush Women 236 Stephen Hobbs and Marcus Neustetler 171 US Social Forum 237 Fran llich 172 Bik van der Pol 238 Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen 173 Wendelien van Oldenborgh 241 Amal Kenawy 175 Eduardo Vasquez Martin 242 Surasi Kusolwong 175 I Voina 242 t A )1;..1;'

WHAT STRIKES ME IS THE FAG THAT IN OUR SOCIETY, ART HAS BECOME SOMETHING WHICH IS RELATED ONLY TO OBJEdTS AND NOT TO INDIVIDUALS, OR TO LIFE. THAT ART IS SOMETHING WHICH IS SPECIALIZED OR WHICH IS DONE BY EXPERTS WHO ARE ARTISTS. BUT COULDN'T EVERYONE'S LIFE BECOME A WORK OF ART? WHY SHOULD THE LAMP OR HOUSE BE AN OBJECT, BUT NOT OUR LIFE? Mch¢1 Foucault

I WENT FROM BEING AN ARTIST WHO MAKES THINGS, TO BEING AN ARTIST WHO MAKES J~~ I~e?S HAPPEN. •

, ~ M

PART I: LlVINC AS FORM and a high rate of fatal gunfire. Working with I local television stations, he invited citizens to Women on Waves is an activist/art organiza­ donate their firearms in exchange for vouch­ tion founded in 2001 by phys ician Rebecca ers that could be redeemed for electronics Gomperts. The small nonprofit group would and appliances from domestic shops. The sail from the coasts of countries where abor­ 1,527 weapons-more than forty percent of tion is illegal in a boat designed by Atelier which were issued by the military-were pub­ Van Leishout that housed a functioning abor­ licly steamrolled into a mass of flattened metal, tion clinic. Gomperts and her crew would then melted down in a local foundry, and recast into anchor in international waters-since the boat 1,527 shovels. Reyes distributed the shovels was registered in The Netherlands, they oper­ to local charities and school groups, which ated under Dutch law-to provide abortion used them to plant 1,527 trees in public spac­ services to women, legally and safely. The fol­ es throughout the city. The spades have been lowing quote is from a documentary film about widely exhibited, with labels attached explain­ the history of Women on Waves. While reading, I ing their origins; each time they are shown, bear in mind the almost Homeric qualities this they are used to plant more trees. seafaring narrative conjures. It is a drama, and Here we have before us two socially this is no accident. engaged art projects-both poetic, yet func­ tional and political as well. They engage people '·As the ship sails into the Valencia har­ and confront a specific issue. While these par­ bor, conservatives dispatch ships bear­ ticipatory projects are far removed from what ing banners reading "no" and drumming one might call the traditional studio arts-such thunders from the anti-choice protes­ as SCUlpture, film, painting, and video-what tors leaning on the gates to the port. The field they do belong to is hard to articulate. dock is mobbed with supporters and Though defined by an active engagement with aggressive press. As the ship attempts groups of people in the world, their intentions to tie up, a dissenting harbor patrol and disciplines remain elusive. Are these proj­ egorize these projects, they typify a growing curator Nicholas Bourriaud, or Danish curator I ship lodges itself between the Women ects geared for the media? Each project flour­ array of complex cultural production that con­ Lars Bang Larsen's term, "social aesthetics." on Waves ship and the dock, securing ished among news outlets as these artists cre­ tinues to garner interest and adherents. Say We can also look to artist Suzanne Lacy's "new their lines to the sh ip and attempting ated new spin around old stories: a woman's what one will, socially engaged art is growing genre public art:· or the commonly known to drag the ship back to sea, while the right to choose and the drug wars of North­ and Ubiquitous. West Coast term "social practice." Other pre­ activists frantically try to untie the line. ern Mexico. Women on Waves has performed The projects in Living as Form expose cursors include Critical Art Ensemble's activ­ The authorities seem to be winning relatively few abortions over the course of the numerous lines of tension which have ist approach called "tactical media" and Grant the tug of war, when Rebecca, clearly seven years. In fact, the boat has mainly been surfaced in socially engaged art in the past Kester's "dialogic art" which refers to conver­ enjoying the moment, emerges from the deployed as a media device intended to bring twenty years, essentially shaking up founda­ sation-based projects. We can also go back hole wielding a large knife. The crowd awareness to the issue. Similarly, Pedro Reyes tions of art discourse, and sharing techniques further to consider Joseph Beuys's "social onshore thunderously