Yates McKee

"The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond  Activist art experienced a new beginning in the Seattle anti-globalization protests of 1999, reaching a zenith over a decade later with Occupy Wall Street, a movement initiated in part by artist-activists, and structured around creative direct actions and iconic imagery for the social media age. In parts of the mainstream art world, radical ideas were gaining traction over the same period, but remained confined within its institutional apparatus.  Art critic Yates McKee recounts these parallel histories and their collisions, highlighting the limitations and complicities of the art world, and reviving the notion of art as an emancipatory practice woven into political struggle, whether around issues of debt, climate justice or police violence. Strike Art!'s claim is that Occupy fundamentally changed the horizon of contemporary art, whether or not the art world knows it yet"--

contemporary art and the post-Occupy condition

Strike art!

The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond What is the relation of art to the practice of radical politics today? Strike Art explores this question through the historical lens of Occupy, an event that had artists at its core. Precarious, indebted, and radicalized, artists redirected their creativity from servicing the artworld into an expanded field of organizing in order to construct of a new—if internally fraught—political imaginary set off against the common enemy of the 1%. In the process, they called the bluff of a contemporary art system torn between ideals of radical critique, on the one hand, and an increasing proximity to Wall Street on the other—oftentimes directly targeting major art institutions themselves as sites of action. Tracking the work of groups including MTL, Not an Alternative, the Illuminator, the Rolling Jubilee, and G.U.L.F, Strike Art shows how Occupy ushered in a new era of artistically-oriented direct action that continues to ramify far beyond the initial act of occupation itself into ongoing struggles surrounding labor, debt, and climate justice, concluding with a consideration of the overlaps between such work and the aesthetic practices of the Black Lives Matter movement. Art after Occupy, McKee suggests, contains great potentials of imagination and action for a renewed left project that are still only beginning to ripen, at once shaking up and taking flight from the art system as we know it.

Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition

Strike Art

The collision of activism and contemporary art, from the Seattle protests to Occupy and beyond What is the relation of art to the practice of radical politics today? Strike Art explores this question through the historical lens of Occupy, an event that had artists at its core. Precarious, indebted, and radicalized, artists redirected their creativity from servicing the artworld into an expanded field of organizing in order to construct of a new—if internally fraught—political imaginary set off against the common enemy of the 1%. In the process, they called the bluff of a contemporary art system torn between ideals of radical critique, on the one hand, and an increasing proximity to Wall Street on the other—oftentimes directly targeting major art institutions themselves as sites of action. Tracking the work of groups including MTL, Not an Alternative, the Illuminator, the Rolling Jubilee, and G.U.L.F, Strike Art shows how Occupy ushered in a new era of artistically-oriented direct action that continues to ramify far beyond the initial act of occupation itself into ongoing struggles surrounding labor, debt, and climate justice, concluding with a consideration of the overlaps between such work and the aesthetic practices of the Black Lives Matter movement. Art after Occupy, McKee suggests, contains great potentials of imagination and action for a renewed left project that are still only beginning to ripen, at once shaking up and taking flight from the art system as we know it.

Meg McLagan

Political acts are encoded in medial forms--punch holes on a card, images on a live stream, tweets about events unfolding in real time--that have force, shaping people as subjects and forming the contours of what is sensible, legible, and visible. In doing so they define the terms of political possibility and create terrain for political acts. Sensible Politics considers the constitutive role played by aesthetic and performative techniques in the staging of claims by nongovernmental activists. Attending to political aesthetics means focusing not on a disembodied image that travels under the concept of art or visual culture, nor on a preformed domain of the political that seeks subsequent expression in media form. Instead it requires bringing the two realms together into the same analytic frame. A diverse group of contributors, from art historians, anthropologists, and political theorists to artists, filmmakers, and architects, considers the interaction of politics and the visual in such topics as the political consequences of a photograph taken by an Israeli soldier in a Palestinian house in Ramallah; AIDS activism; images of social suffering in Iran; the "forensic architecture" of claims to truth; and the "Make Poverty History" campaign. Transcending disciplines, they trace a broader image complex whereby politics is brought to visibility through the mediation of specific cultural forms that mix the legal and the visual, the hermeneutic and the technical, the political and the aesthetic. Their contributions offer critical insight into the practices of mediation whereby the political becomes manifest.

The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism

Sensible Politics

Lisa D. Freiman

Carrie Lambert-Beatty

This volume celebrates the exciting new work of Allora & Calzadilla, who are representing the United States in the 54th Venice Biennale. The artistic collaborative of Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's exhibition at the Venice Biennale, titled Gloria, comprises six new works developed partly in response to the U.S. Pavilion site. Combining performance, sculpture, video, and sound elements, the works use poetic shock and unexpected juxtaposition to reflect upon competitive enterprises such as the Olympic Games, international commerce, the military industrial complex and even the Biennale itself. The result is a series of artistic experiments that explore the nature of physical, visual, and audible experience. This publication documents Allora & Calzadilla's exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion, including a plates section displaying images of the works as they are installed in Venice as well as documentation of performances by professional athletes affiliated with U.S.A. Gymnastics and U.S.A. Track and Field. Essays by exhibition curator, U.S. Commissioner Lisa Freiman, and art historians Carrie Lambert-Beatty and Yates McKee explore the themes addressed in Gloria and place Allora & Calzadilla's works within a larger art historical and social context.

Yates McKee

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