Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Nonfiction. Art. Activisim. Criticism and Theory. An anthology that explores the rise of activist public art that agitates for social change. Included are discussions of such leading and controversial artists as: the Guerrilla Girls, Gran Fury, Group Material, Women's Action Coalition, and the Artist and Homeless Collaborative.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

The notion that art consists only of carefully framed oil paintings or grandly situated marble statues has been under attack ever since Duchamp signed a urinal and displayed it as a ready-made art object. Despite the passage of decades, the discourse over the definition of art and the role of artists in society has only grown more heated. Presented within this text are 12 clearly written essays examining the AIDS activism of the group Gran Fury, the feminism of Guerrilla Girls, the Woman's Action Coalition, the personal politics of Suzanne Lacy and Peggy Diggs, and ongoing art projects concerning homelessness, the environment, and the dignity of labor, including a thoughtful presentation of the now infamous Art Rebate/Arte Reembolso piece (in which 450 $10 bills were distributed to undocumented worker/taxpayers at the Mexican border). The clarity and timeliness of this volume recommend it to all libraries.-David McClelland, Temple Univ. Lib., Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The dozen essays here focus on a variety of artistic and cultural practices that help to define the ``art'' of public art and the ``activism'' of the activist artist. Informative and helpful new material on the Women's Action Coalition, the Guerrilla Girls and The Art and Homeless Collaborative comes late in this volume, after a great deal of eulogizing and laundry-list art history. The writers here‘with the exception of Jan Avgikos, Elizabeth Hess and Tracy Ann Essoglou‘too often take the claims of artists and the art world at face value, producing uncritical texts as propagandistic as the art they champion. Public art/activist art today exists at a critical junction in the social history of this country, questioning the nature of art, the political process, public perception and insidious forms of control and domination‘including the often didactic and well-intentioned artist who condescendingly helps certain social groups for personal advantage. Only Avgikos, Hess, Essoglou and Andrea Wolper manage to rise above the tide of informational prose to question if such art actually fufills the good intentions of its creators. And only Avgikos suggests the advantage of calling these practices ``art''‘they fill artistic requirements, not according to abstract criteria, but according to the big money of granting organizations and museums. Lastly, poor photographs and the difficulties of describing this art ex situ deprives it of much of its power. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

By providing extensive examples and some aesthetic theory, this collection of essays attempts to prove that activist art is, in fact, art of the highest order. This book is not likely to convince a proponent of the art-for-art's sake doctrine that this type of activity is any kind of art. Not restricted to art galleries or museums and not a luxury limited to rich patrons or an elitist clientele, activist art, as its name implies, deals with immediate and compelling social and political issues such as AIDS, homelessness, and child abuse. Above all, it is designed to make a strong statement, to reveal a shocking truth, and to assault the audience's everyday sensibility so that they will see a situation from a new perspective and, possibly, be convinced of the rightness of the artist's point of view. Often the urgency of these artists' messages favors performance art, which addresses audiences directly and which may manifest itself as billboards, rallies, self-defense exhibitions, or handshaking campaigns. Assessed by the criteria implicit in them--spontaneity, intensity, sincerity--these created products succeed; and, though transient and often formless, they have the capacity to engage an audience's entire sensibility. Of interest not only to those researching art or art history but also to those studying social science or human behavior. General; undergraduate. E. Watson; Davenport College of Business

Kirkus Book Review

The lively subject of activist art gets deadening treatment in 12 long, tedious, and repetitive academic essays. Independent curator Felshin characterizes activist art as a ``hybrid'' cultural practice. Beginning in the late 1960s and early '70s, it drew on happenings, conceptual art, and performance art, which it synthesized with the political activism of counterculture groups. Later, in the 1980s and early '90s, it was informed by feminist art and postmodernism. The postmodernist breakdown of traditional art categories and fascination with the media have supplied a particularly relevant strategy for activist artists, whose ambition literally has been to merge art and life in works with a political message. Much (though not all) activist art is collaborative and de-emphasizes the role of the individual artist. Each essay in this volume profiles, in endless detail, a particular artist or collaborative group. While individual articles have merit, as a whole they are problematic. Aside from being either celebratory or polemical, they often overlap, documenting what soon becomes repetitive information on artistic agendas, social context, and historical sources. Jan Avgikos, writing on Group Material, and Eleanor Heartney on Helen and Newton Harrison's ecology-oriented art are among the few who actually tackle head on the question ``But is it art?'' Other noteworthy essays include Elizabeth Hess on the Guerrilla Girls, Tracy Ann Essoglou with an insider's view of WAC (Women's Action Coalition), and Jeff Kelley on Suzanne Lacy. It gradually becomes evident that collaborative groups (including the Guerrilla Girls, WAC, Gran Fury, Group Material) tend to fizzle out, while individual artists (Lacy, Peggy Diggs, Mierle Laderman Ukeles) and team players (the Harrisons, Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge) seem to endure. Although it contains valuable historical material on a significant art practice, this book will probably only be read by the small, insular art audience that many of the activist artists have tried to move beyond.