te called “interventionist” art in an important exhibition of 2004 represents a rather pure form of social sculpture – issue-oriented creative work with the potential to reshape society.
The flood of work in modes of social sculpture in the last 10 years would require an article at least as long again to detail. I have also ignored work on the internet, which in a mere ten years has spawned its “2.0” version in the many platforms for social media. This new technology has reframed the previously neglected work of media artists and activists using video tools.
Joseph Beuys would be pleased that directly engaged social art practice is again at the top of the contemporary agenda. Art work that seeks to discharge a mission, to undertake work in the world like education, consciousness raising and political tasks, is finding space in art institutions. As we move forward into an uncertain future, social sculpture is working to regenerate the social capital depleted by the long extractive regime of neoliberalism.
References, Further Reading:
Classic early books; most are now rare, but are in many libraries:
• Eva Meyer-Hermann, et al., eds., Allan Kaprow: Art as Life (Los Angeles : Getty Research Institute, 2008) – Major new survey exhibition catalogue of his work. Not only the classic early works but the later more analytical ones as well.
• Deborah Cullen, ed., Arte [no es] Vida : Actions by Artists of the Americas 1960-2000 (New York : El Museo Del Barrio, 2008) – A survey exhibition of politicized performance work in Latin America during the period of the dictatorships and after. Many country-specific essays.
Notes to the text (all online citations as of 12-08)
“Richard Kostelanetz lists 15…” in R. K., The Theatre of Mixed Means: An Introduction to Happenings, Kinetic Environments, and other Mixed-Means Performances (1968).
“participatory art…” This is a contemporary name for this kind of work which was being celebrated as this text was written in a major exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. See Rudolf Frieling, The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (NY: Thames & Hudson, 2008).
“Happening came to Amsterdam…” Richard Kempton, Provo: Amsterdam’s Anarchist Revolt (Autonomedia, 2008). See also Delta magazine, Autumn 1967, for a collection of key Provo texts in English.
“take pictures of the police action…” This story was told at the “Signs of Change” exhibition at Exit Art, NYC in fall of 2008, during a screening of Provo films by Jordan Zinovich, who worked on the Kempton book.
“where the plans for just such an action had been exhibited…” Brett Bloom, “A Magical Land of Roving Santa Claus Armies, Pirated Energy Drinks and a Giant Squatted Urban Village,” in Josh McPhee and Erik Reuland, eds., Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007)
“sensational ‘lock-in’ of gallery goers…” Brian Holmes discusses this work by Graciela Carnevale in his text “Transparency To Exodus” (2005), online.
“Jon Erickson succinctly summarizes…” J.E., “The Spectacle of the Anti-Spectacle: Happenings and the Situationist International,” in Discourse 14.2 (performance issue), Spring 1992; references within the quotation: “SOS” is Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Black and Red, 1983), and “Knabb” is Ken Knabb, Situationist International Anthology (1981). Most of these texts are online.
“springboard for comment…participatory art…” In addition to the catalogue Rudolf Frieling, ed., The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now (2008), Claire Bishop has edited a collection of documents, Participation (2006). Heretofore a major source was Frank Popper’s Art – Action and Participation (1975). Popper is a historian of kinetic and electronic art. Popper’s pioneers of viewer participation were the Bauhaus master László Moholy-Nagy, Israeli kinetic artist Yaacov Agam, Roy Ascott and Lygia Clark.
“exhibition called `Do It’…” Search “Do It at e-flux” on the internet. The site contains an instructive essay by Bruce Altshuler, “Art by Instruction and the Pre-History of ‘Do It.’” (There is also a published book on the project.)