2023 (1)

• Abstract

  Despite the study of political art by many scholars, an in-depth analysis of how artists express themselves politically and assess their political expression as part of their artistic reputation is still missing. How do artists value their political action in view of their artistic reputation, and why? A promising theoretical entry to this question is Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. We used his concept of field-specific symbolic capital in cultural production to study political expression by artists; findings are based on empirical research in the cities of Hamburg, Hanover, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In previous publications of this multi-stage research project, we identified five artist types that are involved in urban political action in different ways—the autonomous artist, social artivist, political artist, political artivist and high status artist. In this stage, we assess their political behavior as a factor of symbolic capital. We found that autonomous artists reject political action as detrimental to their symbolic capital. High status artists have such a high artistic position that they can ignore any possible damage to their reputation caused by their political activities. Social artivists believe that overt political action might be harmful for their symbolic capital, and we label their political artistic action as social art. Political artists declare that their artwork is political, which promotes their symbolic capital as long as their political expressions are restricted to their artwork and not seen as personal expressions. Political artivists do not draw a line between their artwork and personal political expression, as they understand both as reputation enhancing. We thus reject the negative correlation between artistic autonomy and political heteronomy in the art field as simplistic.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

10.14361

• Abstract

  In 2021, for the first time, all the nominees for the Turner Prize were socially engaged art (SEA) collectives. The groups all ’democratised’ their practices by relinquishing their authorial control to non-artists. Framed by the prestige of the Turner Prize, this relinquishing of control, through collaborative actions with various communities, was lauded as ethically meritorious, because of its egalitarian and non-hierarchical nature. We argue that behind the growing institutional success of SEA lies a tension between its ’goodness’ as a necessity based on a model of authentic practice, and the context of ’post-truth’ that informs its rejection of ’artistic expertise’ in favour of egalitarian processes. However, we contend that it is not the processes themselves, but the monumentalising of democracy and equality that brings SEA into the domain of post-truth. We conclude that SEA must retain a dialectical tension between equality and the production of truth as a cultural value: a dialectic which involves the careful reinstatement of artistic authorship and a sincerer vision of its political ambitions and signification.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

10.14361

• Abstract

  The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s marks a social failure in the West towards those affected by the HI virus and those dying from it. From the mid-1980s, this failure was met with political and artistic resistance. Artistic action has been combined with political protest in a new way. In addition, a new form of queer utopian art emerged, which found expression in photography, among other things. The article focuses on queer utopia as an engagement and goes into the special role of photography during the HIV/AIDS crisis. Using three photographs by Jürgen Baldiga, Mark Morrisroe and David Wojnarowicz, it explains how art confronted the HIV/AIDS crisis by looking for queer utopias.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

10.14361

• Abstract

  Participation is a widely discussed subject matter in cultural policy. Over the years, scholars and practitioners have approached it in a variety of ways as policy paradigms have evolved; today these paradigms demonstrate a complex understanding of culture and what participation in art and culture means. Requirements from public administration have sought to promote cultural offers with increasingly higher levels of participation, though with a varied set of interests behind them. By attending to several of these paradigms—excellence, cultural democratisation, cultural democracy, and creative industry—with a perspective that is unique to socially engaged art, this article highlights the tensions that arise in the question of means for cultural production, and further problematises the institutional use of the combined notions of art and participation.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

10.14361/zkmm-2023-0105

• Abstract

  Drawing on materialist feminist theory, this article discusses Recleaning the Rietveld Pavilion (2017) by Alina Lupu and its relation to Job Koelewijn’s Cleaning of the Rietveld Pavilion (1992) and other important antecedents. In considering the ways in which maintenance work is articulated in the projects, and the people engaged in the realisation, I contend that it is possible to develop a critical analysis of how visibility is deployed in socially engaged art contexts. The argument focuses on art as a site of gendered labour and the subjectivities as well as forms of (social) work that it produces. Furthermore, the analysis explores the regime of hyper-visibility of contemporary art in contrast to the vast array of unrecorded economic activities, of which maintenance is an essential, yet not exclusive component, that ultimately contributes to reproducing an unsustainable system of work relations based on (self-)exploitation, reputational value and financial dependence.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0106

• Abstract

  In this essay, we assume that we are currently dealing with a renewed structural change of the public sphere. This change has considerable consequences for the sphere of the political. For the crisis of representativeness and the fragmentation of the public sphere into antagonistically structured worlds aimed at self-presentation and self-affirmation are eroding the common ground that is necessary for political as well as for aesthetic performative acts to be asserted and appreciated. Against this background, it is necessary to take a closer look at art forms that want to contribute to a socio-political transformation beyond performative interventions on the “stage of the public”. Instead of focusing on attempts to remix the already hopelessly crisis-ridden dominant relations of representation, and instead of attempts to propagate counter-hegemonies, we focus on community based arts. We argue that the political strength of this new genre lies not so much in an expected “social impact” or in the revival of a dying we-identity, but rather in the re-creation of an immediate sociality through bodily encounter and empowerment of dialogical responsiveness among citizens in face-to-face interactions.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0107

• Abstract

  This case study provides a critical review of SAFEDI, an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Engagement Fellowship that sought to influence the making of policy relating to access, inclusion and diversity in arts and cultural settings and organisations. During six artist commissions, social artists worked with participants who self-identify as marginalised and with organisations interested in developing more inclusive cultural policies. Central to the SAFEDI fellowship was to see if artistic processes and outputs might become the method and mean by which to translate lived experiences of exclusion, and participants’ visions for better access, to cultural partners and researchers. Evidence collected by an independent evaluator found that all short-term projected outcomes, and a number of medium- and long- term impacts were met by the project end, with the social art practice approach enabling cultural partner leaders to reflect anew on their structures, provisions, intentions, practices and formal policies in relation to their workforce and the audiences they seek to reach.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0108

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0109

• Abstract

  The report considers the ISSP Summer School of Socially Engaged Art, which took place in Cēsis, Latvia, from July 23-30, 2022. Jointly run by ISSP Latvia and New Visions, the event was aimed at artists and creatives from different disciplines from the Baltic region who work with communities or aspire to do so. Through exercises, workshops and guest lectures, the role of socially engaged art was theoretically analyzed and tools were provided to help build contextualized and equitable relationships in one’s own practice. The following report is based on participant observation and interviews with participants and organizers. Since group dynamics, the sense of place, and the social dynamics of events play a special role in socially engaged art, it explores motivations and expectations of initiators and participants, but also looks at the strategies and methods used by organizers to meet their own aspirations of creating a sustainable network. And finally, it asks what the participants took away with them after the week. An important focus is on the paradoxes of socially engaged art in the post-Soviet context.

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0110

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0112

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0113

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0114

Socially Engaged Art in a New World Order

doi 10.14361/zkmm-2023-0115