Art and activism

Writings on socially engaged, political art and practice

Journals

• ArtLeaks Gazette, 6+ nos., eds. Corina Apostol, Vladan Jeremić, Rena Rädle, a.o., Tallinn/Belgrade, May 2013-. A collective platform initiated by an international group of artists, curators, art historians and intellectuals in response to the abuse of their professional integrity and the open infraction of their labor rights.

• Arts of the Working Class, 37+ nos., eds. María Inés Plaza Lazo, Pauł Sochacki, a.o., Berlin, Apr 2018-. A multi-lingual street journal on poverty and wealth, art and society. Published every two months and contains contributions by artists and thinkers from different fields. (multiple languages)

• Chto delat / What is to be done?, 39+ nos., ed. Dmitry Vilensky, a.o., Aug 2003-. Newspaper on issues central to engaged culture, with a special focus on the relationship between a repoliticization of Russian intellectual culture and its broader international context. (Russian),(English)

• FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism, 30+ nos., ed. Grant Kester, Mar 2015-. "We are living through a singular cultural moment in which the conventional relationship between art and the social world, and between artist and viewer, is being questioned and renegotiated. FIELD responds to the remarkable proliferation of new artistic practices devoted to forms of political, social and cultural transformation." Commentary: Bolt 2015, Kester 2015.

• Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 11+ nos., eds. Cara Baldwin, Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst, Christine Ulke, a.o., Los Angeles, Dec 2001-.

• Mezosfera, 14+ nos., eds. Dóra Hegyi, Zsuzsa László, and Eszter Szakács, Budapest: tranzit.hu, 2016-.

• multitudes: revue politique artistique philosophique, 99+ nos, Paris: multitudes, Mar 2000-. Quarterly political, artistic and philosophical magazine. (French)

• Red Thread, 6+ nos., Istanbul: Depo İstanbul, 2009-. E-journal for social and cultural theory. Initiated by WHW (what, how and for whom) and Osman Kavala in 2009 as part of 11th Istanbul Biennial. (English)/(Turkish)

• Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, ed. Rasheed Araeen, a.o., Routledge, 1987-. [1]

• transversal, 59+ nos., Vienna: eipcp – European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, Nov 2000-. (multiple languages)

Past

• Arkzin, 107 nos., eds. Vesna Janković, Dejan Kršić, a.o., Zagreb, 1991-1998, Log. Magazine for politics, culture, theory and art. (Croatian),(English)

• Documents: A Magazine of Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, 23 nos., eds. Miwon Kwon, Helen Molesworth, a.o., New York (later Los Angeles), 1992-2004. See also Kwon 2012, Molesworth & Zion 2012. WP.

• Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, 27 nos., New York: Heresies Collective, 1977-1993. The founding members of the Heresies Collective included Patsy Beckert, Joan Braderman, Mary Beth Edelson, Elizabeth Hess, Harmony Hammond, Joyce Kozloff, Arlene Ladden, Lucy Lippard, Mary Miss, Marty Pottenger, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Snyder, May Stevens, Michelle Stuart, Susana Torre, Elizabeth Weatherford, and Sally Webster.

• MARCH: a journal of art & strategy, eds. Sarrita Hunn and James McAnally, Mar 2020-Mar 2025.

• Prelom: časopis za sliku i politiku / Journal for Images and Politics, 8 nos., Belgrade: Prelom kolektiv, Jun 2001-2006. (Serbian),(English)

• Reartikulacija: Artistic Political Theoretical Discursive Platform, 15 nos., eds. Marina Gržinić and Sebastjan Leban, Ljubljana: Society for Contemporary Creativity HCHO, 2007-2012. (Slovenian),(English),(Serbian)

Books, issues

See also publications on movements and tendencies such as Constructivism, Productivism, Situationist International, Feminist art, Institutional critique, Video activism, Cyberfeminism, Tactical media, Relational aesthetics, Decolonial aesthetics, Community servers, Shadow libraries.

1960s-1980s

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• Art Workers' Coalition, Open Hearing, New York, 1969, 142 pp. Collection of statements originally published in the wake of the first public meeting of the Art Workers’ Coalition, at the School of Visual Arts in New York on 10 April 1969. Contributing artists: Carl Andre, Architects’ Resistance, Robert Barry, Gregory Battcock, Jon Bauch, Ernst Benkert, Don Bernshouse, Gloria Greenberg Bressler, Selma Brody, Bruce Brown, Bob Carter, Frederick Castle, Rosemarie Castoro, Michael Chapman, Iris Crump, John Denmark, Joseph Di Donato, Mark Di Suvero, George Dworzan, Farman, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Chuck Ginnever, Bill Gordy, Alex Gross, Hans Haacke, Clarence Hagin, Harvey, Gerry Herman, Frank Hewitt, D. Holmes, Robert Huot, Ken Jacobs, Joseph Kosuth, David Lee, Naomi Levine, Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, Tom Lloyd, Lee Lozano, Len Lye, James McDonald, Edwin Mieczkowski, Minority A, Vernita Nemec, Barnett Newman, John Perreault, Stephen Phillips, Lil Picard, Peter Pinchbeck, Joanna Pousette-Dart, Barbara Reise, Faith Ringgold, Steve Rosenthal, Theresa Schwarz, Seth Siegelaub, Gary Smith, Michael Snow, Anita Steckel, Carl Strueckland, Gene Swenson, Julius Tobias, Jean Toche, Ruth Vollmer, Iain Whitecross, Jay Wholly, Ann Wilson, and Wilbur Woods. JOOAP (2007). PI (2008). UbuWeb. Commentary: Dyment. [2]

• Art Workers' Coalition, Documents 1, New York, 1969, 121 pp. Collection of correspondence, press, and ephemera surrounding the foundation and rise of the Art Worker’s Coalition (AWC), published at the height of the group’s activity in mid-1969. PI. UbuWeb.

• Women Artists in Revolution, A Documentary HerStory of Women Artists in Revolution, New York: Women’s Media Center, 1971; 2nd ed., Pittsburgh: Women’s Interart Center, 1973, 88 pp; facs. repr. of 2nd ed., Brooklyn, NY: Primary Information, 2021. Active from 1969 to 1971, W.A.R. was founded as the women's caucus of the Art Workers' Coalition. Members of W.A.R. included Juliette Gordon, Sara Saporta, Therese Schwartz, Muriel Castanis, Cindy Nemser, Dolores Holmes, Betsy Jones, Silvia Goldsmith, Jan McDevitt, Lucy Lippard, Grace Glueck, Poppy Johnson, Brenda Miller, Faith Ringgold, Emily Genauer, Agnes C. Denes, Doloris O’Kane, and Jacqueline Skiles. Publisher. [3]

• an anti-catalog, New York: Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, 1977, 80 pp. Protest agasint the Whitney Museum of American Art's bicentennial exhibition, which was titled Three Centuries of American Art. The Whitney show featured John D. Rockefeller III's collection of mainly eighteenth and nineteenth-century American art--a collection that featured only one African American and one woman artist. Written, designed, and produced by Rudolf Baranik, Sarina Bromberg, Sarah Charlesworth, Susanne Cohn, Carol Duncan, Shawn Gargagliano, Eunice Golden, Janet Koenig, Joseph Kosuth, Anthony McCall, Paul Pechter, Elaine Bendock Pelosini, Aaron Roseman, Larry Rosing, Ann Marie Rousseau, Alan Wallach, Walter Weissman.

• Jon Hendricks, Jean Toche, GAAG: The Guerrilla Art Action Group, 1969-1976: A Selection, New York: Printed Matter, 1978.

• Paul Von Blum, The Critical Vision: A History of Social and Political Art in the U.S., Boston, MA: South End Press, 1982, xviii+169 pp. Examines the development of the treatment of political and social issues in paintings, graphic arts, and documentary photographs ranging from the eighteenth century to the 1970s. Essay (1993).

• Lucy R. Lippard, Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984, 343 pp, IA. Aims "to integrate the three sometimes contradictory elements of the author's public (and often private) life: art, feminism, left politics." Review: Pfeil (Minnesota Rev).

• Arlene Raven (ed.), Art in the Public Interest, Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1989, 373 pp; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, Aug 1993, vi+373 pp, IA. Essays divided into two sections: "Art in the Public Interest: New Public Art in the 1980s, and "Art in Public: Conflict and Questions Today". Contributors include Carol Becker, Linda Burnham, Suzanne Lacy, Lucy R. Lippard, Moira Roth, a.o. Review: Berman (JAE).

