Download or read book Democratic Art written by Sharon Ann Musher and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At its height in 1935, the New Deal devoted roughly $27 million ($320 million today) to supporting tens of thousands of needy writers, dancers, actors, musicians, and visual artists, who created over 100,000 worksbooks, murals, plays, concertsthat were performed for or otherwise imbibed by millions of Americans. But why did the government get so involved with the arts in the first place? Musher addresses this question and many others by exploring the political and aesthetic concerns of the 1930s, as well as the range of responsesfrom politicians, intellectuals, artists, and taxpayersto the idea of active government involvement in the arts. In the process, she raises vital questions about the roles that the arts should play in contemporary society."
Download or read book Film the Democratic Art written by Garth Jowett and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 1976 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Art in Public written by Lambert Zuidervaart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines fundamental questions about funding for the arts: why should governments provide funding for the arts? What do the arts contribute to daily life? Do artists and their publics have a social responsibility? Challenging questionable assumptions about the state, the arts and a democratic society, Lambert Zuidervaart presents a vigorous case for government funding, based on crucial contributions the arts make to civil society. He argues that the arts contribute to democratic communication and a social economy, fostering the critical and creative dialogue that a democratic society needs. Informed by the author's experience leading a non-profit arts organisation as well as his expertise in the arts, humanities and social sciences, this book proposes an entirely new conception of the public role of art with wide-ranging implications for education, politics and cultural policy.
Download or read book Democratic Art written by Sharon Ann Musher and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the Great Recession American artists and public art endowments have had to fight for government support to keep themselves afloat. It wasn’t always this way. At its height in 1935, the New Deal devoted $27 million—roughly $461 million today—to supporting tens of thousands of needy artists, who used that support to create more than 100,000 works. Why did the government become so involved with these artists, and why weren’t these projects considered a frivolous waste of funds, as surely many would be today? In Democratic Art, Sharon Musher explores these questions and uses them as a springboard for an examination of the role art can and should play in contemporary society. Drawing on close readings of government-funded architecture, murals, plays, writing, and photographs, Democratic Art examines the New Deal’s diverse cultural initiatives and outlines five perspectives on art that were prominent at the time: art as grandeur, enrichment, weapon, experience, and subversion. Musher argues that those engaged in New Deal art were part of an explicitly cultural agenda that sought not just to create art but to democratize and Americanize it as well. By tracing a range of aesthetic visions that flourished during the 1930s, this highly original book outlines the successes, shortcomings, and lessons of the golden age of government funding for the arts.
Download or read book Democratic Vistas written by Marlene Park and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy written by Fred Evans and published by Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts. This book was released on 2018 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fred Evans develops philosophical and political criteria for assessing how public art can respond to the fragility of democracy. He calls for considering such artworks as acts of citizenship, pointing to their capacity to resist autocratic tendencies and reveal new dimensions of democratic society.
Download or read book American Quilts written by Robert Shaw and published by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2009 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This photographed book covers the historical panorama of quiltmaking in the United States, from the quintessential patterns to their cultural significance.--[Book jacket.].
Download or read book The Arts of Democratization written by Jennifer M. Kapczynski and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-02-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How postwar West German democracy was styled through word, image, sound, performance, and gathering
Download or read book David s Sling written by Victoria C. Gardner Coates and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout Western history, the societies that have made the greatest contributions to the spread of freedom have created iconic works of art to celebrate their achievements. Yet despite the enduring appeal of these works—from the Parthenon to Michelangelo’s David to Picasso’s Guernica—histories of both art and democracy have ignored this phenomenon. Millions have admired the artworks covered in this book but relatively few know why they were commissioned, what was happening in the culture that produced them, or what they were meant to achieve. Even scholars who have studied them for decades often miss the big picture by viewing them in isolation from a larger story of human striving. David’s Sling places into context ten canonical works of art executed to commemorate the successes of free societies that exerted political and economic influence far beyond what might have been expected of them. Fusing political and art history with a judicious dose of creative reconstruction, Victoria Coates has crafted a lively narrative around each artistic object and the free system that inspired it. This book integrates the themes of creative excellence and political freedom to bring a fresh, new perspective to both. In telling the stories of ten masterpieces, David’s Sling invites reflection on the synergy between liberty and human achievement.
