’internationale

What's the Use. Constellations of Art, History, and Knowledge

Edited by Nick Aikens, Thomas Lange, Jorinde Seijdel, and Steven ten Thije
 
Graphic Design: George & Harrison

Published by L'Internationale and Valiz

2016
ISBN 978-94-92095-12-1
pdf

Contents

  1. 1.
    What’s the Use? – Editors’ Introduction
  2. 2.
    Part 1: Constellating History
  3. 3.
    Constellating History – Introduction
    Thomas Lange
  4. 4.
    The Relation of Art to Use
    John Ruskin
  5. 5.
    An Extended Lecture on Tree Twigs – Toward an Ecology of Aesthetics
    Alistair Hudson
  6. 6.
    I'd Like to Be Karl Ioganson...(But It Won't Be Possible) – Cuban Applications of Arte Útil
    Tamara Díaz Bringas
  7. 7.
    Really, Something?
    Adrian Rifkin
  8. 8.
    Pla Macià – The Garden City Movement and its Modern Afterlife
    Lara Garcia Diaz
  9. 9.
    Designing Cultural Memory – The Medieval Cathedral as a ‘Monument to History’ in Nineteenth-Century Painting
    Christina Clausen
  10. 10.
    History, Use-Value, and the Contemporary Work or Labour of Art
    John Byrne
  11. 11.
    Part 2: Practicing Art, Knowledge, and Use
  12. 12.
    Practicing Art, Knowledge, and Use – Introduction
    Nick Aikens
  13. 13.
    Between Hysteria and History – Dialectic of Montage in Jean-Luc Godard’s Work
    Georges Didi-Huberman
  14. 14.
    Wendelien van Oldenborgh – Beauty and the Right to the Ugly
  15. 15.
    Beauty and the Right to the Ugly
    Emily Pethick
  16. 16.
    From History to Imagination – Yael Bartana’s Trilogy ‘And Europe Will Be Stunned’
    Sara Stehr
  17. 17.
    The Mozambique Institute Project – A Montage of Affect
    Catarina Simão
  18. 18.
    Alexandra Pirici & Manuel Pelmuş – Public Collection of Modern Art
  19. 19.
    Actualizing History in the Living Body as Subject-Object
    Alexandra Pirici
  20. 20.
    History, Time, Economy, and Museums of the Future
    Manuel Pelmuş
  21. 21.
    History at Present – The Revealing Void of Christoph Schlingensief’s Container
    Thomas Lange
  22. 22.
    Autonomy Cube – Nick Aikens in Conversation with Trevor Paglen
  23. 23.
    Li Mu – A Man, A Village, A Museum
  24. 24.
    Static Gallery’s Architecture of Flows as Extradisciplinary Investigation
    George Yúdice
  25. 25.
    Collective Difficulty, Feminist Interventions – Tamms Year Ten and Socially Engaged Art Praxis
    Christina Aushana
  26. 26.
    Time Spent
    Melinda Guillen
  27. 27.
    Jeanne van Heeswijk – Freehouse – Radicalizing the Local
  28. 28.
    Reflexions on Arte Útil (Useful Art)
    Tania Bruguera
  29. 29.
    Arte Útil and Actioning Desire – Annie Fletcher in Conversation with Tania Bruguera, Part 1
  30. 30.
    Part 3: Exhibiting and Instituting
  31. 31.
    Exhibiting and Instituting – Introduction
    Steven ten Thije
  32. 32.
    Beyond the Exhibition? A Speculation on How the Museum Might Be Put to Use
    Nick Aikens
  33. 33.
    Museos del Sur
    Jesús Carrillo
  34. 34.
    The Time of Display, the Display of Time – Alois Riegl, Alexander Dorner, and the Changing Historicity of Museum Displays
    Steven ten Thije
  35. 35.
    No Blood/No Foul – On the Representation and Reinvention of Socially Engaged Artworks
    Lucía Sanromán
  36. 36.
    Using Art as Art – How to Emancipate Work through Art
    Zdenka Badovinac
  37. 37.
    Use, Knowledge, Art, and History – A Conversation between Charles Esche and Manuel Borja-Villel
  38. 38.
    The Barricade Has Fragmented and Multiplied
    Liam Gillick
  39. 39.
    Exhibiting and Instituting Arte Útil – Annie Fletcher in Conversation with Tania Bruguera, Part 2
  40. 40.
    Understanding the Social Power Plant
    constructLab
  41. 41.
    Conversing the Action, Narrating History, Eliciting the Present – Notes on Artistic Mediations and Practices Outstripping the Museum's Usual Functions
    Subtramas (Virginia Villaplana, Montse Romaní and Diego del Pozo)
  42. 42.
    Really Útil Confessions – A Conversation between Nick Aikens, Annie Fletcher, Alistair Hudson, Steven ten Thije, and What, How & for Whom/WHW
  43. 43.
    Appendix
  44. 44.
    Toward a Lexicon of Usership
    Stephen Wright
  45. 45.
    Contributors
  46. 46.
    Index of Names
  47. 47.
    Index of Works of Art, Exhibitions, Projects, Organizations
  48. 48.
    Credits of the Images
  49. 49.
    Acknowledgements
  50. 50.
    Partners
  51. 51.
    Colophon

Is art only art insofar as it refuses to be useful? Or can art practices serve a wider purpose in the world? This reader starts from the premise that art is an integral part of the social, economic and political process. Art is best understood through its dialogue with the social sphere, rather than as a ‘thing in itself’. By mapping a diverse terrain of examples and ideas, this book explores the complex interplay between art, use, history, and knowledge. The contributing writers and artists — such as Georges Didi-Huberman, Tania Bruguera, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Stephen Wright — demonstrate how in past and contemporary practice these relationships are set up and played out.

Contributors: Nick Aikens, Christina Aushana, Zdenka Badovinac, Manuel Borja-Villel, Tania Bruguera, John Byrne, Jesús Carrillo, Christina Clausen, constructLab, Tamara Díaz Bringas, Georges Didi-Huberman, Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher, Lara Garcia Diaz, Liam Gillick, Melinda Guillen, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Alistair Hudson, Thomas Lange, Li Mu, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Trevor Paglen, Manuel Pelmuş, Emily Pethick, Alexandra Pirici, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Adrian Rifkin, John Ruskin, Lucía Sanromán, Catarina Simão, Sara Stehr, Subtramas, Steven ten Thije, WHW (What, How & for Whom), Stephen Wright, and George Yúdice.