• Sue Williamson, Resistance Art in South Africa, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, 159 pp, IA; Cape Town: David Philip, 1989; repr., new pref., Cape Town: Double Storey Books, Oct 2004, 158 pp.

1990s

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• Lucy R. Lippard, Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America, New York: Pantheon Books, 1990, vii+278 pp; new ed., New York: The New Press, 2000. Discusses the cross-cultural process taking place in the work of contemporary Latino, Native, African, and Asian American artists

• If You Lived Here: The City in Art, Theory, and Social Activism: A Project by Martha Rosler, ed. Brian Wallis, Seattle: Bay Press, and New York: Dia Art Foundation, 1991, 312 pp; repr., New York: New Press, 1999, x+312 pp. Documents the present crisis in American urban housing policies and portrays how artists within the context of neighborhood organizations, have fought against government neglect, shortsighted housing policies and unfettered real estate speculation. Essays, photographs, symposiums, architectural plans and the reproduction of works from the series of exhibitions organized by Martha Rosler. With contributions by Christine Benglia Bevington, Marie Annick Brown, Andrew Byard, Cenén, The Chinatown History Project, Clinton Coalition of Concern, Rosalyn Deutsche, Dan Graham and Robin Hurst, Alexander Kluge, The Mad Housers, Tony Masso, The Nation, Richard Plunz, William Price, Yvonne Rainer, Mel Rosenthal, Allan Sekula, Camilo José Vergara, and Dan Wiley.

• Polifónia: a társadalmi kontextus mint médium a kortárs magyar képzőművészetben / Polyphony: Social Commentary in Contemporary Hungarian Art, eds. Suzanne Mészöly and Barnabas Bencsik, Budapest: Soros Center for Contemporary Arts, 1993, 341 pp. Catalogue for annual exh. of SCCA Budapest, 1-30 Nov 1993. Contributors: András Szántó, Gábor Bora, Eszter Babarczy, Béla Bacsó, János Sugár, András Zwickl, Tibor Várnagy, László Beke. [4] [5] (Hungarian)/(English)

• Carol Becker (ed.), The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social Responsibility, New York: Routledge, Jun 1994, xx+258 pp, IA. Contributors: Kathy Acker, Carol Becker, Page duBois, Michael Eric Dyson, Felipe Ehrenberg, Elizam Escobar, Coco Fusco, Henry A. Giroux, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Eva Hauser, Evva Kuryluk, Njabulo S. Ndebele, B. Ruby Rich, Martha Rosler, and Ahmad Sadri. Publisher, [6]. Editor. Reviews: Fisher (JAAC), Kowalski (Humanity & Society).

• Suzanne Lacy (ed.), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, Seattle: Bay Press, Nov 1994, 296 pp. "Departing from the traditional definition of public art as sculpture in parks and plazas, new genre public art brings artists into direct engagement with audiences to deal with the compelling issues of our time. This is the first definitive collection of writings on the subject by critics, artists, and curators who are pioneers in the field. Includes essays by Judith Baca, Estella Conwill Májozo, Suzi Gablik, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Mary Jane Jacob, Allan Kaprow, Jeff Kelley, Lucy Lippard, Patricia C. Phillips, and Arlene Raven." Editor. Reviews: Green (Art J), Gold Calo (Public Art Dialogue), Kirkus. Commentary: Smith (Afterall).

• Nina Felshin (ed.), But Is It Art?: The Spirit of Art as Activism, Seattle: Bay Press, Nov 1994, 412 pp, IA.

• Culture in Action: A Public Art Program of Sculpture Chicago, Seattle: Bay Press, May 1995, 144 pp. Essays by Mary Jane Jacob, Michael Brenson, Eva M. Olson. WP.

• George McKay, Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties, London: Verso, Jun 1996. Publisher. Reviews: Aufheben, Curtis (Body & Society).

• Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, MIT Press, Dec 1996, xxiv+394 pp. Examines how aesthetic and urban ideologies were combined during the last decade to legitimize urban redevelopment programs that claimed to be beneficial to all, yet in reality tried to expunge traditional working classes from the city.

• Grant H. Kester (ed.), Art, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays from Afterimage, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Mar 1998, 328 pp, IA. Sixteen essays on activist and community-based art from the pages of Afterimage, spanning fifteen years—roughly from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential win to the 1994 Republican victories in Congress, a period marked by waning public support for the arts and growing antagonism toward activist art. Contributors: Maurice Berger, Richard Bolton, Ann Cvetkovich, Coco Fusco, Brian Goldfarb, Mable Haddock, Grant H. Kester, Ioannis Mookas, Chiquita Mullins Lee, Darrell Moore, Lorraine O’Grady, Michael Renov, Martha Rosler, Patricia Thomson, David Trend, Charles A. Wright Jr., Patricia R. Zimmerman. TOC. Introduction (draft). Publisher. [7]

• Jan Cohen-Cruz (ed.), Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology, Routledge, May 1998, 302 pp. Publisher.

• George McKay (ed.), DiY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain, London: Verso, Jul 1998, 324 pp. Contributions by Aufheben, Jim Carey, Thomas Harding, Drew Hemment, John Jordan, Tim Malyon, George Monbiot, Alex Plows, Hillegonda Rietveld and Mary Anna Wright. Publisher. Reviews. Review: Milburn (Capital & Class).

• Francis Frascina, Art, Politics and Dissent: Aspects of the Art Left in Sixties America, Manchester: Manchester University Press, Dec 1999, 256 pp, IA. Excerpt. Publisher.

2000s

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• Jacques Rancière, Le partage du sensible: esthétique et politique, Paris: La Fabrique, Jan 2000, 74 pp; repr., 2007; 2012; 2015. Publisher. (French)
  • The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. & intro. Gabriel Rockhill, afterw. Slavoj Žižek, London/New York: Continuum, Dec 2004, 116 pp. Publisher.
  • more translations

• Agenda. Perspektiven kritischer Kunst, ed. Christian Kravagna, Vienna: Wiener Secession, and Folio, Mar 2000, 202 pp. Contributions to the lecture series "Agenda" at the Vienna Secession, 1997. (German)

• Beth Anne Handler, The Art of Activism: Artists and Writers Protest, the Art Workers' Coalition, and the New York Art Strike Protest the Vietnam War, Yale University, 2001. PhD dissertation.

• Borderline: Strategien und Taktiken für Kunst und soziale Praxis, ed. AG Borderline-Kongress, Wiesbaden, 2002, 328 pp. [8] [9] [10] (German)

• Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, MIT Press, 2002, 230 pp.
  • Un luogo dopo l'altro: arte site-specific e identità localizzativa, pref. Francesca Guerisoli, Milan: Postmedia, 2020, 213 pp. Preface, Excerpt. Publisher. (Italian)

• Third Text 16(4): "Art & Politics", ed. Dave Beech, 2002. Introduction. [11]

• Politik-um / New Engagement, Prague: Nadace pro současné umění, 2002. Catalogue for annual exh. of SCCA Prague, 15 May-10 Jun 2002; curated by Ludvík Hlaváček and Keiko Sei. [12] (Czech)/(English)

• Holger Kube Ventura, Politische Kunst-Begriffe. In den 1990er Jahren im deutschsprachigen Raum, Vienna: Selene, 2002, 349 pp. Based on PhD thesis (Kassel U, 2001). Reviews: Klix (ArtHist.net), Probst (Kunstforum). (German)

• Nato Thompson, Gregory Sholette (eds.), The Interventionists: Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, North Adams, MA: Mass MoCA, 2004, 154 pp. Exh. catalogue. Commentary: Sholette 2015.