Download or read book 10 Years 100 Artists written by Sophie Perryer and published by Struik Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrating ten years of democracy with a showcase of contemporary South African photography.
Download or read book The Democratic Surround written by Fred Turner and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “smart and fascinating” reassessment of postwar American culture and the politics of the 1960s from the author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture (Reason Magazine). We tend to think of the sixties as an explosion of creative energy and freedom that arose in direct revolt against the social restraint and authoritarian hierarchy of the early Cold War years. Yet, as Fred Turner reveals in The Democratic Surround, the decades that brought us the Korean War and communist witch hunts also witnessed an extraordinary turn toward explicitly democratic, open, and inclusive ideas of communication—and with them new, flexible models of social order. Surprisingly, he shows that it was this turn that brought us the revolutionary multimedia and wild-eyed individualism of the 1960s counterculture. In this prequel to his celebrated book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Turner rewrites the history of postwar America, showing how in the 1940s and ‘50s American liberalism offered a far more radical social vision than we now remember. He tracks the influential mid-century entwining of Bauhaus aesthetics with American social science and psychology. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Turner shows how some of the best-known artists and intellectuals of the forties developed new models of media, new theories of interpersonal and international collaboration, and new visions of an open, tolerant, and democratic self in direct contrast to the repression and conformity associated with the fascist and communist movements. He then shows how their work shaped some of the most significant media events of the Cold War, including Edward Steichen’s Family of Man exhibition, the multimedia performances of John Cage, and, ultimately, the psychedelic Be-Ins of the sixties. Turner demonstrates that by the end of the 1950s this vision of the democratic self and the media built to promote it would actually become part of the mainstream, even shaping American propaganda efforts in Europe. Overturning common misconceptions of these transformational years, The Democratic Surround shows just how much the artistic and social radicalism of the sixties owed to the liberal ideals of Cold War America, a democratic vision that still underlies our hopes for digital media today. “Brilliant . . . [an] excellent and thought-provoking book.” —Tropics of Meta
Download or read book Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship written by Brian Danoff and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At a time when the forces of administrative despotism are on the march and Winfreyesque rhetoric passes for moral leadership and intellectual sophistication, Brian Danoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr., have assembled a compelling collection of timely essays on the political thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, that liberal thinker of the first rank who endeavored to see f̀urther than the parties' without any pretense to post-partisanship, who understood that more democracy is not always the answer to every problem of democracy, and who concerned himself with educating democratic peoples so that they may live together as free citizens rather than exist independently as dependent subjects. This fine collection situates Tocqueville within the history of ideas, ancient and modern, and examines the significance of his observations, predictions, and prescriptions as they pertain to a wide variety of topics with contemporary relevance. The chapters in this volume articulate the proper relationship between political theory, political science, and political practice, emphasizing the necessity for genuine republican statesmanship while honestly wondering about its chances given the trajectory of late modern America."--Travis D. Smith. Concordia University, Montreal.
Download or read book The Democratic Arts of Mourning written by Alexander Keller Hirsch and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Democratic Arts of Mourning reflects on the variety of ways in which mourning affects political and social life. In recent decades, political theorists have increasingly examined and explored the themes of loss, grief, and mourning. With an introduction that contextualizes the turn to mourning in previous scholarship on the politics of tragedy, this book includes twelve chapters that clarify the intertwinement between politics and mourning. The chapters are organized into five thematic sections that each shed light on how democratic societies relate to loss, grief, suffering, and death. Collectively, the chapters explore the concept of mourning and its relationship to civic rituals, memorials, taboos, social movements, and popular music. Chapters examine how social groups defend their members against experiences of grief or mourning, or how poetic expressions—such as ancient Greek tragedy—can address the catastrophes of human life. Other chapters explore the politics of symbols and bodies, and how they can become fraught objects that stand in for a society’s undigested—unmourned—losses and absences. The book concludes with an interview with Bonnie Honig, whose own work on mourning has been deeply influential in contemporary political theory.
