Patrick RoweOctober 9, 2013Lit Review Draft

1. Social Practice History and Theory

Evolution of Social Practice: 1970-Present

Socially engaged art and social practice, are terms commonly used today to

describe work that attempts to blur art and life through direct participation and active

spectatorship. The move toward social engagement is rooted in the late 1960’s as artists

began moving into the realm of everyday life and civic engagement. Artists have

continued to move further into everyday life, breaking down the barriers between artist

and audience, and initiating socially engaged projects with the goal of confronting

political issues and strengthening communities.

Art historian Miwon Kwon reflects on socially engaged art through the

framework of site-specific art. In her introduction to One Place after Another: Site-

specific Art and Locational Identity (2002), she describes the turn toward redefining the

art-site relationship. Kwon argues that site-specificity, rooted in the late 1960’s and early

1970’s, has been redefined in various ways by contemporary artists. These artists define

site as , “context specific, debate-specific, audience-specific, community-specific,

project-based” (2). This destabilizing of the site comes out of debate surrounding special

politics – “ideas about art, architecture, and urban design, on the one hand, and theories

of the city, social space, and public space, on the other” (3). Kwon describes a trend as

she sees it in projects that expand out into the public realm, projects that are “dispersed

across much broader cultural, social, and discursive fields, and organized intertextually

through the nomadic movement of the artist.” From this point, Kwon is able to posit that

a new type of practice, “community artistic praxis, as opposed to community based art”

has emerged. Written in 2002, this description would appear to relate to what critics and

historians would later refer to as social practice, participatory art, or socially engaged art.

In The One and the Many (2011), art historian Grant Kester critiques

collaborative art practice, a continuation of his previous work on artists and the dialogic

process. This text focuses on “site-specific collaborative projects that unfold through

extended interaction and shared labor, and in which the process of participatory

interaction itself is treated as a form of creative praxis” (9). Kester believes this turn

represents a paradigm shift in artist practice.

Kester asks the basic question “why are artists collaborating?” and asks the sub-

questions: what is art when it gets blended with other disciplines (as SEA/Collaborative

art often does), what forms of knowledge do these types of practices generate, how do we

criticize art like this, and if the process is the art what methods do we use to critique it?

(Questions that are similar to A. Downey’s). Kester identifies a paradigm shift that

follows political global change (the negative effects of neoliberalism and the optimism of

global political renewal) – the shift to disavow the authorial position of the artist, the

move toward collaboration and participation, and the “increasing permeability between

“art” and other zones of symbolic production” (7). Kester sees this contemporary shift as

being similar to art made during previous moments of social crises (progressive era,

depression, 1960’s).

According to Kester, while the traditional definition of collaboration might be 2

artists working together to create a virtual third artist, the type we see today involves the

artist (the one) as the “locus of creative transformation” (2) (with the many).

Modernism: Referred to as an ongoing project. Brought about the move toward singular

genius but also the gradual erosion of the authorial position of the artist. The condition of

modern art is the same in many ways to contemporary SEA and collaborative practice:

“The ability of aesthetic experience to transform our perceptions of difference and to

open space for forms of knowledge that challenge cognitive, social, or political

conventions. (12) The term textual art is often used by Kester to refer to object making

and event making that is intended to be shown to a viewer. Textual Politics refers to the

process of reading or decoding work “insulated from the exigencies of practice or direct

action” (14).

Chapter 1 Focuses on the re-articulation of aesthetic autonomy as art practices

parallel, overlap with, and challenge other fields of cultural production. The chapter looks

at the artist’s personality vs. autonomy and the implications of this on collaborative

practice. The chapter also discusses the idea of Textual Politics and the ways in which

work in read/experienced.

Chapter 2 begins with the question, “What forms or knowledge are catalyzed in

collaborative interaction?” (15) “How do they differ from the insights generated through

the specular experience provided by object-based practices? (15). The chapter also looks

at rural/urban dichotomy, global dialogic practices, and the discourse of “development”.

Chapter 3 looks at Collaborative art and the image of urban renewal/regeneration

and how artists also work to reclaim urban space and go against gentrification and

displacement. Here we see the question again about agency, identity, and labor.