• Marina Gržinić, Situated Contemporary Art Practices: Art, Theory and Activism from (the East of) Europe, Ljubljana: ZRC, and Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, 2004, 155 pp. A collection of revised recent texts, published in international magazines and anthologies. Discusses art projects by IRWIN, Tanja Ostojic, Emil Hrvatin, Laibach, Dragan Zivadinov, Ilya Kabakov, Oliver Ressler, Aurora Reinhardt, Walid Ra’ad, a.o. TOC. Publisher. Book launch. [13]

• Grant H. Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, Aug 2004, 239 pp, IA; new ed., upd., Apr 2013, 264 pp, IA. Discusses a disparate network of artists and collectives—including The Art of Change, Helen and Newton Harrison, Littoral, Suzanne Lacy, Stephen Willats, and WochenKlausur—united by a desire to create new forms of understanding through creative dialogue that crosses boundaries of race, religion, and culture. Traces the origins of these works in the conceptual art and feminist performance art of the 1960s and 1970s and draws from the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, Jürgen Habermas, and others as he explores the ways in which these artists corroborate and challenge many of the key principles of avant-garde art and art theory. Publisher. Reviews: Dahlberg (Leonardo), Schrank (Public Hist), Pollard [14]

• Kollektive Kreativität / Collective Creativity, forew. & eds. René Block and Angelika Hollert, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, 2005, 383 pp. Exh. held at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (1 May–17 July 2005), curated by the collective What, How and for Whom/WHW. (German)/(English)

• Gerald Raunig, Kunst und Revolution. Künstlerischer Aktivismus im langen 20. Jahrhundert, Vienna: Turia+Kant, 2005, 261 pp; new ed., Vienna: transversal texts, 2017, 405 pp. Publisher. [15] [16] (German)
  • Art and Revolution. Transversal Activism in the Long Twentieth Century, trans. Aileen Derieg, New York/Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), Sep 2007, 319 pp.
  • more translations

• Ted Purves (ed.), What We Want is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art, SUNY Press, Sep 2005, 224 pp, IA; 2nd ed. as What We Want Is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art, eds. Ted Purves and Shane Aslan Selzer, SUNY Press, Jul 2014, 318 pp. Explores how contemporary artists use gifts, barter, and other forms of nonmonetary exchange as a means and medium of artistic production. Publisher.

• Blake Stimson, Gregory Sholette (eds.), Collectivism after Modernism: Art and Social Imagination after 1945, University of Minnesota Press, Feb 2007, xvii+312 pp. Explores the ways in which collectives function within cultural norms, social conventions, and corporate or state-sanctioned art. Contributors: Irina Aristarkhova, Jesse Drew, Okwui Enwezor, Rubén Gallo, Chris Gilbert, Brian Holmes, Alan Moore, Jelena Stojanovic, Reiko Tomii, Rachel Weiss. Review: Petruniak (CAA).

• Will Bradley, Charles Esche (eds.), Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader, London: Tate Publishing, and Afterall, 2007, 479 pp. Gathers an international selection of artists’ proposals, manifestos, theoretical texts and public declarations that focus on the question of political engagement and the possibility of social change. Publisher. Exh. Forms of Resistance: Artists and the desire for social change from 1871 to the present held at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 22 Sep 2007-6 Jan 2008. Exh. reviews: Foster (Artforum), Lütticken (Texte zur Kunst). Commentary: Deseriis & Holmes (Mute). [17]

• BAVO (eds.), Cultural Activism Today: The Art of Over-Identification, Rotterdam: episode, 2007, 119 pp.

• Elizabeth Chodos (ed.), Talking With Your Mouth Full: New Language for Socially Engaged Art, Chicago, IL: The Green Lantern Press, 2008, 74 pp. Essays by Lori Waxman, Claire Pentecost, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty.

• William Cleveland, Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines, forew. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Oakland, CA: New Village Press, Aug 2008, 332 pp. Publisher. WP.

• Subversive Practices: Art Under Conditions of Political Repression 60s-80s / South America / Europe, eds. Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009, 61 pp. Exh. held 30 May-2 Aug 2009. Symposium.
  • Subversive Praktiken. Kunst unter Bedingungen politischer Repression 60er–80er / Südamerika / Europa, eds. Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein, 2009, 67 pp. (German)

• Josh MacPhee (ed.), Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today, Oakland, CA: PM Press, Oct 2009, 144 pp, EPUB, IA, IA. Essays by Deborah Caplow and Eric Triantafillou. Publisher. [18]

• Gregory Sholette, Radical Social Production and the Missing Mass of the Contemporary Art World, London: Pluto Press, 2009. Examines the “social production” of art and the transition from “modernity” to contemporary culture.

• Alexander Alberro, Blake Stimson (ed.), Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, MIT Press, Sep 2009, 492 pp. An anthology of writings and projects by artists who developed and extended the genre of institutional critique.

• Julia Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era, University of California Press, 2009, x+282 pp, ARG. Shows how a polemical redefinition of artistic labor played a central role in minimalism, process art, feminist criticism, and conceptualism. traces the divergent ways in which the artists Carl Andre, Robert Morris and Hans Haacke and art critic Lucy Lippard rallied around the “art worker” identity, including participating in the Art Workers' Coalition and the New York Art Strike. Excerpt. Publisher. Reviews: Haidu (CAA), Rahtz (Art Hist), Lucaites (J Am Hist).

2010s

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• Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, ed. & trans. Steven Corcoran, London/New York: Continuum, Jan 2010, vi+230 pp. Selected texts. Publisher.
  • Disenso: ensayos sobre estética y política, Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2019, 275 pp. (Spanish)

• Političke prakse (post) jugoslovenske umetnosti: retrospektiva 01, eds. Jelena Vesić and Zorana Dojić, Belgrade: Prelom kolektiv, 2010, 287 pp. Exh. cat. [19] (Serbo-Croatian)
  • Political Practices of (Post-) Yugoslav Art: Retrospective 01, Belgrade: Prelom kolektiv, 2010, 279 pp.

• Lee Bern­stein, Amer­i­ca Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, Jun 2010, 240 pp. Publisher.

• Suzanne Lacy, Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007, intro. Moira Roth, afterw. Kerstin Mey, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Aug 2010, 424 pp. Publisher, [20], [21].

• 1968/1989: Political Upheaval and Artistic Change / Momenty zwrotne w polityce i sztuce, eds. Claire Bishop and Marta Dziewańska, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art, 2010, 504 pp. Based on seminar held at MoMA Warsaw in 2008. Texts: Claire Bishop, Tania Brugera, Branislav Jakoljević, Ana Janevski, Vit Havránek, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Luiza Nader, Gabriela Świtek, Piotr Piotrowski, Attila Tordai-S., Borut Vogelnik, Charles Esche, Kathrin Rhomberg, Joanna Mytkowska, Grzegorz Kowalski and Artur Źmikewski, Milan Knížák, Ján Budaj. Publisher. (English)/(Polish)

• Reality Check: Art & Activism Reader, eds. Madeleine Park, Vladan Jeremic and Rena Rädle, Trondheim: Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art (TSSK), 2010, 142 pp. Exh. cat. Excerpt. (English)

• Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, London: Pluto Press, Nov 2010.
  • Karanlık madde: girişimcilik kültürü çağında sanat ve politika, trans. Murat Şaşzade, Istanbul: Doruk, 2013, 349 pp. (Turkish)
  • Materia oscura. Arte activista y la esfera pública de oposición, trans. Sonia Muñoz, Cali: Archivos del Índice, 2015, 63 pp. Partial trans. [22] (Spanish)
  • "Tamna tvar, aktivistička umjetnost i protu-javna sfera", in Sholette, Merciless Aesthetic / Nemilosrdna estetika, Zagreb: What, How & for Whom / WHW, 2016. Partial trans. (Croatian)

• Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, New York/London: Routledge, Feb 2011, 310 pp. On the forms, goals and histories of innovative social practice in both contemporary performance and visual art, focusing on ‘interdependent performance’. Publisher. Reviews: Klein (CAA), Kruger (Theatre J), Chansky (TDR), Phillips (Public), Bottoms (Theatre Research Int'l), Wasserman (Public Art Dialogue), Cayer (Hemispheric).

• Susan Noyes Platt, Art and Politics Now: Cultural Activism in a Time of Crisis, New York, NY: Midmarch Arts Press, Mar 2011, xxiii+311 pp. Author, TOC. Review: Kane (AMCA).

• Alan W. Moore, Art Gangs: Protest and Counterculture in New York City, Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, May 2011, vii+185 pp. Blog. Street-level history of artists’ groups and collective activity by artists in New York from 1969 to 1985. Publisher. Review: Battista (Art M).

• Grant H. Kester, The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context, Duke University Press, Sep 2011, 320 pp, IA. Provides an overview of the broader continuum of collaborative and collective art, ranging from the work of artists and groups widely celebrated in the mainstream art world, such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Superflex, Francis Alÿs, and Santiago Sierra, to the less-publicized projects of groups, such as Park Fiction in Hamburg, Networking and Initiatives for Culture and the Arts in Myanmar, Ala Plastica in Argentina, Huit Facettes in Senegal, and Dialogue in central India. Publisher.

