Participation (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art) [Paperback]

Claire Bishop (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0262524643 | ISBN-13: 978-0262524643

The desire to move viewers out of the role of passive observers and into the role of producers is one of the hallmarks of twentieth-century art. This tendency can be found in practices and projects ranging from El Lissitzky's exhibition designs to Allan Kaprow's happenings, from minimalist objects to installation art. More recently, this kind of participatory art has gone so far as to encourage and produce new social relationships. Guy Debord's celebrated argument that capitalism fragments the social bond has become the premise for much relational art seeking to challenge and provide alternatives to the discontents of contemporary life. This publication collects texts that place this artistic development in historical and theoretical context. Participation begins with writings that provide a theoretical framework for relational art, with essays by Umberto Eco, Bertolt Brecht, Roland Barthes, Peter Bürger, Jen-Luc Nancy, Edoaurd Glissant, and Félix Guattari, as well as the first translation into English of Jacques Rancière's influential "Problems and Transformations in Critical Art." The book also includes central writings by such artists as Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Joseph Beuys, Augusto Boal, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. And it features recent critical and curatorial debates, with discussions by Lars Bang Larsen, Nicolas Bourriaud, Hal Foster, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Copublished with Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A rigorous introduction to debates on the relations between art and society, community and collective agency, from the rise of socially based art in the 1960s to the present.... What is an authentic concept of contemporary democracy, and how can art address it? What is the social value of participatory authorship, and what are the aesthetic limits of the social turn in art? These are crucial questions today, and this is an inexhaustible resource for those who want to answer them." Viktor Misiano , Curator and Chief Editor of Moscow Art Magazine

"Claire Bishop has distilled an opinionated treasury of analytical writings, empirical narration, and curatorial criticism. Her editorial enterprise results in a volume that lays out key concepts intrinsic to recent participatory art practices and illuminates a cross-section of social dynamics such practices activate and express." Julie Ault , artist, co-founder of Group Material

"The current focus on relational aesthetics seems to have been largely detrimental to a more complex, nuanced and art-historically informed discussion on participatory practices. Claire Bishop's thoughtful anthology will hopefully begin to remedy this situation. Her book provides the theoretical and historical tools that are essential to perform a closer reading of participatory practices, current and past. Precisely organized and carefully selected, this anthology will surely be consulted widely, both by professionals and students. To its usefulness and clarity, Bishop's book adds a concern for a geographically expanded field of inquiry, so that her version of history is gladly one that does not disregard the evidence -- as much recent writing unfortunately still does -- when it comes from outside the well-trodden paths of the Western canon." ---Carlos Basualdo , Curator of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art

About the Author

Claire Bishop is the author of Installation Art: A Critical History and a contributor to many art journals, including ArtForum, Flash Art, and October. She is a Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Warwick.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (December 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262524643
• ISBN-13: 978-0262524643
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 28, 2010

By 

sm (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Participation (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art) (Paperback)

This edited collection of short readings is part of a series jointly published by Whitechapel gallery and MIT press. They are all based around topical themes in modern and contemporary art: participation, the archive, utopia, appropriation and so forth. This one on participation is not very well structured, the selected texts are often very abbreviated, and the logic of the selection is hard to follow.

For anyone seriously interested in the topic of participation in art this book will disappoint. A better book would be Grant Kester's Conversation Pieces or the recent exhibition catalogue (The Art of Participation 1950 to Now), or Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics. If you don't know anything at all about participation in art and want a few pointers on the topic, it's OK but not great.

Having bought this one and flicked through others in the series in bookshops I wouldn't buy another one.
I can't work out who the publishers are aiming at in terms of audience, maybe undergraduates?

17 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a must for all art afficiados, April 2, 2007

By 

Eleanor Makris "adventurer" (galena, il) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Participation (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art) (Paperback)

Until I read this book I could not give myself permission to have my own ideas about some of the world's greatest art pieces and give my educated opinion about them. Umberto Eco's 1st essay is a wonder!

1 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good, February 27, 2009

By 

rueisha "rueisha" (SJ Puerto Rico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Participation (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art) (Paperback)

This book arrived on time. The book was new as described by seller and had a good price.