In her book Artificial Hells (2012), Art historian Claire Bishop concentrates on

what she calls participatory works, where “people constitute the central artistic medium

and material, in the manner of theatre and performance” (2). Rather than looking at work

that is “relational” she looks at work that is participatory as a politicized working process.

She also concentrates on Europe, and on the relationship between participatory art and

“Marxist and post-Marxist writing on art as a de-alienating endeavor that should not be

subject to the division of labor and professional specialization” (3). Bishop refers to the

social turn as a turn back to the social and the historic avant-garde, positing that the fall

of communism in 1989 was a major “point of transformation” in this turn.

Art historian Claire Bishop critiques what she calls participatory art, favoring

provocation and relating participatory art to the historic avant-garde and performance art.

For Bishop, participatory art or socially engaged art is defined as art fused with social

praxis.

Through the lens of participatory art, Bishop examines, “the tensions between

quality and equality, singular and collective authorship, and the ongoing struggle to find

artistic equivalents for political positions” (3). Bishop looks at theatre primarily as she

believes that theatre and performance are crucial in the encounter that takes place in

participatory art. This position sets Bishop apart in that she is most interested in

participatory art that is provocative – again a return to the historic avant-garde.

In part 1, The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents, Bishop makes

reference to Kwon’s idea of site-specific art practice and social engagement, or rather the

“site” itself as social engagement, the paradigm that her thesis arrives at. Socially

engaged art is today’s avant-garde, the carrying out of the modernist goal to blur art and

life. In essence socially engaged art has the potential to rehumanize. However, given

these criteria, every SEA project could be called good. As a critic, Bishop is interested in

how SEA can be critiqued as art. She designates two “areas” of thought on the subject:

Non-Believers: Aesthetes who reject this work as marginal, misguided, and lacking

artistic interest of any kind.

Believers: Activists who reject aesthetics questions as synonymous with cultural

hierarchy and the market.

Bishop wonders if there can be some middle ground. Many of the artists engaged

in the social turn value the process over the product – or means without ends. In engaging

others, aesthetic judgments would seem overtaken by ethical criteria. Bishop gives the

example of the Turkish Oda Projesi, which is devoid of recognizable aesthetics

intentionally – because they are seen as dangerous. Bishop in turn asks if they are

dangerous shouldn’t they be used? In any event the projects discussed (Thomas Hirshorn)

illustrate how aesthetic resolution is sidelined in favor of the collaboration that takes

place with the community involved. She references Kester and his writing on dialogic art,

which moves away from “sensory” and towards discursive exchange and negotiation”.

Communication in this case is an aesthetic form (similar to Bruguera’s aesthetics as

transformation).

Bishop favors the provocation – a turn back toward the historical avant-garde

rather than the activist part - that the works might accept a level of the absurd and

eccentric. She goes on to describe several projects by Phil Collins, Artur Zmijewski, and

Carson Holler. In these cases the artists venture into the darker side – or antagonism. In

one example, Jeremy Deller’s Battle or Orgreave (2001), a reenactment project, engages

a community by actually re-opening an old wound rather than “healing it” directly.

Bishop references French Theorist Jacques Renciere, for whom art operates as

removed from rationality as well as the blurring of art and life. In the final analysis, art

that contains with in it the contradictions/ the dark side – the aesthetic and not purely

good – self-sacrificing – can allow us to confront more difficult things.

“Untangling the knot – or ignoring it by seeking more concrete ends for art is

slightly missing the point, since the aesthetic is, according to Racier, the ability to think

contradiction: The productive contradiction of arts relationship to social change,

characterized precisely by that tension between faith in arts autonomy and belief in art as

inextricably bound to the promise of a better world to come.”

Artist and educator Pablo Helguera enters the conversation through education

with a desire to discuss the nuances of what he calls socially engaged art. His short

handbook Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011) is meant to serve as a guide to

those interested in learning about the genre. The book is divided into useful sections with

mostly theoretical perspectives on the genre. Helguera defines SEA in the United States

as a genre that emerged out of Allen Kaprow’s work in the late 1960’s and developed

along with feminist art and criticism taking on pedagogic characteristics. Helguera, like

Bishop, describes SEA as “performance in the expanded field” (x). To understand SEA,

Helguera argues, you have to have an understanding of “pedagogy, theater, ethnography,

anthropology, and communication, among others” (x). As Helguera is an artist and

educator he takes on an educational approach in writing this “handbook”. Helguera posits

that SEA artists work across disciplines, that they enter various discursive fields during

the process of making their art. Like other authors he is concerned with separating

symbolic practice (relational/tactile) from SEA.