• Pablo Helguera, Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook, New York: Jorge Pinto Books, Oct 2011, 90 pp. Author.

• Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, En anden verden. Små kritiske epistler om de seneste årtiers antikapitalistiske satsninger i kunst og politik og forsøgene på at udradere dem, Copenhagen: Nebula, Nov 2011, 264 pp. [23] (Danish)

• Nato Thompson (ed.), Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011, New York: Creative Time, and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Feb 2012, 259 pp. Project website. Archive of Socially Engaged Practices from 1991-2011. Exhibition. Publisher.

• Marc James Léger, Brave New Avant Garde: Essays on Contemporary Art and Politics, Winchester: Zero Books, Feb 2012, x+197 pp.

• Camera Austria International 117: "What Can Art Do for Real Politics?", eds. Artur Żmijewski and Joanna Warsza, Graz: Camera Austria, Mar 2012. Publisher, TOC. [24] (English)/(German)

• Forget Fear. 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Reader, eds. Joanna Warsza and Artur Zmijewski, Cologne: Walther Koenig, 2012, 416 pp. Exh. held in Berlin, 27 Apr-1 Jul 2012. Publisher. [25] [26]

• Bojana Kunst, Umetnik na delu. Bližina umetnosti in kapitalizma, Ljubljana: Maska, 2012. Publisher. (Slovenian)
  • Artist at Work, Proximity of Art and Capitalism, Winchester: Zero Books, 2015, vi+230 pp, EPUB. The main affirmation of artistic practice must today happen through thinking about the conditions and the status of the artist's work. Only then can it be revealed that what is a part of the speculations of capital is not art itself, but mostly artistic life. Artist at Work examines the recent changes in the labour of an artist and addresses them from the perspective of performance. Author. Publisher, [27].
  • Artysta w pracy. O pokrewieństwach sztuki i kapitalizmu, (Instytut Teatralny im. Zbigniewa Raszewskiego, 2017. Review: Smolarska (Teatr). (Polish)
  • Kunstner i arbejde: om nærheden mellem kunst og kapitalisme, trans. Peter Borum, Copenhagen: Ny Calsbergfondet, 2022, 278 pp. (Danish)
  • L'artista al lavoro. Prossimità tra arte e capitalismo, trans. Laura Scarmoncin, intro. Ilenia Caleo, Rome: Luca Sossella, May 2024, 240 pp. Publisher. (Italian)

• Mikkel Bolt, Bevidsthedsudvidelse og verdensomlægning. Kunsten som revolutionens selvkritik, Copenhagen: Nebula, 2012, 204 pp. Philosophers, art theorists, activists and artists analyse and discuss the relationship between artistic practice and political commitment. The starting point is Mikkel Bolt's En anden verden, which charts the intense struggles of the past 30 years between neoliberal counter-revolution on the one hand and anti-capitalist artistic and activist protests on the other. [28] (Danish)

• Andrew Boyd (ed.), Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, New York: OR Books, Jun 2012, 474 pp.

• Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London: Verso, Jul 2012, 390 pp. A historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as “social practice.” Discusses Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; the Artists Placement Group; as well as long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Paweł Althamer and Paul Chan.
  • trans.

• Gregory Sholette, Oliver Ressler (eds.), It's the Political Economy, Stupid: The Global Financial Crisis in Art and Theory, London: Pluto Press, Feb 2013, 192 pp. Exh. catalogue. [29]. Exhibition. Reviews: Patrick (Art Monthly), Powhida (Hyperallergic).

• Rachel Schreiber (ed.), Modern Print Activism in the United States, Routledge, Apr 2013, 270 pp. Introduction. Publisher, [30].

• Marc James Léger, The Neoliberal Undead: Essays on Contemporary Art and Politics, Zero Books, May 2013. Review: Mullan (Marx & Phil).

• Conor Hannan, Out of the Studio and Into the Street": Art and Artists for Social Change, New York City, 1966-76, University of Sydney, 2013. PhD thesis.

• The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 44-45: Aesthetics and Politics, eds. Jacob Lund and Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen , Stockholm: Thales, Jun 2013.

• Tatiana Bazzichelli, Geoff Cox (eds.), Disrupting Business: Art & Activism in Times of Financial Crisis, New York: Autonomedia, Oct 2013, 232 pp. Contributors: Saul Albert, Christian Ulrik Andersen, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Heath Bunting, Paolo Cirio, Baruch Gottlieb, Brian Holmes, Geert Lovink, Dmytri Kleiner, Georgios Papadopolous, Søren Bro Pold, Oliver Ressler, Kate Rich, René Ridgway, Guido Segni, Stevphen Shukaitis, Nathaniel Tkacz, and Marina Vishmidt.

• Filip Pospíšil (ed.), Umění protestu, Prague: Rubato, Dec 2013, 184 pp. Publisher. (Czech)

• Klara Kemp-Welch, Antipolitics in Central European Art: Reticence as Dissidence under Post-Totalitarian Rule, 1956-1989, London: I.B. Tauris, Feb 2014, xx+336 pp. Presents new readings of the work of Tadeusz Kantor, Július Koller, Tamas Szentjóby, Endre Tót, Jiří Kovanda and Jerzy Bereś. Publisher. Reviews: Gurshtein (ARTMargins), Bryzgel (CritCom), Cseh-Varga (Oxford Art J), Alisauskas (Critique d'art), Aulich (LSE blogs). (English)

• Truth Is Concrete: A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics, eds. Anne Faucheret, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Kira Kirsch, Andreas R. Peternell, and Johanna Rainer, Berlin: Sternberg Press, and Graz: steirischer herbst, Apr 2014, 335 pp. Compendium of artistic practices in the broad field of engaged art and artistic activism. Project website.

• Marc James Léger (ed.), The Idea of the Avant Garde: And What It Means Today, Manchester University Press, Manchester, with Oakland, CA: Left Curve, Sep 2014, 285 pp.

• Anthony Downey, Art and Politics Now, London: Thames & Hudson, Oct 2014, 240 pp. A survey of more than 200 contemporary artists whose works address the political. Introduction. Publisher. Author. Reviews: Roberts (Oxford Art J), Sumpter (ArtReview).

• Catherine Flood, Gavin Grindon (eds.), Disobedient Objects, London: V&A Publishing, 2014, 144 pp. Explores the material culture of radical change and protest – from objects familiar to many, such as banners or posters, to the more militant, cunning or technologically cutting-edge, including lock-ons, book-blocs and activist robots. Focusing on social movements since 1980. Essays by Mark Traugott, Anna Feigenbaum, Francesco Raparelli, David Graeber, Nicholas Thoburn, and Ana Longoni.

• Manif d'art 7: Résistance: et puis, nous avons construit de nouvelles formes / Resistance: And then, We Built New Forms, ed. Marc James Léger, Québec: Manif d’art, 2014, 239 pp. Exh. catalogue. Publisher. Reviews: Paré (espace), Leblanc (Ciel variable). (French)/(English)

• El arte no es la política/la política no es el arte. Despertar de la Historia, Madrid: Brumaria, 2014. Publisher. (Spanish)

• Tomasz Zaluski (ed.), Skuteczność sztuki, Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 2014, 579 pp. Publisher. Review: Pyzik (Szum). [31] (Polish)

• Lena Jonson, Art and Protest in Putin’s Russia, London: Routledge, Feb 2015, 399 pp. Publisher. Review: Gerner (Baltic Worlds).

• Art Workers: Material Conditions and Labour Struggles in Contemporary Art Practice, eds. Minna Henriksson, Erik Krikortz, and Airi Triisberg, Stockholm: Konst-ig, Mar 2015, 232 pp. Presents case studies from the local art contexts of Estonia, Finland and Sweden, collects artist-testimonies, discusses activist practices and maps out contemporary and historical forms of organising within the international art field. Contributions by Corina L. Apostol, Michael Baers, Fokus Grupa, Minna Heikinaho, Vladan Jeremić, Elina Juopperi, Jussi Kivi, Barbora Kleinhamplová, Jussi Koitela, Raakel Kuukka, Marge Monko, Zoran Popović, Precarious Workers Brigade, Taaniel Raudsepp & Sigrid Viir, Krisdy Shindler, Tereza Stejskalová, Lotta Tenhunen.

• Anthony Gardner, Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art against Democracy, MIT Press, Mar 2015, 337 pp. Examines work from the 1980s to the 2000s by artists who have challenged democracy as the defining political, critical, and aesthetic frame for their work. Based on PhD thesis from U New South Wales (2008). Publisher. Reviews: Roberts (Oxford Art J), Hughes (Australian & NZ J Art), Beech (J Contemp CEE), Platt (Common Knowledge), Millar (Art Monthly).

