What about Activism?

Curators and thinkers about contemporary art consider how to engage audiences in creative forms of protest and advocacy.

With the global rise of a politics of shock, driven by nationalist and authoritarian regimes, what paths to resistance and sites of sanctuary can cultural institutions offer? In this book, more than twenty of the world''s leading curators and thinkers about contemporary art offer powerful case studies from their own work, along with historical and theoretical perspectives, that point the way for cultural producers everywhere to engage audiences in creative forms of protest and advocacy capable of confronting the fierce political challenges of today and tomorrow.

Contributors
Defne Ayas, Ute Meta Bauer, Nicolas Bourriaud, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Joshua Decter, Cl mentine Deliss, Irmgard Emmelhainz, Boris Groys, Hou Hanru, Pi Li, Maria Lind, Steven Henry Madoff, Antonia Majaca, Gabi Ngcobo, Hans Ulricht Obrist, Jack Persekian with Alison Ramer, Mar a Bel n Sa z de Ibarra, Terry Smith, Nato Thompson, Mick Wilson, Brian Kuan Wood, Tirdad Zolghadr

Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Art.

Mick Wilson is an artist, educator, and researcher based in Sweden and Ireland and coeditor of The Curatorial Conundrum: What to Study? What to Research? What to Practice? and How Institutions Think (both published by the MIT Press).

Nato Thompson is Chief Curator at the New York-based public arts institution Creative Time. He edited The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life and Becoming Animal (both published by the MIT Press) and curated the MASS MoCA exhibitions they accompanied.

Hou Hanru is Artistic Director of MAXXI (National museum of 21st Century Arts) in Rome. Xi Bei is Artistic Director of the Times Art Center Berlin.

Nicolas Bourriaud was the co-director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and an art advisor for the Victor Pinchuk foundation in Kiev. His previous books include L’ère tertiaire, Esthétique relationnelle, and Formes de vie.

Boris Groys is an art critic, media theorist, and philosopher. He is Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. He is the author of Art Power, History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism (both published by the MIT Press), and other books.

Antonia Majaca is a curator, and writer based in Berlin and Research Leader at the Institute for Contemporary Art at the Graz University of Technology.

Steven Henry Madoff, an award-winning writer, editor, and poet, has written extensively on contemporary art for such publications as Artforum, the New York Times, and Time magazine, and published numerous monographs on leading artists. He is Senior Critic at Yale University’s School of Art.

Maria Lind is Director of the Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, and former Director of the graduate program at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. In 2010, Selected Maria Lind Writing was published by Sternberg Press.