Queens Museum director and art theorist Tom Finkelpearl enters the conversation

through the lens of community based practice or cooperative practice. Finkelpearl wrote

What we Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (2013) to confront the fact

that many artists consider their work to be collaborative – that is what they do as their art.

Examples are given to parse out what constitutes a more relational/participatory art

practice and social cooperation. According to Finkelpearl, social cooperation is defined

as work that is dialogically based and created collaboratively. In essence the work is

made by the group (hence the title What We Made).

Finkelpearl sets up the context for what he calls the art of social cooperation

through the American framework. He breaks it down into evolving categories beginning

with the social movements of the 1960’s, civil rights and community organizing, and “the

Movement and participatory democracy”, elements of which culminate in performance

based activism. Finkelpearl claims that the 1960’s counter institutions and community

organizing models, and art practices (like Fluxus/Kaprow/Beuys) that were outright

performative, participatory, and conscious-raising, plus the influence of theory from

Europe that arrived in the 1980’s and the culture wars of the 1980’s, culminated in what

we now recognize as cooperative art. The rapid rise of artists like Theaster Gates and the

myriad books on the subject of this kind of practice, suggest that the art establishment is

finally opening their eyes to it.

After analyzing community organizing practices and social movements,

Finkelpearl takes a look at the pioneers of American cooperative art. Within his

description the concept of experimental pedagogy is discussed. Kaprow’s “Project Other

Ways” is described as progressive participatory education that begins to take on the

dialogic model. But while Kaprow wanted to “play with the world” others wanted to

change it (22) - leads to Rollins and K.O.S.

The Public art Movement of the 1990’s is also described as a watershed moment

in the development of art and social cooperation. Finkelpearl takes the same route as

Kwon in arriving at conclusions regarding the significance of “Culture in Action” and its

reception in the art world. Finkelpearl later moves on to the subject of relational

aesthetics and Bourriaud. Perhaps most important is his description of Bishops post-

Bourriaud remark. Basically the thinks that the post-Bourriaudian might want to engage

in direct social cooperation rather than this relational kind of work.

There are descriptions of the concept of alternative forms of exchange and

reciprocity as well as collectives and a description of exchanging with social life as the

medium of expression. (see CAE).

Kester (local and global context)

Annotations of descriptions of artist practice

Finkelpearl (an American framework)

Annotations from descriptions of artist practice

Relational Aesthetics is often presented in opposition to social practice, existing

within a similar discourse but set exclusively within the institutional frame. This term

originates in the writing of curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud. In his essay,

Relational Aesthetics (1998) Bourriaud creates the framework for what he terms

Relational Aesthetics, a genre of art practice that emerged in the 1990’s. Relational

Aesthetics involves people as its central medium but operates within the conditions of the

art world or art institution.

Bourriaud explains relational art as “the sphere of human relations as art

Venue (p. 44). Through his descriptions of RA, Bourriaud attempts to characterize

artist practice of the 1990’s. Bourriaud claims that 1990’s art is no less politicized

than the works of the 1960’s, “Developing a political project when it endeavors to

move into the relational realm by turning it into an issue. (17)

Relational aesthetics is a response to the shift from goods to service-based

economy and virtual relationships of Internet and globalization – a response that

has prompted artist DIY to model “possible universes.”

The horizon of Relational Aesthetics: “the realm of human interactions and its social

context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space (RA.

P. 14).” Where, “meaning is elaborated collectively (p. 54).” The audience is given

what it needs to create a community.

In Artificial Hells, Bishop continues her case for participatory arts location in

performance and provocation. Like Bourriaud she is concerned with the genre’s fitting

within the art historical frame, namely the avant-garde.