• Renée In der Maur, Jonas Staal (eds.), Stateless Democracy, Utrecht: BAK (New World Academy Reader, 5), May 2015, 256 pp.

• Nato Thompson, Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century, Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, Aug 2015, ix+165 pp, ARG, IA. Publisher. Reviews: Léger (Afterimage), Gavin (Brooklyn Rail), Aldouri (Field), Bruggeman (Community Change).
  • İktidarı görmek: 21. yüzyılda sanat ve aktivizm, trans. Erden Kosova, Istanbul: Koç Üniversitesi, 2018, 161 pp. (Turkish)
  • Guan kan quan li de fang shi: gai bian she hui de 21 shi ji yi shu xing dong zhi nan [觀看權力的方式: 改變社會的21世紀藝術行動指南], trans. Jiaxin Zhou (周佳欣), Taipei: Xing ren wen hua shi yan shi, 2021, 231 pp. (Chinese)

• John Roberts, Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde, London: Verso, Aug 2015, xii+322 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Brynjolson (Field), Radoshevich (Red Wedge), Charnley (Platypus), Wildanger (LARB).

• Zivot umjetnosti 97: "Umjetnost i društveni pokreti - kak’ stvar s tim stoji?" / "Art and Social Movements: Where Are We at with That?", eds. BLOK (Ana Kutleša, Ivana Hanaček, Vesna Vuković), Zagreb: Institute of Art History, 2015, 125 pp. [32] (Croatian)/(English)

• Nicole Brenez, Isabelle Marinone (eds.), Cinémas libertaires: Au service des forces de transgression et de révolte, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, Oct 2015, 412 pp, ARG. Publisher. (French)

• Alan Moore, Alan Smart (eds.), Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, and Other Forms, Oct 2015, 355 pp. An anthology of voices from the post-1968 squatting movement in Europe and beyond. It focuses on creative production and cultural innovation driven by squats.

• Jaime Harker, Cecilia Konchar Farr (eds.), This Book Is an Action: Feminist Print Culture and Activist Aesthetics, University of Illinois Press, Nov 2015, 280 pp. Publisher, [33], [34]. Reviews: Harrington-Lueker (J-History), Hogeland (ALH), Passet (Sharp).

• Yates McKee, Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, London: Verso, Feb 2016, 296 pp. Publisher.

• T.J. Demos, Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology, Berlin: Sternberg Press, Jul 2016, 296 pp. TOC & Introduction. Publisher. Reviews: Mulvogue (J Visual Culture), Elwes (MIRAJ), McElroy (Bomb), Boettger (Art Bulletin), Mavrokordopoulou (Identity & Diff).

• Veronica Tello, Counter-Memorial Aesthetics: Refugee Histories and the Politics of Contemporary Art, Bloomsbury, Oct 2016, 272 pp. Publisher.

• Johanna Burton, Shannon Jackson, Dominic Willsdon (eds.), Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good, forew. Lisa Phillips, MIT Press, Nov 2016, 544 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Brody (Public Art Dialogue), Millar (Art Monthly).

• Katja Praznik, Paradoks neplačanega umetniškega dela: avtonomija umetnosti, avantgarda in kulturna politika na prehodu v postsocializem [The Paradox of Unpaid Artistic Labor: Autonomy of Art, the Avant-Garde and Cultural Policy in the Transition to Post-Socialism], Ljubljana: Sophia, 2016, 321 pp. Publisher. Review: Šepetavc (Družboslovne razprave). [35] (Slovenian)

• Joanna Warsza (ed.), I Can't Work Like This: A Reader on Recent Boycotts and Contemporary Art, Berlin: Sternberg Press, and Salzburg: Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Jan 2017, 384 pp. TOC. Publisher. Review: Dorian Batycka (blok), Elinor Morgan (Art Monthly). [36]

• Adair Rounthwaite, Asking the Audience: Participatory Art in 1980s New York, University of Minnesota Press, Feb 2017, 280 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Gosse (Panorama), Hankins (ASAP), Harries (Postmod Cult).

• Marilyn DeLaure, Moritz Fink (eds.), Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance, forew. Mark Dery, New York: NYU Press, Feb 2017, 464 pp, EPUB. Publisher. A collaboration of political activism and participatory culture seeking to upend consumer capitalism, including interviews with The Yes Men, The Guerrilla Girls, among others.

• Sven Lütticken, Cultural Revolution: Aesthetic Practice after Autonomy, Berlin: Sternberg Press, Mar 2017, 184 pp. Publisher. Book launch. Review: Elsaesser (Artforum). [37]

• Gregory Sholette, Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism, ed. Kim Charnley, forew. Lucy R. Lippard, London: Pluto Press, Apr 2017, xix+290 pp. Publisher, [38], [39]. Review: Brynjolson (Field).

• Lucia Farinati, Claudia Firth, The Force of Listening, Berlin: Errant Bodies, Apr 2017, 200 pp. Explores the role of listening in the contemporary intersection of art and activism and asks what potential for transformation it might facilitate. Publisher.

• FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism 7-8: "Japan's Social Turn, Vol. 1", "Vol. 2", ed. Justin Jesty, Spring 2017, Fall 2017.

• Elisabeth Lebovici, Ce que le sida m'a fait – Art et activisme à la fin du XXe siècle, Dijon: Les presses du réel, and Paris: Fondation Antoine de Galbert, May 2017, 360 pp; 2nd ed., new postf. & chronology, 2021. Discusses a variety of artists, protest organizations, artworks, and direct actions: ACT UP, “phone trees”, Richard Baquié, Gregg Bordowitz, Alain Buffard, Douglas Crimp, “political burials”, General Idea, Nan Goldin, Félix González-Torres, Gran Fury, L'Hiver de l'amour, Roni Horn, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Zoe Leonard, Mark Morrisroe, William Ollander, “The Patchwork of Names”, The Real Estate Show, Lionel Soukaz, Philippe Thomas, Georges Tony Stoll, Paul Vecchiali, David Wojnarowicz, Dana Wyse, zaps, a.o. (French)

• Izabel Galliera, Socially Engaged Art After Socialism: Art and Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, I.B. Tauris, May 2017. Reclaiming public life from the ideologies of both communist regimes and neoliberalism, their projects have harnessed the politically subversive potential of social relations based on trust, reciprocity and solidarity. Drawing on archival material and exclusive interviews, this book traces the development of socially engaged art from the early 1990s to the present in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

• Kareem Estefan, Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich (eds.), Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production, New York: OR Books, Jun 2017, 276 pp. Explores boycott and divestment as essential tools for activists around the globe. Essays by Nasser Abourahme, Ariella Azoulay, Tania Bruguera, Noura Erakat, Kareem Estefan, Mariam Ghani with Haig Aivazian, Nathan Gray and Ahmet Öğüt, Chelsea Haines, Sean Jacobs, Yazan Khalili, Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich, Svetlana Mintcheva, Naeem Mohaiemen, Hlonipha Mokoena, John Peffer, Joshua Simon, Ann Laura Stoler, Radhika Subramaniam, Eyal Weizman and Kareem Estefan, and Frank B. Wilderson III. Book launch. Publisher.

• Julia Bryan-Wilson, Fray: Art and Textile Politics, University of Chicago Press, Oct 2017, 326 pp. Explores textiles and their role at the forefront of debates about process, materiality, gender, and race in times of economic upheaval.

• Bill Kelley Jr., Grant H. Kester (eds.), Collective Situations: Readings in Contemporary Latin American Art, 1995-2010, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Nov 2017, 456 pp. Scholars, artists, and art collectives present a range of socially engaged art practices that emerged in Latin America during the Pink Tide period, between 1995 and 2010. Contributors: Gavin Adams, Mariola Alvarez, Gustavo Buntinx, Fabian Cerejido, Kency Cornejo, Daniel Correia Ferreira Lima, Raquel de Anda, Ricardo Dominguez, María Fernanda Cartegena, Jose Figueroa, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, David Gutierrez Castaneda, Suzanne Lacy, Interdisciplinario La Linea, Ana Longoni, Rodrigo Marti, Elize Mazadiego, Alberto Muenala, Prerana Reddy, Marina Reyes Franco, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Federico Zukerfeld, Pilar Riaño-Alcalá. Publisher. Reviews: Montgomery (CAA), Zilberg (Leonardo).