stomps and did remove 1,527 guns from the streets of Culi­ and intentions with fields far beyond the arts. SCUlpture:· Numerous genres have been cheers as she slices the patrol's rope in acan. But, given the actual extent of gun vio­ Unlike its avant-garde predecessors such as deeply intertwined in partiCipation, sociality, half, freeing her ship, bows to the crowd, lence there, his gesture seems far more sym­ Russian Constructivism, Futurism, Situation­ conversation, and "the civic." This intercon­ and tosses the Women on Waves lines bolic than practical. ism, Tropicalia, Happenings, Fluxus, and Dada­ nectivity reveals a peculiar historic moment to the eager supporters. As the harbor And yet, symbolic gestures can be power­ ism, socially engaged art is not an art move­ in which these notions aren't limited to the patrol's motorboat circles, baffied and ful and effective methods for change. Planting ment. Rather, these cultural practices indicate world of contemporary art, but includes vari­ impotent, hundreds of hands pull the trees does improve quality of life, and using a new social order-ways of life that emphasize ous cultural phenomena which have cropped sh i pinto dock." recycled guns to do so speaks directly to those participation, challenge power, and span disci­ up across the urban fabric. For example, spon­ most affected by the violence. likewise, Wom­ plines ranging from urban planning and com­ taneous bike rides in cities by the group Criti­ Seven years later, for his project Palas Por Pis­ en on Waves provided essential services to munity work to theater and the visual arts. cal Mass, guerrilla community gardens, and talas, the artist Pedro Reyes collected 1,527 women in anti-choice countries, regardless of This veritable explosion of work in the micro-granting community groups are just weapons from residents of Culiacan, a west- I how many were actually able to take advantage arts has been assigned catchphrases, such a few of the non-discipline-specific cultural ern Mexican city known for drug trafficking of them. While we may not know how to cat- as "relational aesthetics:· coined by French projects which share many of the same criteria

Wo~n m Wa~ stup prepann II I sad II, Poland m JUnE (Courtf'!Y Worn n >n Wd.V~ ) as socially engaged artworks. WHAT IS MEAHT BY LlVINGl How do we write such an interdisciplin­ Artists have long desired that art enter life. ary, case-specific narrative without producing But what do me mean by "life"? In the context misleading causal relationships? The desire of Living as Form, the word conjures certain to merge art and life resonates throughout the qualities that I wish to explore, an aggregate avant-garde movements of the twentieth cen­ of related but different manifestations of the tury and then multiplies across the globe at the term. beginning of the twenty-first. Artists have bor­ rowed from a plethora of histories-from Rus­ Anti-representational sian Constructivists, Fluxus, Gutai. Tropicalia, When artist Tania Bruguera states, "I don't and Happenings to Antonin Artaud's Theater want an art that po ints at a thing, I want an of Cruelty, Boal's Theater of the Oppressed, art that is the thing," she emphasizes forms and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. However, of art that involve being in the world. Yet, she it would be a mistake not to place within that has also said, "It is time to put Duchamp's uri­ history the seminal pedagogic social move­ nal back in the restroom." Duchamp's "Ready­ ments of the last one hundred years. This mades" are a great place to initiate the con­ includes AI DS activism, the women's move­ versation about art and life. For some artists, ment. the anti-Apartheid movement. Perestroi­ the desire to make art that is living stems from ka, the civil rights movement. Paris '68, the the desire for something breathing, performa­ Algerian wars, as well as the many leaders and tive, and action-based. Participation, sociality, visionaries within those movements who dis­ and the organization of bodies in space play cussed the importance of sociality, methods of a key feature in much of this work. Perhaps in resistance and confronting power, and strate­ reaction to the steady state of mediated two­ gies for using media. History itself is a problem dimensional cultural production, or a react ion when it leads to a false sense of causality. If to the alienating effects of spectacle, artists, we follow the trail of th is work strictly through activists, citizens, and advertisers alike are the lens of art (which is what most discipline­ rushing headlong into methods of working specific histories