In the chapter Pedagogic Projects: ‘how do you bring a classroom to life as if it

were a work of art?’ Bishop analysis several pedagogic models that have recently

appeared in the expanded field of contemporary artist practice. The first of these case

studies is Tania Bruguera’s project “Arte de Conducta”, a school for political

performance art in Havana, Cuba. This example illustrates how a “school” can be

symbolic by acting outside the conventions of traditional pedagogy while providing

useful knowledge and ultimately successful performance art. Being both useful and

Symbolic, “Arte de Conducta” provides one example of how a “workshop” might be

considered a work of art.

Politics, Activism, and Arts

Art that enters into the expanded field of social relations, or the politics of social

space, is political. Art theorists, practitioners, and historians have varying perspectives on

art and activism. They debate if indeed art can even occupy the space of activism and

maintain it autonomy.

Finkelpearl (historical trajectory)

Annotations from introduction of What We Made (2013) and perhaps from Dialogues in Public Space (2000)

Nato Thompson (Seeing Power, Creative Time, Living as Form, and The Interventionists as critical juncture)

Annotation from Living As Form followed by Seeing Power

Alina Campana (Agents of Possibility: Examining the Intersections of Art, Education, and Activism in Communities)

Annotations here

Doug Blandy (Sustainability, Participatory Culture, and the Performance of Democracy)

2. Pedagogical History and Theory

The use of pedagogy as artist strategy, medium, and content, comes out of the

social turn and the move toward cooperative art practice. Art that relies on the dialogic

process and has outcomes and goals that are shared certainly fit into this paradigm. The

process of learning itself, set within the expanded field of contemporary art practice is

challenged and altered.

Introduction of Pedagogical Turn: 1970-Present

Author’s who debate the social turn, and the nature of socially engaged projects,

often return to the issue of pedagogy. The fact that a project involves experimental forms

of instruction, dialogue, and reflection, while at the same time being inclusive and

participatory, require some degree of pedagogic strategy. Pedagogy is also discussed as

the a priori operation of many artists today. These authors discuss this pedagogic turn.

Finkelpearl (experimental education through community organizing,

expands on the relationship between Fluxus and Kaprow’s use of pedagogy

in work)

Pablo Helguera’s very description of socially engaged art practice comes from the

perspective of pedagogy. His term transpedagogy “refers to projects by artists and

collectives that blend educational processes and art-making in works that offer an

experience that is clearly different from conventional art academies or formal art

education” (77). For these projects the actual pedagogic process makes up the core of the

artwork. Helguara wishes to separate practice that is symbolic (like relational aesthetics

or tactile arts) when he discusses transpedagogy. Helguera argues that educational

science already has vast existing unconventional structures that a SEA practitioner should

be aware of, so that they would know what to work from. This way pedagogy becomes a

vehicle within the artist’s SEA practice.

Kester (dialogic and praxis “Paradigm”)

3. Social Practice Projects

To further understand the relationship between pedagogy and the work of art, a

few case studies will be presented. Each uses a different approach at challenging the idea

of education and learning.

Experimental Education/Education and Exchange

Many artists have used alternative forms of exchange to generate new

environments for learning. This process often involves alternative forms of currency,

time, or other forms of reciprocity outside of traditional forms of commodity. This

section discusses Purves, Woolard and 1 who all….

What We Want Is Free: Generosity And Exchange In Recent Art (Purves)

Trade School and OurGoods (Caroline Woolard, barter, reciprocity and mutual aid)

Annotations from web and handout

Time/Bank

Annotations from E-Flux site

Tania Bruguera (Performance School, Havana and Arte util)

(needs citation) Beginning in Spring 2013, the Queens Museum began an exhibit

called Arte’ Util Lab, co-curated by Tania Bruguera and museum curators. The exhibit

was designed to operate as a research center to test the ideas of Arte’ Util in the context

of a public art institution. The criteria through which the museum defined Arte’ Util

included work that “proposes new uses for art in society, is implemented and functions in

real situations, has practical beneficial outcomes for its users, and re-establishes

aesthetics as a system of transformation. Here it seems that the emancipatory possibilities

of modernism have reemerged through the legacy of socially engaged art. Rather than

simply celebrating arts expansion into the expanded field of everyday life, Arte’ Util

responds to the urgent needs of society, merging ethics and aesthetics into a system of

transformation.

