‘a game-changer, a must-read for scholars, students and artists alike’ – Tom Finkelpearl

At a time when art world critics and curators heavily debate the social, and when community organizers and civic activists are reconsidering the role of aesthetics in social reform, this book makes explicit some of the contradictions and competing stakes of contemporary experimental art-making.

Social Works is an interdisciplinary approach to the forms, goals and histories of innovative social practice in both contemporary performance and visual art. Shannon Jackson uses a range of case studies and contemporary methodologies to mediate between the fields of visual and performance studies. The result is a brilliant analysis that not only incorporates current political and aesthetic discourses but also provides a practical understanding of social practice.

Contents

1. Performance, Aesthetics, and Support 2. Quality Time: Social Practice Debates in Contemporary Art 3. High Maintenance: The Sanitation Aesthetics of Mierle Laderman Ukeles 4. Staged Management: Theatricality and Institutional Critique 5. Tech Support: Labor in the Global Theatres of The Builders Association and Rimini Protokoll 6. Welfare Melancholia: The Public Works of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset 7. Unfederated Theatre: Paul Chan Waiting in New Orleans

Author Bio

Shannon Jackson is the director of the Arts Research Center at University of California at Berkeley where she is also Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. Her award-winning previous publications include Professing Performance (2004) and Lines of Activity (2000).