Social Practice Queens | SPQ SEMINAR New Forms: Participatory ...

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SPQ SEMINAR
New Forms: Participatory Art and Social Action
What is SPQ?

ARTS 730 (grad code): Gregory Sholette and Tom Finkelpearl

Seminars
Queens
College Art Dept. Mondays, 1:40 5:15 Klapper 174
From tactical media and interventionism to collectivism and community based art, this class will critically
survey
the theory and practice of recent, politically engaged visual culture while simultaneously locating it
Projects
within the recent history of mainstream contemporary art by focusing our attention on such questions as:
How do we define the public sphere in an increasingly privatized society? Is culture jamming and Hacktavism
thenew,
cutting-edge of artistic practice? Why are so many younger artists today choose to work together in
Studio
groups and collectives? Why has collective art reemerged today in the age of globalization, neo-liberalism,
and the homeland security state? Another principal aim of this course is to introduce students to the realm of
criticalPeople
theory and how it relates to their future role as cultural producers.
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Degree
READINGS:
Craig Owens Lower East Side
Blog
Unnatural Seculations gsholette

Stephen
Wright Escapeology Text
Complicty With Dark Matter_Sholette
Art-Enclave-TheoryROBERTS
Its The Political Economy Stupid excerpts
Whither Tactical Media 2008
deleuze.soc.
Chapter 2 Dark Matter PAD.D (Grin of the Archive)
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New Forms: Participatory Art and Social Action

ARTS 386 cross-listed with ARTS 730
GROUP RESEARCH QUESTIONS (class will divide into groups and select topics to research)
1. The definition question: How does social practice differentiate itself from social service ? Is this
important to resolve? What kind of questions and assumptions arise if we seek to make social practice its own
distinct artistic method? And what sort of questions and assumptions arise if we do not differentiate it from
art or from say, community work, environmental activism, urban reform, or social justice advocacy?
2. The institutionalization/academic question: Is social practice art radically opposed to mainstream art
and culture? Is it rejuvenating it? Or is it being co-opted by it? How can we frame this question to get beyond
simple answers and find a more engaging and useful thesis from which to work?
3. The context question: Who is a social practice artist and what sort of agency does she or he have in a
world of hyper-surveillance and economic ? And who is such work made for and why? Is it global or local,
white or black, academic, or populist? Does it have a specific historical framing? Is it logical to assume it will
be part of future arts academic curricula and how will this alter the study of art and of art criticism, history,
curating, etc..?

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4. The aesthetic question: Is there a social practice art-aesthetic or form or repertoire of forms specific
to this kind of work? If yes, what kind of questions do we need to ask in order to investigate what this
particular aesthetic consists of? And if there is no such thing as a social practice aesthetic how will this lack
impact the practice of social practice art if at all?
5. The organizational question: the practice of social practice art, as opposed to many other types of
artistic practice, inevitably involves processes of organization, administration, and self-governance. What
precedents exist regarding this conjoining of artistic and organizational needs and goals, and does a
distinctive hybrid of some type emerge from this entanglement?
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SOME OF THE GENERAL THEMES FOR THIS CLASS INCLUDE:
Urbanism/Gentrification/Squatting/Spatial Politics (politics of space)
History/Archive/Memory/Future
Fantasy, Resistance, The emergence of the Everyday
Labor/Work/Collaboration/Collectivism After Modernism
Tactics/Avant-Garde/ Technology/Surveillance Society
Markets/ Totality/Ideology Structures
Institutions/Organizing/Governance/Alternatives
Critiques of Socially Engaged Art Practices
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SYLLABUS
(We will try to make readings available online if possible)
1. Week One, Sept. 9: Introductions and Overview: The instructors will go over the structure of the class
and the requirements and then present an abbreviated history of post-1960s Social/Political/Community
Art primarily in the United States using several focused examples and questions. For example: How did it
come about that a set of buildings in Houston, Texas or a community center in Queens could be called a
work of art especially considering these projects are far, far away from traditional painting and sculpture
in the way they look, the way they operate, the authorship, their social function. What genealogy of art
has brought about such work today, what set of criteria do we need to understand it, and how does this
Social Turn affect the future of art and in particular, your art education?
1. Sept. 16: Urbanism I/The intersection of social practice and urban planning. How can art intervene in a
city? Compare the goals and accomplishments of Corona Plaza here n Queens and Project Row Houses
in Houston, Texas.
Reading: Interview with Rick Lowe and Mark Stern from Chapter 5 of What We Made: Conversations on Art
and Social Cooperation.
See also:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-06-07-corona-plaza.pdf
http://www.streetfilms.org/queens-corona-plaza-a-community-place-rises/
1. Sept. 23: Urbanism II: Gentrification, Squatting and the Politics of Space. What really is gentrification?
Who does it affect? Are there alternatives? How do artists and other cultural workers relate to this
process? Are they victims or perpetrators or are they something in between, something more complex?
Readings: Unnatural Speculations: Nature as an icon of urban resistance on NYCs Lower: Unnatural
Seculations gsholette

