Entry Points: The Vera List Center Field Guide on Art and Social Justice No. 1 (Vera List Center Manual on Art and Social Justice) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822362007 ISBN 13: 9780822362005

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2015

Synopsis

Providing a lively snapshot of the state of art and social justice today on a global level, Entry Points accompanies the inaugural Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics, launched at The New School on the occasion of the center’s twentieth anniversary. This book captures some of the most significant worldwide examples of art and social justice and introduces an interested audience of artists, policy makers, scholars, and writers to new ways of thinking about how justice is defined, advanced, and practiced through the arts. In so doing, it assembles some of the latest scholarship in this field while refining our vocabulary for speaking about social justice, social engagement, community enhancement, empowerment, and even art itself. The book's first half contains three essays by Thomas Keenan, Joćo Ribas, and Sharon Sliwinski that map the field of art and social justice. These essays are accompanied by more than twenty profiles of recent artist projects that consist of brief essays and artist pages. This curated and carefully considered map of artists and projects identifies key moments in art and social justice. The book's second half consists of an in-depth analysis of Theaster Gates's The Dorchester Projects, which won the inaugural Vera List Prize for Art and Politics. Produced to complement the project’s exhibition at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons School of Design in September 2013, this analysis illuminates Gates's rich, complex, and exemplary work. This section includes an interview between Gates and Vera List Center director Carin Kuoni; essays by Horace D. Ballard Jr., Romi N. Crawford, Shannon Jackson, and Mabel O. Wilson; and a number of responses to The Dorchester Projects by faculty in departments across The New School.

Published by Duke University Press and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School

About this title

About the Author:

Carin Kuoni is Director and Curator of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School and the editor of several books, most recently Speculation, Now.

Chelsea Haines is an art historian, curator, and writer based in New York.

Review:

"These projects are without fear, full of courage, and ethical commitment. Different from traditional activist practices, they are acts of civic engagement. Rather than occupying space they are about producing contexts that enable assembly, where the artists re-insert themselves, often without resources or infrastructures. But they have a democratic element to them that other people can draw from. This work aspires to create an analytical context. It is not about bringing a solution. We are doing the work together. The book in particular is a teaching project tying the values of education and social justice. Connecting those pedagogical values and ideas with the production of artists is invaluable." (Okwui Enwezor)

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0822362007
• ISBN 13: 9780822362005
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Kuoni Carin, Haines Chelsea