IMI Workshops

Site-specificity and Communities

Participatory art that moves into the community, or social space, must consider

the site, both in terms of location and discursive elements. Working within communities

brings up issues surrounding ethics and identity.

In chapter 5: of One Place after Another, The (Un)Sitings of Community Kwon

critiques community based art practice and opens up the conversation about what

the author terms “Community art praxis”. The chapter deals with the ethical

dimension of working with others as well as a continued analysis of spatial politics.

The site of public space remains the site of political struggle. Kwon is interested in

redefining community as an unstable force that allows us to open onto an all

together different model of collectivity and belonging” (7). The chapter includes

descriptions of various artist practice including New Genre Art and Culture in Action

as a turning point.

Lacey (new genre public art: the legacy of Culture in Action to her upcoming project at the Brooklyn Museum October 19, 2013)

Anthony Downey discusses the potential ethical pitfalls in social practice in his essay

An Ethics of Engagement: Collaborative Art Practices and the Return of the

Ethnographer (2009)

According to Downey, Contemporary critical discourses are struggling to criticize

and support socially engaged art. Downey wants to think about how communities are

coopted, and in some cases exploited in the name of art. For him ethics is the keystone to

criticizing SEA. Generally speaking, we approach SEA ethically first and aesthetically

second. In other words caring more about the quality and ethics of the collaborative

practices that they set in motion and less about the aesthetics in relation to social praxis –

or distinctions between art and life” (need p#). Furthermore, there is some belief that art

should actually extract itself entirely from the aesthetic and go toward the social praxis.

So, Downy believes that this social praxis should be judged in ethnographic terms. In fact

the discourse of ethnography is already similar to that of SEA in the things it responds to

(aesthetic merit, impact, self-awareness, etc).

The problem become this: Ethnographic Authority in the name of Artistic

Authority. Under these conditions “aesthetics involved in the so-called expanded field of

pseudo-ethnographic collaborative art cannot be divorced from ethics, nor can they

necessarily be resolved in relation to ethics. He gives example of Olaf Breuning’s work

in Africa.

Downy suggests an Ethics of Engagement: Artists can create a form of de-

familiarization among observers that leads to active as opposed to passive participation.

The socially engaged project can move into politics and ethics without being reducible to

such terms: Aesthetics as form of socio political praxis.

The concept of ethnography, the artist working within another community, is

further explored by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, but from the perspective of research

methodology. In her book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous

Peoples (1999) Smith writes for the indigenous researcher but is also concerned with the

institution of research and its relationship to power. Smith identifies as an indigenous

researcher. She refers to the “encounter of research”(5) as historically having been from

the colonizer to the Other (indigenous/colonized). This book flips this encounter around

and offers analysis of the role of knowledge and the exclusion of indigenous people (part

1) and the possibilities of re-imagining research from the position of the indigenous

researcher in their communities (part 2). Smith places significant value on the alternative

forms of knowledge sharing (reporting back – sharing research gathered with the elders,

etc.) that already exist in indigenous communities. For “western” trained researchers

having to engage with community elders would be a “barrier” but for the indigenous

researcher it is part of the process and perhaps the foundation or cornerstone of

indigenous methodologies.

Methodology is defined as a “theory of method, or the approach of technique

being taken, or the reasoning for selecting a set of methods” (from forward). Smith

describes the methodologies of “western” or “colonizer scholars” in several ways: the

traveler stories about cannibals, etc. that came from adventurers, the academic

researchers who “extract and claim ownership of indigenous culture.” In each case an

image of the Other is created, filtered through a lens of western values and projected back

onto the indigenous peoples. This story runs alongside imperialism and has had a long-

term dehumanizing effect.

Indigenous or indigenous peoples is a term from the 1970’s. It has its roots in the

American Indian movement. According to Smith, the term was created to signify and

internationalize the experiences and struggles of the world’s colonized people. To give

the Other a name and a face. Historically indigenous people have been the subject. This

book considers them agents.

The fear of research amongst indigenous peoples is consistent with fear of

colonization and injustice. However, for oppressed people survival may appear far more

pressing than anything like research. For Smith indigenous research is important as it

works to decolonize, to “retrieve who we were and remake ourselves” (4) and thus carries

an emancipatory effect and is part of survival. This book is written to be directly useful

for the indigenous researcher in such pursuits.