• Christian Viveros-Fauné, Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, New York: David Zwirner, 2018, 50 pp. Publisher.

• Jacopo Galimberti, Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1957-1969), Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, Jan 2018, 352 pp. Interview. Review: Garrido Castellano (Field). [40]

• Maura Reilly, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, forew. Lucy Lippard, London: Thames & Hudson, Mar 2018, 240 pp. A handbook of new curatorial strategies based on pioneering examples of curators working to offset racial and gender disparities in the art world. Publisher. Roundtable (OnCurating). Reviews: Mahony (Curator), Coombs (Brooklyn Rail), Largo (RACAR), Boulet (esse), Kaikini (Ethical Persp). [41] [42]

• Gregory Sholette, Chloë Bass, Social Practice Queens, Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, New York: Allworth Press, May 2018, 336 pp, ARG. Editor. Publisher. Review: Spillane (Studies Art Edu).

• "Maintaining the Social in Postsocialism: Activist Practices and Forms of Collectivity", ch. 5 in Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Anthology, eds. Ana Janevski, Roxana Marcoci, and Ksenia Nouril, New York: Museum of Modern Art (Primary Documents), Aug 2018, pp 226-268. Contributors: Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (introduction), David Platzker, Dimtry Vilensky with Ksenia Nouril, Viktor Misiano, Ilya Budraitskis, Alina Șerban, Aldo Milohnić, Oleksiy Radynski, Bojana Cvejić.

• Macarena Gomez-Barris, Beyond the Pink Tide: Art and Political Undercurrents in the Americas, University of California Press, Aug 2018, 160 pp, EPUB. Publisher.

• Justin Jesty, Art and Engagement in Early Postwar Japan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, Sep 2018, 336 pp. Centers on a group of social realists on the radical left who hoped to wed their art with anti-capitalist and anti-war activism, a liberal art education movement whose focus on the child inspired innovation in documentary film, and a regional avant-garde group split between ambition and local loyalty. Publisher.

• The Handbook of Courage: Cultural Opposition and its Heritage in Eastern Europe, eds. Balázs Apor, Péter Apor, and Sándor Horváth, Budapest: Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Dec 2018, 634 pp. Project website. Publisher.

• kollektiv orangotango+ (ed.), This Is Not an Atlas: A Global Collection of Counter-Cartographies, Bielefeld: transcript (Cultural Geography), Sep 2018, 346 pp. Gathers more than 40 counter-cartographies from all over the world. Shows how maps are created and transformed as a part of political struggle, for critical research or in art and education: from indigenous territories in the Amazon to the anti-eviction movement in San Francisco; from defending commons in Mexico to mapping refugee camps with balloons in Lebanon; from slums in Nairobi to squats in Berlin; from supporting communities in the Philippines to reporting sexual harassment in Cairo. Project website.

• Past Disquiet: Artists, International Solidarity, and Museums-in-Exile, eds. Kristine Khouri and Rashā Salṭī, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2019, 371 pp. Exh. cat. Publisher. TOC. Exh. held at MACBA, Barcelona, 20 Feb-1 Jun 2015; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 18 Mar-9 May 2016; Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago de Chile, 6 Apr-12 Aug 2018; Sursock Museum, Beirut, 27 Jul-1 Oct 2018, [43]; Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, 3 Aug 2023-24 Mar 2024; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 16 Feb-30 Jun 2024; Framer Framed, Amsterdam, 27 Feb-25 May 2025, PDF. About: [44], [45], [46], [47], [48].

• Marc James Léger, Vanguardia: Socially Engaged Art and Theory, Manchester University Press, Jan 2019, viii+246 pp. Introduction. Publisher.

• Danielle Child, Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism, Bloomsbury, Jan 2019, 240 pp. Publisher.

• Meiqin Wang, Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary China: Voices from Below, New York: Routledge, Mar 2019, xiii+238 pp. Publisher, [49]. Reviews: Corlin (Field), Ren (China Inf).

• FIELD: A Journal of Socially-Engaged Art Criticism 12/13: "Art, Anti-Globalism, and the Neo-Authoritarian Turn", ed. Gregory Sholette, Spring 2019. Thirty essays on new forms of cultural and artistic activism that have emerged in response to the global rise of right wing populist and authoritarian forms of government.

• Carlos Garrido Castellano, Beyond Representation in Contemporary Caribbean Art: Space, Politics, and the Public Sphere, Rudgers University Press (Critical Caribbean Studies), May 2019, 230 pp. Publisher.

• Kirsty Robertson, Tear Gas Epiphanies: Protest, Culture, Museums, McGill-Queen's University Press, Jun 2019, 432 pp. On political action at museums in Canada from 1900 to the present. Publisher, [50].

• Oliver Marchart, Conflictual Aesthetics: Artistic Activism and the Public Sphere, Berlin: Sternberg, Jul 2019, 192 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Kroth (Third Text), Bolt (Modern Times).

• Eric J. Schruers, Kristina Olson (eds.), Social Practice Art in Turbulent Times: The Revolution Will Be Live, Routledge, Jul 2019, 256 pp, Publisher, [51].

• Karen van den Berg, Cara M. Jordan, Philipp Kleinmichel (eds.), The Art of Direct Action: Social Sculpture and Beyond, Berlin: Sternberg Press, Jul 2019, 308 pp. Publisher. Review: Checa-Gismero (Field).

• Leigh Claire La Berge, Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Aug 2019, xiii+261 pp. On how socially engaged art responds to and critiques decommodified labor—the slow diminishment of wages alongside an increase in the demands of work. Publisher. Reviews: Brynjolson (Field), Painter-Kim (Women's Stud), Taylor (E3W).

• Jonas Staal, Propaganda Art in the 21st Century, MIT Press, Sep 2019, 230 pp. Based on PhD thesis (Leiden University, 2018).

• "1970: Art and Protest", MoMA through Time, 2019. [52]

• Ana Vujanović, Livia Andrea Piazza (eds.), A Live Gathering: Performance and Politics in Contemporary Europe, Berlin: b_books, 2019, 256 pp. TOC, Introduction. Publisher. Editor.

• Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965–1975, ed. Melissa Ho, Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2019. Exh. catalogue. Introduction. Preview. Exhibition. Exh. wall texts.

• Active Art, eds. Maija Rudovska, Barbara Sirieix and Joachim Hamou, Paris: Paraguay Press, 2019, 148 pp. In this book, the 1923 manifesto Active Art by Latvian philosopher Andrejs Kurcijs triggers a series of responses by writers, artists and curators on the notion of activism in art, past and present: art for political purposes, art for its own purpose or art with no purpose. Publisher. Editor.

• Corina L. Apostol, Nato Thompson (eds.), Making Another World Possible: 10 Creative Time Summits, 10 Global Issues, 100 Art Projects, Routledge, Oct 2019, 434 pp. Publisher, [53].

• Valeria Federici, Network Culture in Italy in the 1990s and the Making of a Place for Art and Activism, Providence, RI: Brown University, 2019, ix+219 pp. PhD thesis. "Explores how the practice of sociality and relationality as typical of Italian community spaces called “social centers” (centri sociali) permeated Italian new media art between the late 1980s and the early 1990s."

• Index 8: "Arte y activismos en América Latina", Dec 2019. (Spanish)

2020s

• Katy Deepwell (ed.), Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms, Amsterdam: Valiz, Spring 2020, 448 pp. Publisher.

• Florian Malzacher, Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute, Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2020, 164 pp. Author. Publisher. (German)
  • The Art of Assembly. Political Theatre Today, trans. Cory Tamler, Berlin: Alexander Verlag, and New York: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 2023, 156 pp. Author. Publisher.

• Lily Woodruff, Disordering the Establishment: Participatory Art and Institutional Critique in France, 1958-1981, Durham, NC: Duke University Press (Art History Publication Initiative), May 2020, 336 pp. OAPEN. Publisher, [54]. Review: Siegelbaum (CAA). [55]

• Mai Corlin, The Bishan Commune and the Practice of Socially Engaged Art in Rural China, London: Palgrave Macmillan, Aug 2020, xvii+225 pp. Publisher.

• T. J. Demos, Beyond the World's End: Arts of Living at the Crossing, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Sep 2020, 272 pp. Publisher. [56], [57].

• Eliza Steinbock, Bram Ieven, Marijke de Valck (eds.), Art and Activism in the Age of Systemic Crisis: Aesthetic Resilience, Routledge, Oct 2020, 212 pp, ARG. Publisher. Review: Frascina (Art Monthly).