do), we could easily imagine that allow genuine interpersonal human rela­ a very Western trajectory moving from Dada to tionships to develop. The call for art into life at Rirkrit Tiravanija in 1991 making Pad Thai­ this particular moment in history implies both a version of a history in quick strokes. But of an urgency to matter as well as a privileging course, this kind of highly problematic nar­ of the lived experience. These are two different rative lacks a true appreciation of the vast things, but within much of this work, they are complexity of global and local influences, an blended together. all-too-common signpost for the contempo­ rary period. Art is no longer the primary influ­ Participation ence for culture and because of this, tracing In recent years, we have seen increased growth its roots is all the more complex. in "participatory art": art that requires some Living as Form searches the post-Cold War action on behalf of the viewer in order to com­ era, and the dawn of neoliberalism, for cultural plete the work. Consider Tiza (2002) by artists works which serve as points of departure for Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. This specific regional and historic concerns. How­ public space intervention consisted of twelve ever, this book does not offer a singular critical enormous pieces of chalk set out in public language for evaluating socially engaged art, squares. People used discarded remnants or nor provide a list of best practices, nor offer a broke off a chunk to write messages on the linear historic interpretation of a field of prac­ ground. Since Allora and Calzadilla generally tice. Instead, we merely present the tempera­ choose urban environments with politically ture in the water in order to raise compelling confrontational histories, the writing tends to questions. reflect political resentment and frustrations.

Op{J<..iJlr In Fed!! I Reyl Palas por PlstoJas, 1,527 shovels were made from [he mE ' d metal :Jf I 527 guns coil lCIad from resIdents of Cutlcan lIood u d I( plant I '121 lie. IT the )mITIunlfy (Coulles-y Pedro Reyes and LABOR) This is just one example of numerous works education theorist Paolo Freire, Augusto Baal that enter life by facilitating participation. produced a new form of living theater in the 1960s whose entire mission was to assist in Situated in the "real" world the politicization and agency of Brazil's most Clearly, an urge to enter the "real" world oppressed. In addition to inventing different inherently implies that there is an "un-real" modes of theatricality that entered into daily world where actions do not have impact or life, such as newspaper theater and invisible resonance. Nonetheless, we find in numerous theater, he developed a form of participatory socially engaged artworks that the desire for politics called "legislative theater" when he art to enter life comprises a spatial component was a city council member in Rio de Janeiro. as well. Getting out of the museum or gallery In a world of vast cultural production, the and into the public can often come from an arts have become an instructive space to gain artist's belief or concern that the designated valuable skill sets in the techniques of perfor­ space for representation takes the teeth out of mativity, representation, aesthetics, and the a work. For example, Amal Kenawy's Silence of creation of affect. These skill sets are not sec­ the Lambs (2010) focused on a performance ondary to the landscape of political production in Cairo wherein members of the public were but, in fact. necessary for its manifestation. If asked to crawl across a congested intersection the world is a stage (as both Shakespeare and on their hands and knees; the work critiqued I Guy Debord foretold), then every person on the submissiveness of the general public to the planet must learn the skill sets of theater. the autocratic rule of then-president Hosni The realm of the political may perhaps be the Mubarak, and was an ironic precursor to the most appropriate place for the arts, after all. Arab Spring. Kenawy's performance entered into life by taking place in the public realm. WHAT IS MEAHT BY FORM? While this is quite literal, it is important to bear in mind the basic semantic difference as well as the potential risk and cost. "THE PUBLIC HAS

