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ARTIFICIAL HELLS PARTICIPATORY ART AND THE POLITICS OF SPECTATORSHIP By CLAIRE BISHOP Published 23 JULY 2012 ----------------------------- A searing critique of participatory art by an iconoclastic historian. “The good intentions of contemporary artists frequently pave a road to hell. Claire Bishop follows their descent into the inferno and invites her readers to share her fascination with what she finds along the way. ARTIFICIAL HELLS combines vast historical knowledge with a precise analysis of individual artistic practices. So much so that at the end of her new book we have begun to fall in love with hell – under the condition that it remains artificial.” – BORIS GROYS, author of ART POWER ---------------------------------- EVENTS: July 19, 2012, 7.30pm Whitechapel Gallery Zilkha Auditorium 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX Art Historian and curator Claire Bishop discusses social engagement in contemporary art and launches her new book ARTIFICIAL HELLS: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. In association with Verso. Price: GBP 7.00 Concessions and members are kindly asked to show proof or ID when collecting tickets on the night. For more information, please visit: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/22/product_id/1235?session_id=13419317010d75bd34b018980a5eeb1ad70abfe8f0 ---------------------------------- Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson. ARTIFICIAL HELLS is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as “social practice.” Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Paweù Althamer and Paul Chan. Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In ARTIFICIAL HELLS, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. ARTIFICIAL HELLS calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism. ------------------------------- Praise for ARTIFICIAL HELLS: “Bishop’s arguments are convincingly supported and potentially very contentious… A critically challenging work of vital scholarship.” – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-84467-690-3 ------------------------------- CLAIRE BISHOP is Associate Professor in the History of Art department at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York. She is also the author of INSTALLATION ART: A CRITICAL HISTORY; and editor of PARTICIPATION. In 2008 she co-curated the exhibition “Double Agent” at the ICA. She is a regular contributor to ARTFORUM, OCTOBER, TATE ETC, IDEA, and other international art magazines. --------------------------------- ISBN: 9781844676903 / US$29.95 / £19.99 / 390 pages ------------------------------- For more information and to buy the book visit http://www.versobooks.com/books/958-artificial-hells ------------------------------- Visit Verso’s website for blog updates, information on our upcoming events, news, reviews, publications and special offers: http://www.versobooks.com<http://www.versobooks.com/books/469-manituana> Become a fan of Verso on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Verso-Books-UK/122064538789 And get updates on Twitter too http://twitter.com/VersoBooksUK