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East Side 1979-1984. G. Sholette, 1997 & The Problem with Puerilism Craig Owens, 1984: Craig Owens
Lower East Side
See also: If You Lived Here by Martha Rosler, Dia Foundation 1989:
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/underprivileged-spaces-on-martha-rosler%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cif-youlived-here-%E2%80%9D/
http://www.e-flux.com/program/martha-rosler-if-you-lived-here-still/
1. Sept. 30: Immigration/Frontiers/Borders/Refugees. The class will meet at Immigrant Movement
International, Corona, Queens. Compare and contrast the work of Teddy Cruz, Pedro Lasch and Tania
Bruguera. All are deeply engaged with issues of art and immigration. How doe they choose to enact
their ideas?
Reading: Chapter 9, from What We Made, An interview with Pedro Lasch and Teddy Cruz.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/arts/design/immigrant-movement-international-in-queens.html?_r=0
http://vimeo.com/33193227
1. Oct. 7: Social Practice & labor I. Focusing on artist Mierle Ukeles and Rev-we will compare the
relationship between Rev- and Mierle Ukeles in terms of their relationship with the workers they
collaborate with. How do the community participants have a say in the artwork?
Reading: Chapter 10, from What We Made, interview with Ukeles and Brett Cook.
Review Web site: http://www.studiorev.org/
1. Oct. 15 (** Tuesday on QC Monday Schedule**): Social Practice & labor II : Collectivism & The
Everyday. How does labor power express itself differently in a socially collaborative context as opposed
to the disciplinary routines of work? How is the very notion of labor changing today and has the
everyday become a pivotal space of intervention not only for socially-engaged artists and activists, but
also for the global marketplace?
Readings: And Then You Disappear, Stephen Wright: Stephen Wright Escapeology Text & Complicity with
Dark Matter, GSholette: Complicty With Dark Matter_Sholette
1. Oct. 21: Open Session, Discussion & Evaluation of where Research Groups are at.
1. Oct. 28 : Tactics/Avant-Garde/ Technology/Surveillance I. What is the nature of the Internet and does it
function as a new kind of public space? How do online art projects differ from others discussed in the
class that take place in the physical world? What is gained and lost by working online?
Reading: Chapter 11, parts 1 and 2 in What We Made interviews Evan Roth & Jonah Peretti.
Find an internet based artwork that uses collaboration, cooperation, crowd sourcing , or the like.
Example: http://www.tenthousandcents.com/
1. Nov. 5: Tactics/Avant-Garde/ Technology/Surveillance II. Is the idea of Tactical Media still viable after
Occupy, Arab Spring, and the Movement of the Squares and the recent revelations regarding the power
of government surveillance? Is there a next step or a missing piece to this once optimistic set of
expectations regarding the electronic public sphere?
Readings: Whither Tactical Media, introduction by Ray & Sholette; Society of Control:Whither Tactical Media
2008, & Giles Deleauze: deleuze.soc.
1. Nov. 12: History/Archive/Memory/Future. The accumulated practices, projects, ideas, fantasies, hopes
of artists and social activists from a kind of invisible archive of possibilities that extends possibilities and
limitations to current action. How is this relevant to social practice artists, or is it?
Reading: Grin of the Archive, Chapter 2 from Dark Matter, gsholette: Chapter 2 Dark Matter PAD.D (Grin of
the Archive)
Public art: monument in Mexico City to the victims of the
violence:http://www.drugwar101.com/blog/archives/9856

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Nov.19:
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Dec. 2:
Dec. 9:

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Books you may want to purchase for this course:

What We Made: Conversations on Art & Social Cooperation, Tom Finkelpearl, Duke U. Press, 2013.
Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, Gregory Sholette, Pluto Press, 2011.
Collectivism After Modernism, Stimson and Sholette, U. of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Artificial Hells, Claire Bishop, Verso Books, 2012.
Conversation Pieces Community and Communication in Modern Art. Grant Kester, University of California
Press, 2004.
The Interventionists: Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life. Nato Thompson and
Gregory Sholette eds., Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art/MIT Press, 2004.
Other Online Resources:
http://darkmatterarchives.net
http://www.queensmuseum.org/blog/
http://www.socialpracticequeens.org/
http://www.sholetteseminars.com/dark-matter-syllabus-cuny-grad-center/
_____________________________________________________________________
Since 2002, Tom Finkelpearl has served as the Executive Director of the Queens Museum of Art, which
operates as a cultural crossroads in Americas most diverse county through art programs, community
organizing, and educational outreach. Finkelpearl was previously Deputy Director at P.S.1 Contemporary Art
Center during its merger with the Museum of Modern Art, and has also worked as the Director of New York
Citys Percent for Art Program and as the Executive Director of The Skowhegan School of Painting and
Sculpture in Maine. Finkelpearls book Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press) was published in 2000. His new
book, What We Make: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation, is forthcoming from Duke University
Press. Finkelpearl received a BA from Princeton University and an MFA from Hunter College, CUNY. His most
recent book What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation, was recently published by Duke
University Press.
Gregory Sholette is a New York-based artist, writer, a founding member of Political Art
Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D: 1980-1988), and REPOhistory (1989-2000). His recent books include
Dark Matter: Art and Politics in an Age of Enterprise Culture, Pluto Press, 2011, and co-author of Its The
Political Economy, Stupid with Oliver Ressler, 2013. The first episode of his new graphic novel Double City will
appear in Frieze Magazine this coming summer, and his most recent exhibitions include the
installation Exposed Pipe/ / for the American University Beirut art gallery; Torrent for Printed
Matter Books in Chelsea; iDrone for cyberartspace.net; 15 Islands for Robert Moses at the Queens Museum of
Art Panorama, and the Imaginary Archive: Galway, Ireland. An Assistant Professor and MFA Chair of
Sculpture at Queens College: City University of New York (CUNY), he also teaches at the Grad Center; is a
member of Gulf Labor Coalition; The Institute for Wishful Thinking; and an academic adviser for the new,
Home Workspace Program in Beirut, Lebanon.
Social Practice Queens (SPQ)
Web Design by Cynthia Moralez

Queens College Art Department

Klapper Hall, Room 172
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, NY 11367

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Queens Museum SPQ Studio

Studio Program, Room 9
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Corona, NY 11368

QUESTIONS?

MAKE CONTACT!

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