• Let the River Flow. An Indigenous Uprising and its Legacy in Art, Ecology and Politics, eds. Katya García-Antón, Harald Gaski, and Gunvor Guttorm, Oslo: Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), and Amsterdam: Valiz, Nov 2020, 296 pp. Contributors: Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste, Matti Aikio, Ivar Bjørklund, Mari Boine, Daniela Catrileo, Carolina Caycedo, Raven Chacon, Eva Maria Fjellheim, Katya García-Antón, Harald Gaski, Gunvor Guttorm, Aslak Holmberg, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Sofia Jannok, Rauna Kuokkanen, Wanda Nanibush, Beaska Niillas, Synnøve Persen, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Niillas A. Somby, Paulus Utsi, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Magne Ove Varsi. Publisher. Publisher.

• Carin Kuoni, Jordi Baltà Portolés, Nora N. Khan, Serubiri Moses (eds.), Forces of Art: Perspective from a Changing World, Amsterdam: Valiz, Nov 2020, 456 pp. Publisher. Review: Gruber (Artalk).

• Jane Tormey, Gillian Whiteley (eds.), Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer, Bloomsbury, Dec 2020, 384 pp. A collection of text-based and visual essays, commissioned artworks and graphics responding to the concept, aesthetics and function of the political pamphlet. Publisher.

• Cornelia Sollfrank, Felix Stalder, Shusha Niederberger (eds.), Aesthetics of the Commons, Zurich: diaphanes, Jan 2021, 275 pp.

• Kim Charnley, Sociopolitical Aesthetics: Art, Crisis and Neoliberalism, Bloomsbury, Feb 2021, 272 pp. Publisher. Review: Tomkova (Field).

• Elize Mazadiego, Dematerialization and the Social Materiality of Art: Experimental Forms in Argentina, 1955-1968, Leiden: Brill, Mar 2021, 173 pp. Based on PhD thesis (UC San Diego, 2015). Publisher.

• Jennifer Ponce de León, Another Aesthetics Is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War, Durham, NC: Duke University Press (Dissident Acts), Apr 2021, 328 pp. Publisher.

• Tru Leverette (ed.), With Fists Raised: Radical Art, Contemporary Activism, and the Iconoclasm of the Black Arts Movement, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, May 2021, 328 pp. Publisher.

• Laura Raicovich, Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest, London: Verso, Jun 2021, 224 pp. Publisher. Review: Stahl (Field).

• Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism, University of Toronto Press, Jun 2021, 217 pp. Focusing on the experiences of art workers and the history of labour regulation in the arts in socialist Yugoslavia, Praznik helps elucidate the contradiction at the heart of artistic production and the origins of the mystification of art as labour. Publisher. Reviews: Kulić (Critique d'art), Webster (Cult Soc). [58] (English)
  • Delo umetnosti. Nevidno delo in zapuščina jugoslovanskega socializma, Ljubljana: Maska, 2023. Publisher. (Slovenian)

• Carlos Garrido Castellano, Art Activism for an Anticolonial Future, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, Oct 2021, 348 pp, OAPEN. Publisher. Review: Brynjolson (Field).

• Rebecca Carson, Benjamin Halligan, Alexei Penzin, Stefano Pippa (eds.), Politics of the Many: Contemporary Radical Thought and the Crisis of Agency, Bloomsbury, Oct 2021, 248 pp, EPUB. Publisher.

• Florian Malzacher, Jonas Staal (eds.), Training for the Future: Handbook, Berlin: Sternberg Press, Nov 2021, 320 pp. Project. Publisher. [59] [60]

• Isabelle Fremeaux, Jay Jordan, We Are 'Nature' Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones, London: Pluto Press, and Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, Nov 2021.

• Jeanne van Heeswijk, Maria Hlavajova, Rachael Rakes (eds.), Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice, MIT Press, and Utrecht: BAK, Nov 2021, 224 pp. Publisher.

• Rena Rädle, Adela Demetja (eds.), Art Within Political Struggles. Solidary Artistic Practice at the Periphery: Tirana, Skopje / Arti përbrenda betejave politike. Praktika artistike solidare në periferi: Tirana, Shkupi, Tirana: Tirana Art Lab - Center for Contemporary Art, Dec 2021, 210 pp. Reflections by Adela Demetja, Ivana Vaseva, Rena Rädle and Valentina Bonizzi on their socially engaged artistic and curatorial practice in Albania and North Macedonia. Publisher. Editor, [61]. (English)/(Albanian)

• Jasmina Tumbas, "I am Jugoslovenka!": Feminist Performance Politics During and After Yugoslav Socialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, Feb 2022, 344 pp. Publisher. Podcast (Cibic, Ostojić, Tumbas, Videkanić). Reviews: Bryzgel (Art J Open), Szymanek (CAA), Blackwood (Art Monthly), Dolečki (rezens.tfm), Jakiša (Comp Southeast Eur Stud), Walter.

• Lisa Gaupp, Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Volker Kirchberg (eds.), Arts and Power: Policies in and by the Arts, Wiesbaden: Springer, Sep 2022, x+358 pp. Publisher.

• Meiqin Wang (ed.), Socially Engaged Public Art in East Asia: Space, Place, and Community in Action, Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, Jun 2022. Excerpt. Publisher. Review: Liu (IIAS).

• Katya García-Antón (ed.), Art and Solidarity Reader: Radical Actions, Politics and Friendships, Oslo: Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), and Amsterdam: Valiz, Aug 2022, 384 pp. Contributions by Reem Abbas, Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, Noor Abuarafeh, Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil, Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, Salvador Allende, Beth Brant, Wendy Carrig, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Emory Douglas, Ntone Edjabe, Ingrid Fadnes, Eva Maria Fjellheim, Katya García-Antón, Soledad García Saavedra, Gavin Jantjes, Shoili Kanungo, Geeta Kapur, Lara Khaldi, Ixchel León, Audre Lorde, Chelsea Manning, Olivier Marboeuf, Barbara Masekela, Naeem Mohaiemen, Mário Pedrosa, Ram Rahman, Laura Raicovich, farid rakun/ruangrupa, Aban Raza, Devika Singh, Irene Soria Guzmán, Kwanele Sosibo, Eszter Szakács, Dulce Celina Ureña Hernández, Alice Walker. Publisher. Publisher. Review: Bhullar (Third Text). Launch event. [62]

• Stephanie Hartle, Darcy White (eds.), Visual Activism in the 21st Century: Art, Protest and Resistance in an Uncertain World, London: Bloomsbury, Aug 2022, 336 pp. Publisher, [63]. Book launch.

• Umetnost na delu. Na razpotju med utopijo in (ne)odvisnostjo / Art at Work: At the Crossroads between Utopianism and (In)Dependence, ed. Tamara Soban, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, Sep 2022, 176 pp. Looks at three different segments of the genealogy of the concept of (artistic) work in the region: first, the way work was conceived by the avant-garde artists of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s; next, the transformations of the concept of artistic work and art spaces in the 1990s; and lastly, the labour-related political art practices since 2000. Exh. with works by more than 50 artists, art collectives and associations. Texts by Zdenka Badovinac, Sezgin Boynik, Vida Knežević, Bojana Piškur, Tjaša Pureber, Igor Španjol, Jelena Vesić. Publisher. Exhibition held at MG+MSUM Metelkova, Ljubljana, 22 Sep 2022-29 Jan 2023. Curators: Zdenka Badovinac, Ana Mizerit, Bojana Piškur, Igor Španjol. Exh. review: Miklič (Koridor), pt. 2, pt. 3. Symposium. (Slovenian)/(English)

• Gregory Sholette, The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art, Lund Humphries, Sep 2022, 176 pp. Publisher.

• Jacopo Galimberti, Images of Class: Operaismo, Autonomia and the Visual Arts (1962-1988), London: Verso, Sep 2022, 416 pp. On the unique encounter between artists/architects/designers and prominent Marxist current Workerism (aka Operaismo). Book presentation. Publisher. Reviews: Bolt (Field), Boidy (Critique d'art).

• mezosfera 11: "Art ‘After’ Activism", ed. Ágnes Szanyi, Budapest: tranzit.hu, Sep 2022.

• Sven Lütticken (ed.), Art and Autonomy: A Critical Reader, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, and London: Afterall Books, Sep 2022, 424 pp. TOC. Publisher. Review: Boidy (Critique d'art).

