Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011

Thompson's survey of the last 20 years of socially-engaged, participatory, and often politically active art attempts to contextualize and historicize this diverse array of works "that emphasize participation, challenge power, and span disciplines." Seeking to transcend the view that art is a commodity in a gallery, the artists and organizations presented here create work "that involves more people than objects, whose horizon is social and political change." In 2007, Paul Chan put on free performances of Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" in New Orleans' hurricane-stricken Lower Ninth Ward, while raising funds for local relief agencies. Enacting a more generalized critique of U.S. foreign policy and capitalism, The Yes Men printed and disseminated false editions of major global newspapers, and invented the "Dow Acceptable Risk calculator" which determines "how many deaths are acceptable when achieving profits." Interestingly, projects and events that are not typically considered art, such as Wikileaks, the celebrations that took place in Harlem after Barack Obama was elected President, and the occupation by protesters of Cairo's Tahrir Square in the Spring of 2011are also included, in a sense divorcing the notion of art from that of the individual artist. "As art enters life," Thompson (editor, The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life) writes, "the question that will motivate people far more than What is art? is the much more metaphysically relevant and pressing What is life?" Photos. (Mar.)