Yates McKee: Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition (2016)

“The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond

What is the relation of art to the practice of radical politics today? Strike Art explores this question through the historical lens of Occupy, an event that had artists at its core. Precarious, indebted, and radicalized, artists redirected their creativity from servicing the artworld into an expanded field of organizing in order to construct of a new—if internally fraught—political imaginary set off against the common enemy of the 1%. In the process, they called the bluff of a contemporary art system torn between ideals of radical critique, on the one hand, and an increasing proximity to Wall Street on the other—oftentimes directly targeting major art institutions themselves as sites of action.

Tracking the work of groups including MTL, Not an Alternative, the Illuminator, the Rolling Jubilee, and G.U.L.F, Strike Art shows how Occupy ushered in a new era of artistically-oriented direct action that continues to ramify far beyond the initial act of occupation itself into ongoing struggles surrounding labor, debt, and climate justice, concluding with a consideration of the overlaps between such work and the aesthetic practices of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Art after Occupy, McKee suggests, contains great potentials of imagination and action for a renewed left project that are still only beginning to ripen, at once shaking up and taking flight from the art system as we know it.”

Publisher Verso Books, London and New York, Feb 2016
ISBN 9781784781880, 1784781886
296 pages

Reviews: Marc James Léger (Marx & Philosophy, 2016), Philipp Kleinmichel (Radical Philosophy, 2018), Paloma Checa-Gismero (Field, 2016), John Ayscough (Visual Culture in Britain, 2017), Kristin Gecan (Chicago Review, 2016).
Discussion: Gregory Sholette, a.o. (e-flux supercommunity, 2016).
Book launch

Publisher
WorldCat

EPUB (6 MB)

BE.BOP: Black Europe Body Politics (2012-2018)

“Be.Bop: Black Europe Body Politics, a project of Art Labour Archives, is a decolonial transdisciplinary and indisciplinary curatorial initiative based in Berlin with an international impact through presentations in major cities across three continents.”

“Active in the international cultural arena since 1997, Art Labour Archives has been passionately involved in the production and theorization of performance and the moving image from a Black Diaspora perspective.

In the vision of its founder, Alanna Lockward, disciplines are meant to facilitate each other’s dismantling by means of constantly challenging its own claims to legitimacy. This paradigm inversion places collective knowledge creation as a central ambition. In this sense, the optic and praxis of Art Labour Archives is to surpass the expectations of the society of the spectacle and its insatiable appetite for visual and sensorial stimulation. Instead, the dozens of publications, exhibitions, screening programs, workshops and seminars conceptualized and produced by Art Labour Archives in the last seventeen years, have offered liberation, healing and redemption as a viable alternative.

In short: our journey is one of experiencing “art” as a labour of love and mutual examination and recognition beyond geographical, discursive and disciplinary thresholds. Between 2010—2018 Be.Bop has been presented in conferences, seminars and different public events in three different continents thanks to the support and faith of our partners, participants and friends.” be.bop=”” “is=”” an=”” enterprise=”” led=”” by=”” curator=”” alanna=”” lockward;=”” a=”” collective=”” of=”” artists,=”” curators,=”” artivists=”” and=”” activists,=”” social=”” theorists=”” humanists.=”” decolonial=”” project=”” healing,=”” learning=”” love.=”” network=”” with=”” the=”” middelburg=”” summer=”” school=”” aesthesis=”” in=”” bogota=”” durham=”” (duke=”” university)”=”” (walter=”” mignolo,=”” advisor).=”” curated=”” lockward=”” publisher=”” art=”” labour=”” archives,=”” berlin,=”” 2012-2018=”” Publisher

Catalogues:
The Skin Thing, 2012, event website
Decolonizing the “Cold” War, 2013, event website
Spiritual Revolutions & The “Scramble for Africa”, 2014, event website
Chronology, 2012-2015
Call & Response, 2016, event website (2)
Coalitions Facing White Innocence, 2018, event website

John Roberts: Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde (2015)

“Why the avant-garde of art needs to be rehabilitated today

Since the decidedly bleak beginning of the twenty-first century, art practice has become increasingly politicized. Yet few have put forward a sustained defence of this development. Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde is the first book to look at the legacy of the avant-garde in relation to the deepening crisis of contemporary capitalism.

An invigorating revitalization of the Frankfurt School legacy, Roberts’s book defines and validates the avant-garde idea with an erudite acuity, providing a refined conceptual set of tools to engage critically with the most advanced art theorists of our day, such as Hal Foster, Andrew Benjamin, Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière, Paolo Virno, Claire Bishop, Michael Hardt, and Toni Negri.”

Publisher Verso, London, 2015
ISBN 9781781689134, 178168913X
xii+322 pages

Reviews: Noni Brynjolson (Field, 2015), Danica Radoshevich (Red Wedge, 2015), Kim Charnley (Platypus Review, 2016), Geoffrey Wildanger (LA Review of Books, 2016).

Publisher
WorldCat

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