Alana Jelinek

Art is not political action. Art is not education. Art does not exist to make society stronger, or the world a better place. Art disrupts and resists the comfortable, the stiflingly familiar and the status quo, or it only serves to deaden a disenfranchised society further. So argues This Is Not Art, a radical and vigorous critique that debunks myths about art in order to celebrate its real and unique importance. With the postmodern deconstruction of now-outdated shibboleths such as 'genius', 'authenticity' and 'beauty', new and neoliberal myths about art have arisen to take their place: that art's value is primarily monetary as a prized and marketable commodity, or that art is important because it ameliorates social problems. These ideas are not only the province of art-dealers and power-brokers, but pervade the part of the artworld that defines itself as radical, political or ethical too. Highlighting the social mechanisms of legitimisation and dissemination that exclude the genuinely disruptive or defiant, This Is Not Art draws on Foucault and Marx to uncover an artworld obsessed with profit and from which diversity, individuality and freedom have been erased. In the search for a new way to understand art's urgent importance, Alana Jelinek returns to the question of 'what is art?', retelling the history of art practice for our contemporary moment and exposing the ways in which neoliberal norms and values have seeped into every aspect of our lives. From the author's unique perspective as a practicing artist and theoretician, This Is Not Art offers not just a searing criticism of the artworld as it is, but a vision of a new way of understanding and practicing art - as the embodiment of power and agency within us, the possibility of thinking and acting differently, of finding new stories to tell.

Activism and Other 'Not-Art'

This is Not Art

Written from the perspective of a practising artist, this book proposes that, against a groundswell of historians, museums and commentators claiming to speak on behalf of art, it is artists alone who may define what art really is. Jelinek contends that while there are objects called 'art' in museums from deep into human history and from around the globe - from Hans Sloane's collection, which became the foundation of the British Museum, to Alfred Barr's inclusion of 'primitive art' within the walls of MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art - only those that have been made with the knowledge and discipline of art should rightly be termed as such. Policing the definition of art in this way is not to entrench it as an elitist occupation, but in order to focus on its liberal democratic potential. The Discipline of Art describes the value of art outside the current preoccupation with economic considerations yet without resorting to a range of stereotypical and ultimately instrumentalist political or social goods, such as social inclusion or education. A wider argument is also made for disciplinarity, as Jelinek discusses the great potential as well as the pitfalls of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary working, particularly with the so-called 'creative' arts. A passionate treatise arguing for a new way of understanding art that forefronts the role of the artist and the importance of inclusion within both the concept of art and the art world.

The Value of Contemporary Art

Between Discipline and a Hard Place

Nicholas Thomas

Alison Clark

Lucie Carreau

Erna Lilje

This book (vol. 1 of 2) not only enlarges understanding of Oceanic art history and Oceanic collections in important ways, but also enables new reflections upon museums and ways of undertaking work in and around them.

Alana Jelinek

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