“Institutional critique” is an artistic practice that reflects critically on its own place within galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Such concerns have always been a part of modern art but took on new urgency at the end of the 1960s, when—driven by the social upheaval of the time and enabled by the tools and techniques of conceptual art—institutional critique emerged as a genre. This anthology traces the development of institutional critique as an artistic concern from the 1960s to the present, gathering writings and representative art projects of artists who developed and extended the genre. The artists come from across Europe and throughout North America. The texts and artworks included are notable for the range of perspectives and positions they reflect, and for their influence in pushing the boundaries of what is meant by institutional critique.
Like Alberro and Stimson’s Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, this volume will shed new light on its subject through its critical and historical framing. Even readers already familiar with institutional critique will come away from this book with a greater and often redirected understanding of its significance.
Artists represented include: Wieslaw Borowski, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, Hans Haacke, Robert Smithson, John Knight, Graciela Carnevale, Osvaldo Mateo Boglione, Guerilla Art Action Group, Art Workers’ Coalition, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Michael Asher, Mel Ramsden, Adrian Piper, The Guerrilla Girls, Laibach, Silvia Kolbowski, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Maria Eichhorn, Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau d’Études, WochenKlausur, The Yes Men, Hito Steyerl, Andreas Siekmann
The Mission District is a hot spot for street art, the largest concentration in the world of public painting that embodies activism, culture, passion, and desire for social change.
Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo!, edited by Annice Jacoby [Abrams; June 2009; hardcover] showcases these vibrant works in hundreds of color photographs, with in-depth commentary by the artists who produced them and Mission-savvy writers including a foreword by Grammy Award Winner Carlos Santana.
Birthed in the early 1970s, a provocative new street art scene transformed San Francisco’s legendary Mission District into an art epicenter that crosses popular culture, fine art and political audiences. “Mission Muralismo,” is an ever-growing movement of accomplished street art combining elements of Mexican mural painting, surrealism, pop art, urban punk, eco-warrior, cartoon, and guerilla graffiti that has catapulted many San Francisco artists into the international spotlight.
Featuring over 500 full-color photographs and 30 essays, including artists R. Crumb, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Barry McGee (TWIST), Rigo, and Spain Rodriguez, Street Art San Francisco comprehensively exposes more than three decades of this expansive and vibrant public art movement.
This is one of the interviews I did while at Prix Ars. Somehow we started talking about death in video games. If you want to know what I think about Grand Theft Auto, watch this:
Emberly Modine did an interview with me for Buzzine Magazine that covers some of my favorite topics; advertising, public space, sociology, and getting evicted.
Steve Lambert gained considerable notoriety eight days after last November’s elections when he collaborated with a group called the Yes Men in publishing a politically progressive hoax edition of the New York Times, its banner headline declaring “Iraq War Ends.” The debut Los Angeles solo show for the New York-based artist at Charlie James Gallery includes video documentation of that work, as well as well-traveled intersections between art and advertising.
Ben Marks reviews the show at San Jose Institute of Contemporary Arts for KQED Public Media for Northern CA:
Inside, we are greeted by a needlessly large plexiglass donation box by Steve Lambert titled “Steve Lambert Refuses to Participate in the Exhibit.” A legend near the box promises that all the money collected will be divided among the artists in the show because the SJICA didn’t budget any money for artist fees. On the day I attended, a scattering of ones and a few fives sat unimpressively at the bottom of the box, adding irony to the piece’s tongue-in-check rejection of a show about rejection.
On 11 November 2008, a fourteen-page special edition of the New York Times mysteriously appeared on the streets of New York. Its headline, “Iraq War Ends,” introduced a collection of articles under the rubric of “All the News We Hope to Print,” an alteration of the paper of record’s actual motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” Among the many organizers of the special edition spoof was Steve Lambert, who sat down with Fillip to discuss the project.
The Spring 2009 (#107) issue of Bomb Magazine includes an interview I did with Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonano of the Yes Men. You can read the whole interview on Bomb Magazine’s website, but it looks nicer in the magazine.
Here’s an excerpt:
SL So, when you two are doing these speaking gigs, do you basically play the same character each time? I know for each one you have to use different names, but as “actors” do you imagine them to be the same people? What goes into creating these businessmen characters?
MB If you look at someone like Jack Nicholson, he always seems like he is sort of the same even when he is playing different characters. I think we must be something like that.
AB Except that we can’t act.
MB Right. What I meant was that if we were actors, it might be like that. The fact is that we have no clue what we are doing when we are up there. Luckily, the audiences think we really are who we say we are, so there is no need to act at all. And our character development has no particular method. It’s there in some intuitive way, but we don’t think too much about it.
SLAre the projects that have been big in the media—Dow Chemical and New Orleans, most obviously—are those working against a secondary message you are trying to communicate to activists? Which is that this strategy might be worth considering, and that it’s totally within reach? Neither of you have any real formal training as “imposters” and from what I have gathered hanging around y’all for the past year is that this is very much a seat-of-the-pants operation.
MB Yeah, we barely have pants at all, really. Anyone could do stuff like this, and in our movies that comes through, I think.
AB Which encourages a lot of activists, not necessarily because they want to use the same methods, but because they see how the world of big business is not a fortress . . . it’s a house of cards.
Thankfully Steve Lambert’s Add Art shows look a lot better than some red square with the words “Art” on it. Every two weeks Lambert invites a curator to select art his firefox extension will use to replace website ads. I’m probably biased about this project — I curated a show — but I really like seeing weird shit replace the ads on the front page of the New York Times every two weeks. Add Art insures I see something I couldn’t have possibly imagined appearing on that website (and others) on a regular basis.
“Institutional critique” is an artistic practice that reflects critically on its own place within galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Such concerns have always been a part of modern art but took on new urgency at the end of the 1960s, when—driven by the social upheaval of the time and enabled by the tools and techniques of conceptual art—institutional critique emerged as a genre. This anthology traces the development of institutional critique as an artistic concern from the 1960s to the present, gathering writings and representative art projects of artists who developed and extended the genre. The artists come from across Europe and throughout North America. The texts and artworks included are notable for the range of perspectives and positions they reflect, and for their influence in pushing the boundaries of what is meant by institutional critique.
The Mission District is a hot spot for street art, the largest concentration in the world of public painting that embodies activism, culture, passion, and desire for social change.