Smith writes from the “margins and intersections” as well as from “inside” and

“outside” and makes this position very clear – it is a position that is consistent with most

indigenous researchers and is a valuable perspective rather than a problematic one.

According to Smith this book, in its first edition, was found to be useful for

people in many different disciplines. I can see how working with disenfranchised

communities or immigrant communities or communities at the “margins” and having

goals of empowerment might require an understanding of indigenous methodologies

(research and pedagogy). This book provides alternatives to western styles of research -

that may already exclude marginalized communities or at least place them in an inferior

position.

In Culture Works (2012), anthropologist Arlene Davila examines what culture is

“asked to do” in the neoliberal context. This text looks at the role of cultural work in

communities.

According to Davila, “Culture” is hot now, and plays an integral role in

neoliberalism. Culture gets reduced and used in “economic policies, projects, and

frameworks”. Culture Works takes as its point of departure the many debates that have

come out of this situation.

Davila examines people’s social and physical mobility within the neoliberal state,

the reality of what is at stake, and questions who decides what is valued etc. The author’s

goal “is that readers will appreciate how similar dynamics of space, value, and mobility

are brought to bear in each location (she looks at several), inspiring particular cultural

politics with repercussions that are both geographically and historically specific but that

are ultimately global in scope” (2). The author will look at the types of work that cultural

producers are asked to do, and the restraints they experience.

Long-term Projects: The Aesthetics of Commitment (Love)

The pedagogic approach is a commitment, one that must allow for the exchange

of knowledge to be completed. In some cases this commitment is long-term for the sake

of reaching the goals and desires of both artist and participant. This long-term

commitment is defined by love. This I call the aesthetics of commitment.

Rick Lowe (Project Row House)

Annotations from interview with Tom Finkelpearl and possible recording of Clock Tower talk

Immigrant Movement International

Blade of Grass TalkThe Aesthetics of DoingSeptember 9, 2013 6-8pm

Learning as Social Empowerment: Ties Between Community and Level Learning (Dialogic Learning)

Panel Discussion with Special Guests:

Kemi Ilesanmi Executive Director of The Laundromat Project

Pepón Osorio artist & Laura Carnell Professor of Community Art,Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia

George Emilio Sánchez performance artist, writer & educator (Staten Island CUNY)

Introductions (everything in their words)

Pepón Osorio: (This is the person who Pablo Helguera suggested I look at) Work that leaps from communities to institutions. He decided to create storefronts as part of his community work for public display before moving them into institutions. He believes that the “work” exists in the middle of this back and forth (the Dialogic/Learning part). He has turned his method of working into a pedagogic philosophy.

Art Definition: The story of the work is floating around and we make sense of it through the work of art. For him his spiritual and mental condition have to be in alignment with the community – knowledge exists in flux.

Process without object – can this exist? He thinks so, and as he gets older, the exhibition is becoming a secondary process. (he refers to himself as being from a different generation from the social practice artists).

George Emilio Sánchez: Not expert, confused, full of rage. He believes the dialogic process/involvement and attention is everything. 3 years in public schools in a dangerous community. He began using Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theater of

the Oppressed – doing these things in East New York. Gave example of kid seeing something in a T.O.O. exercise, “you can change the object – you can transform a person”. This experience convinced him that dialogue is it.

Kemi Ilesanmi: she is the “institutional voice”. She is about going where people are. Amplifying creativity that already exists citywide. There is an artist residency – socially engaged art – artists work in their own neighborhood and are given role as The Artist. Emphasis on Narrative Justice – stories about us. They also offer fellowships where they train you how to community organize in your neighborhood.

Moderator: What about Dialogic Practice and Power?

Pepon: he started in South Bronx. Collaboration from a place of strength, not weakness – while things suck, look at the strengths – what are they really good at, that maybe I am not good at.

Also, there is always someone in-between (curator/institution) and with dialogic there is a direct interaction.This applies to using terms like social practice with institutional people – sore spot – “fuck it” the community has the strength.

Kemi: Flip the narrative, instead of what is the artist going to do, open up an understanding of the artist’s presence – the fact that they have artists in their community. Open up space for other visions of power.

