Currently reading, recently received: Conversation Pieces, by Grant H. Kester. Noted:
Some of the most innovative art of the past decade has been created far outside conventional galleries and museums. In a parking garage in Oakland, California; on a pleasure boat on the Lake of Zurich in Switzerland; at a public market in Chiang Mai, Thailand--artists operating at the intersection of art and cultural activism have been developing new forms of collaboration with diverse audiences and communities. Their projects have addressed such issues as political conflict in Northern Ireland, gang violence on Chicago's West Side, and the problems of sex workers in Switzerland. Provocative, accessible, and engaging, this book, one of the first full-length studies on the topic, situates these socially conscious projects historically, relates them to key issues in contemporary art and art theory, and offers a unique critical framework for understanding them.
More on that, definitely. Further details on the book can be found here.
Also, while we're on the topic of the kind of highly-charged, culturally provocative and purposeful work that I tend to adore -- a handful of gems from the Lux Lotus archives: Outlaw Representation, Scarlet-Starlet, Wien, Bad Culture, No Ladies, Exile Art Down Under, The Charms of Small Collections, and The Beautiful and Sublime Science.
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