Operating in the political sphere A FORM AND ANY As much as art entering life can have a spatial connotation, it can also possess a judicial and FORM CAN BE ART.» governmental one as well. For many socially engaged artists, there is a continued interest - Paul Ramirez Jonas in impact. and often the realm of the political symbolizes these ambitions. Artist Laurie Jo Just as video, painting, and clay are types of Reynolds's long-term project aims to challenge forms, people coming together possess forms and overturn harsh practices in southern Illi­ as well. And while it is difficult to categorize nois's Tamms Supermax Prison. Focusing on socially engaged art by discipline, we can the basic political injustice (as she sees it) map various affinities based on methodolo­ that this prison uses solitary confinement as gies. This includes the political issues they a condition of incarceration, and that Tamms address, such as sustainability, the environ­ meets and exceeds the international definit ion ment, education, housing, labor, gender, race, of torture, Reynolds organized Tamms Year colonialism, gentrification, immigration, incar­ Ten, an all-volunteer coalition of prisoners, ex­ ceration, war, borders, and on and on. prisoners, prisoners' families, and concerned Focusing on methodologies is also an citizens. Reynolds has labeled her efforts "leg­ attempt to shift the conversation away from the islative art" which reflects the term coined arts' typical lens of analysis: aesthetics. This by Brazilian playwright Augusto Baal's "leg­ is not to say that the visual holds no place in islative theater." Borrowing from the work of th is work, but instead this approach emphasiz-

OpPOsite JenOifer Allora and GLllllermo Caizadliia placed twelve enormous pIeces of chalk In the PlilZil de Armas ill Lima mVl!lIlg the pubhe to Wf!1e messages _ ... __ .... _____ .,,... ..' __ " ___ .',_""e .. _.. r-""M_ r'~'~ ..l.n~' • es the designated forms produced for impact. Research and it, presentation By focusing on how a work approaches the If politics have become performative, so too, social, as opposed to simply what it looks like, has knowledge-in other words, you have to we can better calibrate a language to unpack share what you know. Researchers and scien­ its numerous engagements. tists who feel a sense of political urgency to disseminate their findings might use the skill Types of satherins, sets of symbolic manipulation and performa­ Consider Please Love Austria: First Austrian tivity in order to get their message out. Simi­ Coalition by the late artist Christoph Sch­ larly, we find numerous artists and collectives lingensief. For this work, he invited refugees who deploy aesthetic strategies to spread their seeking political asylum to compete for either message. For example, Ala Plastica's research­ a cash prize or a residency visa, granted based environmental activism focuses on the through marriage. He locked twelve partici­ damage caused when a Shell Oil tank col­ pants in a shipping container. equipped with lided with another cargo ship in the Rio de la a closed circuit television, for one week. Every Plata. Over 5,300 tons of oil spilled into this day, viewers would vote on their least favorite major Argentine river. Using photographs and refugees; two were banished from the contain­ drawings, and working with local residents to er and deported back to their native countries. conduct surveys. the collaborative deploys The container, placed outside the Vienna State techniques of socially engaged art in order to @!!I 02236/688 Opera House, sported blue flags representing bring this issue to light. One should also men ­ Austria's right-wing party. bearing a sign that tion the work of Decolonizing Architecture Art read, "Foreigners Out." It was clearly contro­ Residency based in Beit Sahour, Palestine, a versial because the project used the tech­ group that aims to visualize the future re-use nique of over-determination to promote and of architecture in occupied territories. In plac­ magnify the nascent xenophobia and racism es where war, migration, and mass atrocities already existing in Austria. The project took have become commonplace-such as Rwanda, place in a public square, and provided both a Beirut, and Palestine-it is not surprising that physical space for people to come together as many artists focus on archives as a way to doc­ well as a mediated space for discussion. This ument histories now lost. gathering of people wasn't what one would call a space of consensus but one of deep discord Structural alternative, and frustration. The "Do It Yourself" ethic, as it was termed in the early 1990s, has gained cultural traction, Types 01 media manipulation and has spread into the basic composition I have previously discussed the manner in of urban living. Experiments in alternatives­ which Women on Waves and Pedro Reyes used whether the focus is food production. housing, the media as a critical element in their