I CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS - A READER ON RECENT BOYCOTTS AND CONTEMPORARY ART

Edited by JOANNA WARSZA
Published by Sternberg Press
English
384 pages
14 x 21 cm
Softcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-250-2

Price: 500 lei (€100)

Contributions by CORINA L. APOSTOL, JULIETA ARANDA, BURAK ARKIAN, DAVE BEECH, BORIS BUDEN, TONY CHAKAR, EKATERINA DEGOT, CHTO DELAT?, GALIT EILAT, CHARLES ESCHE, LARA FRESKO, MARIA GALINDO, ERDEM GÜNDÜZ, NATASCHA SADR HAGHIGHIAN, THOMAS HIRSCHHORN, CLARA IANNI, ALEVTINA KAKHIDZE, JONAS KAPLAN, MATTHEW KIEM, VASIF KORTUN, MARIA KULIKOVSKA, KASPER KÖNIG, PABLO LAFUENTE, ANA LIRA, VESNA MADŽOSKI, BRAD BUTLER & KAREN MIRZA, ANGELA MITROPOULOS, ANDREA PHILLIPS, CHRISTOPH SCHÄFER, GREGORY SHOLETTE, JONAS STAAL, HITO STEYERL, CHEN TAMIR, NATO THOMPSON, GABRIELLE DE VIETRI, DMITRY VILENSKY, JOANNA WARSZA, TIRDAD ZOLGHADR, LIBIA CASTRO & ÓLAFUR ÓLAFSSON, AHMET ÖGÜT less
With associate editors ÁGNES BÁSTHY, ANNA TEN, GEORGIA STELLIN, JUDITH WALDMANN, KATHARINA BRANDL, LIANNE MOL, MIRELA BACIAK, PETRA BELC, RENATA CERVETTO, SARAH WERKMEISTER, ULRIKE JORDAN, URSULA GUTTMANN, VANDA SÁRAI

In recent years, artists and curators have often been confronted with the political dilemma of engagement or disengagement. The ideological, economic, or ethically objectionable circumstances of certain biennials and art exhibitions have raised the question of whether to continue and, if so, under what circumstances, with what consequences, and to what ends? From 2013 to 2015, biennials in Istanbul, St. Petersburg, Sydney, and São Paulo demonstrated that curating and art production can’t just carry on as if nothing had happened.

This reader is the result of Joanna Warsza’s course at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. It examines four recent cases of boycotts, presenting their political, ideological, and economic contexts, timelines, statements, as well as interviews with parties involved. It reflects on how certain biennials became the place where the power of art is renegotiated and why one simply “can’t work like this.”