Bill Ivey

Steven J. Tepper

Engaging Art explores what it means to participate in the arts in contemporary society – from museum attendance to music downloading. Drawing on the perspectives of experts from diverse fields (including Princeton scholars Robert Wuthnow and Paul DiMaggio; Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice; and MIT scholars Henry Jenkins and Mark Schuster), this volume analyzes key trends involving technology, audience demographics, religion, and the rise of "do-it-yourself" participatory culture. Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and independently carried out by the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Engaging Art offers a new framework for understanding the momentous changes impacting America’s cultural life over the past fifty years. This volume offers suggestive glimpses into the character and consequence of a new engagement with old-fashioned participation in the arts. The authors in this volume hint at a bright future for art and citizen art making. They argue that if we center a new commitment to arts participation in everyday art making, creativity, and quality of life, we will not only restore the lifelong pleasure of homemade art, but will likely seed a new generation of enthusiasts who will support America’s signature nonprofit cultural institutions well into the future.

The Next Great Transformation of America's Cultural Life

Engaging Art

In the late 1990s Angels in America,Tony Kushner’s epic play about homosexuality and AIDS in the Reagan era, toured the country, inspiring protests in a handful of cities while others received it warmly. Why do people fight over some works of art but not others? Not Here, Not Now, Not That! examines a wide range of controversies over films, books, paintings, sculptures, clothing, music, and television in dozens of cities across the country to find out what turns personal offense into public protest. What Steven J. Tepper discovers is that these protests are always deeply rooted in local concerns. Furthermore, they are essential to the process of working out our differences in a civil society. To explore the local nature of public protests in detail, Tepper analyzes cases in seventy-one cities, including an in-depth look at Atlanta in the late 1990s, finding that debates there over memorials, public artworks, books, and parades served as a way for Atlantans to develop a vision of the future at a time of rapid growth and change. Eschewing simplistic narratives that reduce public protests to political maneuvering, Not Here, Not Now, Not That! at last provides the social context necessary to fully understand this fascinating phenomenon.

Protest Over Art and Culture in America

Not Here, Not Now, Not That!

Protest over Art and Culture in America

Engaging Art explores what it means to participate in the arts in contemporary society - from museum attendance to music downloading. Drawing on the perspectives of experts from diverse fields (including Princeton scholars Robert Wuthnow and Paul DiMaggio; Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice; and MIT scholars Henry Jenkins and Mark Schuster), this volume analyzes key trends involving technology, audience demographics, religion, and the rise of "do-it-yourself" participatory culture. Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and independently carried out by the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University, Engaging Art offers a new framework for understanding the momentous changes impacting America's cultural life over the past fifty years. This volume offers suggestive glimpses into the character and consequence of a new engagement with old-fashioned participation in the arts. The authors in this volume hint at a bright future for art and citizen art making. They argue that if we center a new commitment to arts participation in everyday art making, creativity, and quality of life, we will not only restore the lifelong pleasure of homemade art, but will likely seed a new generation of enthusiasts who will support America's signature nonprofit cultural institutions well into the future.

Steven J. Tepper

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