work. education, bicycling, or fashion-have become One can add to this list most of the socially a broad form of self-determined sociality. Once engaged art in this book, including Bijari, just the modus operandi of anarchists at the Rwanda Healing Project, the Yes Men, and fringes of culture, the practice has now entered Mel Chin. As the realm of the political and the the mainstream. The food movement, perhaps realm of media become deeply intertwined, inspired by increasing fear over genetically media stunts become an increasingly impor­ modified organisms in food by large-scale cor­ tant part of the realm of politics. This is true porate agriculture and horror of cruel animal for those resisting power and those enforcing slaughtering practices, has become an integral it. And it reflects a contemporary condition element of many urban metropolises. Com­ wherein relationships with mediation are the munity Sourced Agriculture (CSAs), guerrilla basic components by which political-and community gardens, and the Slow Food move­ thus social-decisions are made. ment, are all forms of new lived civic life that

OPlX lie [n Pl~SE Love Austna. Chnstoph Sc~ lQensJcf]( ~ked 12 refugee. long PI ltlcal asylum In a shIPPing contamer In front of the Vienna Slate Opera House for one week. and lell thelf fate up to the public A slqn on the contamer declanng, Torell~ners our referenced the pervaSive racIsm In Ausma (Courtesy DaVid Bahler and ZenlC) I " A f M - takes the work. literally. into one's own hands. I issues. and one of the students told me that. We also find pervasive growth in alterna­ sure. the work reflected what was going on in tive social programs occurring in response to his community. but it wasn't what the com­ the evisceration of state-funded social pro­ munity needed. If I was an artist. he said. why grams by various austerity measures. We find didn't I come up with some kind of creative numerous alternative economies and schools solution to issues instead of just telling peo­ at work as well. Fran Illich's Spacebank (2005) ple like him what they already knew. That was is just one example of an alternative economy the defining moment that pushed me out of aesthetic/form of living. Launched with just the studio." 50 Mexican pesos. Spocebonk is both an actu­ We AR£ al and conceptual online bank that offers real FORMS OF LIFE Th~ investing opportunities. and loans to activists Tania Bruguera's call to return Duchamp's uri­ and grassroots organizations. Similarly. Los nal to the restroom is a poignant. provocative Angeles-based architect Fritz Haeg offered notion. For once it has been returned. what do f>EOPLE free classes and workshops in his Sundown we call it? Art or life? Once art begins to look Solons. which he held in his residence. a geo­ like life. how are we to distinguish between the desic dome. I say "similarly" in so much as two? When faced with such complex riddles. these are two art world examples of tendencies often the best route is to rephrase the ques­ reflecting the urge toward a DIY aesthetic that tion. Whether this work can be considered art has prevailed for nearly twenty years. is a dated debate in the visual arts. I suggest a more interesting question: If this work is not Types of communicating art. then what are the methods we can use to As group participation increases. the basic skill understand its effects. affects. and impact? In sets which accompany group process become raising these questions. I would like to quote more useful. Isolated artists must focus on the former U.S. Defense Secretary responsible speaking. while groups of people coming for leading the United States into the Iraq War. together must focus on listening-the art of not Donald Rumsfeld: "If you have a problem. make speaking but hearing. The Los Angeles-based it bigger." Rumsfeld's adage has been taken collective Ultra-red writes. "In asserting the to heart as we begin to. hopefully. solve the ment to a specific neighborhood. As the com­ well? Many artists and art collectives use a priority of organizing herein. Ultra-red. as so conundrum of art and life by aggregating proj­ munity was on the verge of being demolished broad range of bureaucratic and administrative often over the years. evokes the procedure so ects from numerOus disciplines whose mani­ by the City of Houston. the project began with skills that typically lie in the domain of larger thematic to investigation developed by [Bra­ festations in the world reflect a social ecosys­ the purchase of several row houses. which institutions. such as marketing. fundraising. zilian radical pedagogue] Paulo Freire." Grant tem of