• Studies in Book Culture 13(2): "Exploring Transnational Dimensions of Activism in Contemporary Book Culture", eds. Rachel Noorda, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, and Elizabeth le Roux, Autumn 2022. (English),(French)

• Preparing to Exit: Art, Interventionism and the 1990s, ed. L'Internationale Online, forew. Nick Aikens and David Crowley, L'Internationale Online, Dec 2022, 203 pp, HTML. Six case studies of activities on the border between artistic practice and activism, sometimes operating as para-institutional organisations, presenting different motivations, forms and strategies for the possibility of ‘preparing to exit’ colonialist-capitalist state structures. Contributors: Nick Aikens, David Crowley, Clémentine Deliss, Fernanda Laguna, Asja Mandić, Leónidas Martín, Alessandra Pomarico, Seda Yıldız. Publisher. Announcement.

• Martin Beck, Beatrice von Bismarck, Sabeth Buchmann, Ilse Lafer (eds.), Broken Relations: Infrastructure, Aesthetics, and Critique, Leipzig: Spector Books, Dec 2022, 240 pp. The book identifies a collectively experienced crisis — one that has produced a new, widespread sensorium for often invisible and overlooked infrastructures and highlighted their importance for all aspects of life, including politics, both local and global, and art and curatorial practices and their systemic analysis. The reader views infrastructures not only as material phenomena and physical networks but also as immaterial relations and symbolic actions, which, in visible and invisible ways, form our present and, hence, our horizon of aesthetic perception. Publisher.

• Katja Praznik, Bojana Kunst, Hans Abbing, Which Side Are You On? Ideas for Reaching Fair Working Conditions in the Arts, Dec 2022, 25 pp.

• Lesley Shipley, Mey-Yen Moriuchi (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century, Routledge, Dec 2022, 380 pp.Publisher.

• Bolette B. Blaagaard, Sabrina Marchetti, Sandra Ponzanesi, Shaul Bassi (eds.), Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe, Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Jan 2023, xxiv+296 pp.

• Fiona Geuß, Das dialogische Kunstwerk: Gesprächsformate in der Kunst nach 1968: Art Workers Coalition, Group Material, New Genre Public Art, Bielefeld: transcript, May 2023, 246 pp. Based on PhD thesis (Freie U, Berlin, 2019). Publisher, [64], [65]. (German)

• Dorota Sajewska, Małgorzata Sugiera (eds.), Crisis and Communitas: Performative Concepts of Commonality in Arts and Politics, London: Routledge, May 2023, 304 pp. Publisher, [66]

• Grant H. Kester, The Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Enlightenment to the Avant-Garde, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, Aug 2023, 280 pp. Examines the evolving discourse of aesthetic autonomy from its origins in the Enlightenment through avant-garde projects and movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analyzing avant-garde art and political movements in Russia, India, Latin America, and elsewhere, Kester retheorizes the aesthetic beyond autonomy. Introduction. Publisher. Review: Bowman (Art Monthly).

• Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra (ed.), The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico since the 1980s, University of Texas Press, Sep 2023, 304 pp. On community-focused art projects and anti-monuments in Mexico since the 1980s. Publisher.

• Protestbereitschaft Zeitgenössischer Aktivismus zwischen Haltung und Stil, Berlin: SHIFT BOOKS, Berlin, Oct 2023, 176 pp. Exhibition. [67] (German)

• Afonso Dias Ramos, Tom Snow (eds.), Activism, MIT Press, Oct 2023, 240 pp, EPUB. Addresses an extraordinary moment in debates over the institutional frameworks and networks of art including large-scale direct actions, as well as a radical rethinking of art venues and urban spaces according to racial, class, or gender-based disparities, including demonstrations against the extractive and exploitative practices of neoliberal accumulation and climate catastrophe. Artists surveyed include: ACT UP, Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Allora & Calzadilla, Tania Bruguera, Black Audio Film Collective, Chto Delat, Andrea Fraser, Nan Goldin, Sanja Iveković, Gulf Labor, Amar Kanwar, Leslie Labowitz, Liberate Tate, Sethembile Msezane, Zanele Muholi, Jan Nikolai Nelles & Nora Al-Badri, Decolonize This Place, Michael Rakowitz, Oliver Ressler. Writers include: Dave Beech, Judith Butler, Amílcar Cabral, Elias Canetti, Douglas Crimp, Jodi Dean, Gilles Deleuze, T.J. Demos, Nina Dubrovsky, Süreyyya Evren, Catherine Flood, Matthew Fuller, David Graeber, Gavin Grindon, Félix Guattari, Brian Holmes, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Lucy Lippard, Yates McKee, MTL Collective, Gregory Sholette, Françoise Vergès, Peter Weiss, Eyal Weizman. Publisher.

• Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK, 1970-1990, ed. Linsey Young, London: Tate Publishing, Nov 2023, 304 pp. Exh. held at Tate Britain, London, 8 Nov 2023-7 Apr 2024; National Galleries, Edinburgh, 25 May 2024-26 Jan 2025. Exh. guide. Exh. reviews: Williamson (Studio Int'l), Searle (Guardian), Cumming (Observer), Kellaway (Anticap Resist).

• Joseph DeLappe, Laura Leuzzi (eds.), INCITE: Digital Art & Activism, Aberdeen: peacock & the worm, Nov 2023, 92 pp. Publisher. Book launch. [68]

• Grant H. Kester, Beyond the Sovereign Self: Aesthetic Autonomy from the Avant-Garde to Socially Engaged Art, Duke University Press, Dec 2023, 296 pp. Analyzes the work of conceptual artist Adrian Piper, experimental practices associated with the escrache tradition in Argentina, and indigenous Canadian artists such as Nadia Myre and Michèle Taïna Audette, showing how socially engaged art catalyzes forms of resistance that operate beyond the institutional art world. Publisher.

• Elyssa Faison, Alison Fields (eds.), Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific, Seattle: University of Washington Press, Jan 2024, 344 pp. Publisher.

• Sven Spieker, Art and Demonstration: A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge, MIT Press, Feb 2024, EPUB. Reconceives the history of postwar art in Eastern and Western Europe from the perspective of demonstration, understood formally (as a technique for showing and pointing) as well as politically (as protest, resistance, etc.) Publisher, [69].

• Sally L. Kitch, Dawn R. Gilpin (eds.), Art, Activism, and Sexual Violence, Seattle: University of Washington Press, Mar 2024, 262 pp. Highlights the role of creative expression in exposing, preventing, and combatting sexual violence. Publisher.

• Daniele Salerno, Ann Rigney (eds.), Archiving Activism in the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, May 2024, 153 pp. This collection brings together academics, archivists, and activists to explore some of the many new sites where activist archives are being produced at the present time; with case studies ranging between Turkey, Afghanistan, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and the US.

• David H. Slater, Patricia G. Steinhoff (eds.), Alternative Politics in Contemporary Japan: New Directions in Social Movements, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, May 2024, 360 pp. Publisher.

• Stephen Duncombe, Aeffect: The Affect and Effect of Artistic Activism, Fordham University Press, May 2024, 256 pp, EPUB. Publisher, [70].

• Anna Nordenstam, Kristy Beers Fägersten, Margareta Wallin Wictorin (eds.), Comics, Activism, Feminisms, Routledge, Sep 2024, 206 pp. Publisher.

• Martina Angelotti, Matteo Lucchetti, Judith Wielander (eds.), Visible: Art as Policies for Care – Socially Engaged Art (2010–ongoing), Rome: Nero, Oct 2024, 334 pp. Publisher. Book launch.

• Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder, The Revolution Will Be Improvised: The Intimacy of Cultural Activism, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, Oct 2024, 244 pp. An examination of revolutionary intimacy-making, experimental performance, and art activism during the civil rights movement. Publisher.

• Solveig Daugaard, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt, Frederik Tygstrup (eds.), Infrastructure Aesthetics, De Gruyter, Nov 2024, 418 pp. An upsurge in artworks negotiating the conditions of their own production, distribution, and reception has called attention to the infrastructural relations that shape the art world. Publisher.

• Martin Lang, Militant Aesthetics: Art Activism in the 21st Century, Bloomsbury, Aug 2025, 264 pp. Publisher.

See also

Digital activism, Copyright activism, Hacktivism, Data activism

	Visual art
Movements – 1990s – East Central Europe – Writers – Historians – Care – Museums – References. Art and culture, Contents, Index, About.