George: Bilingual identity as negative idea of power. The personal narrative has power – meeting the families, trust exercises are foundation – you have to get people to feel safe in a room – has to always be reinforced.As artist activist you have a face and you learn everyday – you can’t fail – be critical and aware of the power you hold.

Moderator: What are the approaches you use?

Pepon: Lots of rigor in what I do. Methodology. Artists in studios don’t cover the rigor and methodology.Step 1. Listen – invisibility (find core group in community) Just be a citizen.Step 2. Engage with people, wait for stories 0 what has resonance. But really it’s about what you as the artists are looking for in you.

George: Rigor, yes. Listening not in a passive way. Uses Pedagogy of the Oppressed Theater of the Oppressed – get them to develop their voices.

Kemi: our work connected to areas of color and Artists of color. Power is seen in that context.Never underestimate the power of your presence. You cannot replace that – and becoming invisible as the artist. Citizen participation in the community is really

important here. Be humble, ask questions. Find out what knowledge people already have – how do they mark space. Connecting and seeing.

Pepon: When I work – were is conceptual art in a place that values tradition? Where is the place, my place? That’s the question. Where is the intersection? You need the grants, name, etc. So how do you work in the intersections and consider your work in the community.

Open Q&A: How do we make sure the people we work with are nurtured afterwards?

George: What is our currency? Rethink how these things are funded and redefine currency. Pepon: The people I work with know the social architectural space I am working in – they can move it forward. You create long term relationships in the community – the artists come and go.

Kemi: We support artists who don’t find support anywhere else. Sustainability is a major concern in social practice. Individuals come and go, but the effect, or relationship, lives on.

Open Q&A: What about problems/Confrontation/Discomfort?

Pepon: Navigate in ways that do not disturb structures that already exist – learn to navigate places of power.

The End

Enveloped within commitment is the need to sustain ones practice. Critical Art

Ensemble examined the benefits of collectives in their article Observations on Collective

Cultural Action (2002). Collectives are seen as a way of sustaining and feeding into an

art practice.

According to CAE The modernist tradition of the individual artist genius is not

dead. This is true even in community art (dig on Habermas). In the final analysis we still

want something that can be collected and sold. This has lead to collective action not

being taught in higher education.

According to CAE, “collectives exist in the liminal zone, they are neither an

individual, nor an institution, and there are no other categories.” (I don’t have page

numbers yet of original article)

The art market demands artists to be “renaissance me”. CAE chooses to be a

collective as a matter of economic survival, process integrity (not buying labor) and also

because each member offers a specialized skill. This is different than “band culture” were

each member shares skills. Also, CAE follows Foucault’s principle that hierarchical

power can be productive (does not necessarily lead to domination), and so they use a

floating hierarchy when they produce projects.

Cellular Collective Production: typifies contemporary collective construction.

Members do not share similarities of skills – together they form the “renaissance person”

so to speak.

Cells require distribution support to realize project goals. CAE is highly critical of

the concept of community and state, “The idea of community is without a doubt the

liberal equivalent of the conservative notion of family values – neither exist in

contemporary culture, and both are grounded in political fantasy”. The example given is

the term “gay community” which seems to assume strong similarities in all gay people.

One important quote that I do agree with is, “who wants a community in the first place?

After all it contradicts the politics of difference”. It is important to pause here and

remember that Steve Kurtz and CAE are anarchists.

The idea of a coalition means that members can form hybrid subgroups (among

cells) for specific projects and at completion or if it falls apart that person can “walk

away whole”. This is necessary when approaching large-scale cultural production.

The final point, that relates to economic exchange is clarified in this statement,

“CAE believes that artists research into alternative forms of social organization is just as

important as the traditional research into materials, processes, and products”.

Literature Review of Current Projects (Come Up With Name)

Artist who take the pedagogic approach are supported by organizations committed to

socially engaged art, like Blade of Grass. Funding from these organization makes it

possible for these socially engaged pedagogically based artists to realize large-scale and

small-scale projects.

Lacy (dialogue, direction participation, and institutional frame)

IMI (political agenda and institutional frame)

Projects where the artist(s) meets the participants half way (my upcoming table collaboration)