affinities. By introducing such a broad have been transformed into sites of local cul­ grant writing. real estate development. invest­ Kester has come up with the term "dialogic art" array of approaches. the tensions nascent in tural participation as well as artist residencies. ing in start-ups. city planning. and educational to discuss such methods of art production that contemporary art exacerbate to the point of Over the years. many artists have come and programming. As opposed to assuming there emphasize conversation. and certainly many rupture. The point is not to destroy the cate­ gone. more homes have been purchased. and is an inherent difference between artist-initi­ artists privilege conversation as a mode of gory of art. but-straining against edges where the row houses have undergone rehabilitation. ated projects and non-artist-initiated projects. action. In evoking Freire. Ultra-red also points art blurs into the everyday-to take a snapshot The project initiated a program for the neigh­ I have opted to simply include them all. Let us towards a form of education that must address of cultural production at the beg inning of the borhood's single mothers. providing childcare call this the "cattle call" method. While it might conditions of power as much as it does culture 21st century. and housing so that the mothers could attend feel strange to include nonprofit art organiza­ and politics. The personal is not only politi­ An important project that defies easy cate­ school. Project Row Houses has built trust tions such as Cemeti Art House and Founda­ cal but the interpersonal contains the seeds gorization is Lowe's Project Row Houses. Situ­ and strong relationships with the surrounding tion in Yogyakarta. Indonesia. which has been of political conflict inherently. In reflecting on ated in a low-income. predominately African­ neighborhood. offering a sustainable growth involved in post-earthquake cultural program­ his work with the sixteen-year-old experimen­ American neighborhood in Houston's Northern model that is perfect for the neighborhood. ming. or the work of the United Indian Health tal community housing project/art residency/ Third Ward. Project Row Houses was spurred one created from the ground up. Services located in Northern California. which socially engaged Project Row Houses. Rick by the artist's interest in the art of John Big­ Project Row Houses is a nonprofit organi­ combines traditional cultural programming Lowe stated in an interview with the New York gers. who painted scenes of African-American zation initiated byan artist. If it can be included with access to health care. consider what they Times. "I was doing big. billboard-size paint­ life in row house neighborhoods. as well as his as a socially engaged artwork. why not include do. not who they say they are. Certainly these ings and cutout sculptures dealing with social desire to make a profound. long-term commit- more nonprofit organizations as artworks as projects are not specifically artworks. but their

Abov,," ArUst arr Duri;lnl :Ollln )llled W. Are the Peopi to Pn Row H( US In '-'0\111 'Y PrOJ~ :\ Rr;,w HOUSAS •

tain form can be measured, described, under­ as Argentina, Spain, Greece, and Ireland to stood, misunderstood. Forms can be criticized, eliminate their social welfare programs and disintegrated, assembled." Such a break is in ignited protest movements. In Latin America, the air again, but now accompanied by a keen new left governments emerged that redefined awareness that living itself exists in forms that the region's relationship to culture, capitalism, must be questioned, rearranged, mobilized, and power. and undone. For the first time, the importance The last twenty years were also accom­ of forms of living seems to be questioned alto­ panied by a global growth of advertising in gether by the conceptualization of living as a more media-rich world-from film to cable form. Whatever has a certain form can be mea­ television to the explosion of video games to sured, described, understood, misunderstood. the rapid formation of the Internet and social Forms of living can be criticized, disintegrated, media. Using the same symbolic manipula­ assembled. tion and design methods that have long been the bread and butter of artists, the growth of PART II: NEOLIBERALISM AND THE "creative industries" were undeniably part of RISE OF SPECTACULAR LIVING the cultural landscape. While in the 1940s, the Frankfurt School philosophers Adorno and Why does this book focus on the last twenty Horkheimer warned of an impending wave of years? Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, capitalist-produced culture that would sweep a new neoliberal order has emerged. Loosely across the world, the last twenty years has defined, neoliberalism as a political order priv­ seen that wave become a reality. Guy Debord ileges free trade and open markets, resulting and the Situationists of Paris 1968 coined in maximizing the role of the private sector in the term "spectacle" to refer to the process determining priorities and deemphasizing the by which culture, expressions of a society's role of the public and the state's function in self-understanding, is produced within the protecting and supporting them. This pro-cap­ capitalist machine. Typified by the image of italist governmentalism has radically shaped an audience at a cinema passively watching the current geopolitical and social map. From television and film, the spectacle can be seen collaborative and participatory spirit. com­ contest power. Does this constitute art? Does the global boosterism of the 1990s to the as shorthand for a world condition wherein munity activism, and deployment of cultural this constitute a civic action? Certainly some subsequent hangover and contestation in the images are made for the purpose of sales. Cer- programming as part of their operations makes questions are easier to answer than others. 2000s, this vast history includes the growth of tainly when considered from the standpoint their work appear close to some projects that This book's title borrows from Harald Szee­ capitalism and free-market influence on inter- of scale, the sheer amount of culture we as a arise from an arts background. In fact, there mann's landmark 1969 exhibition at Kunsthall national governance; formation of the Euro- global community consume, as well as pro­ are thousands of other non profits whose work Bern, When Attitudes Become Form: Live in pean Union; genocide in Rwanda; the events duce, indicates a radical break with our rela­ could be considered and highlighted as well. Your Head, which featured artists including of September 11, 2001, and ensuing wars in tionship to cultures of past eras. Over the last In an even greater stretch of the framework Joseph Beuys, Barry Flanagan, Eva Hesse, Afghanistan and Iraq; the bellicose efforts of twenty years we find people forced to produce of socially engaged art, some works have been Jannis Kounellis, Walter de Maria, Robert the Bush administration; and flexible labor in new forms of action in order to account for this included in Living as Farm that possess no sin­ Morris, Bruce Nauman, and Lawrence Weiner, the Western world where decentralized busi- radically altered playing field. We find a form gular author or organization. For example, the introducing an array of artists whose concep­ nesses hired and fired quickly, and tempo- of activism and political action that is increas­ celebrations in Harlem on the night of Barack tual works challenged the formal arrangements rary work became a more familiar way of life. ingly media savvy. As opposed to thinking of a Obama's election were spontaneous eruptions of what constituted art at the time. The show As these policies became commonplace, we I war fought with only guns, tanks, and bodies, of joy and street parading in a community that highlighted a diverse range of tendencies that found a widespread exacerbation of nascent wars were fought using cameras, the Internet. had long thought the election of a black presi­ would later materialize as movements from race and class divisions. The prison industry and staged media stunts. dent to be an impossibility. And, in a similar conceptual art, land art, Minimalism, and Arte in the United States now booms, and the gap In 1994, on the same day that NAFTA was vein, the protests that have erupted across Povera. Writing on the exhibition, from Szee­ between rich and poor increases. Widespread signed into office, the Zapatista EZLN Move­ the Middle East-particularly those in Tunisia mann's catalog, Hans-Joachim Muller stated, protests in Europe and Latin America yielded ment emerged in the southern jungles of the and Egypt-have become models of spontane­ "For the first time, the importance of form the term "precarity," which gained traction as Mexican province Chiapas. An indigenous ous popular action facilitated across dynamic seemed to be questioned altogether by the a description of social life always in jeopardy. movement demanding autonomy and broad­ social networks with the collective desire to conceptualization of form: whatever has a cer- Austerity measures forced governments such casting its message via a ski mask-wearing,

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