Download or read book Dewey for Artists written by Mary Jane Jacob and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Dewey is known as a pragmatic philosopher and progressive architect of American educational reform, but some of his most important contributions came in his thinking about art. Dewey argued that there is strong social value to be found in art, and it is artists who often most challenge our preconceived notions. Dewey for Artists shows us how Dewey advocated for an “art of democracy.” Identifying the audience as co-creator of a work of art by virtue of their experience, he made space for public participation. Moreover, he believed that societies only become—and remain—truly democratic if its citizens embrace democracy itself as a creative act, and in this he advocated for the social participation of artists. Throughout the book, Mary Jane Jacob draws on the experiences of contemporary artists who have modeled Dewey’s principles within their practices. We see how their work springs from deeply held values. We see, too, how carefully considered curatorial practice can address the manifold ways in which aesthetic experience happens and, thus, enable viewers to find greater meaning and purpose. And it is this potential of art for self and social realization, Jacob helps us understand, that further ensures Dewey’s legacy—and the culture we live in.
Download or read book Design as Democratic Inquiry written by Carl Disalvo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through practices of collaborative imagination and making, or "doing design otherwise,” design experiments can contribute to keeping local democracies vibrant. In this counterpoint to the grand narratives of design punditry, Carl DiSalvo presents what he calls “doing design otherwise.” Arguing that democracy requires constant renewal and care, he shows how designers can supply novel contributions to local democracy by drawing together theory and practice, making and reflection. The relentless pursuit of innovation, uncritical embrace of the new and novel, and treatment of all things as design problems, says DiSalvo, can lead to cultural imperialism. In Design as Democratic Inquiry, he recounts a series of projects that exemplify engaged design in practice. These experiments in practice-based research are grounded in collaborations with communities and institutions. The projects DiSalvo describes took place from 2014 to 2019 in Atlanta. Rather than presume that government, industry—or academia—should determine the outcome, the designers began with the recognition that the residents and local organizations were already creative and resourceful. DiSalvo uses the projects to show how design might work as a mode of inquiry. Resisting heroic stories of design and innovation, he argues for embracing design as fragile, contingent, partial, and compromised. In particular, he explores how design might be leveraged to facilitate a more diverse civic imagination. A fundamental tenet of design is that the world is made, and therefore it could be made differently. A key concept is that democracy requires constant renewal and care. Thus, designing becomes a way to care, together, for our collective future.
Download or read book Politically Unbecoming written by Anthony Gardner and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mapping contemporary artists who reject the aesthetics of democratization (and its neoliberal associations) in order to explore alternative politics and practices. From biennials and installations to participatory practices, contemporary art has come to embrace an aesthetic of democratization. Art's capacity for democracy building now defines its contemporary relevance, part of a broader, global glorification of democracy as, it seems, the only legitimate model of politics. Yet numerous artists reject the alignment of art and democracy--in part because democracy has been associated not only with utopian political visions but also with neoliberal incursions and military interventions. It is just this paradox of democracy that Anthony Gardner explores in Politically Unbecoming, examining work from the 1980s to the 2000s by artists who have challenged democracy as the defining political, critical, and aesthetic frame for their work. In doing so, these artists also develop alternative artistic politics and practices that can remap the transformations in art and its politics since the end of the Cold War. The artists whose work Gardner examines all spent their formative years in Eastern or Western Europe, developing "postsocialist" practices in the wake of socialism's eclipse by neoliberalism (and inspired by nonconformist art from socialist-era Europe). All of these artists--who include Ilya Kabakov, the art collective NSK, and Thomas Hirschhorn--depend on participation between audience and artwork; yet for them, participation does not exemplify democratization but rather offers critical engagement with certain tropes of democracy. These artists, Gardner argues, enact an aesthetic that is "politically unbecoming" in two senses: in its withdrawal from overdetermined political categories of contemporary art; and in its perceived indecency in defying the "propriety" of democracy.
Download or read book Art Demonstration written by Claire Grace and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of Group Material, the influential but underexamined New York–based artist collective, investigating a series of key works. Key predecessor of contemporary art’s most radical activist gestures, the 1980s collective Group Material seized upon the temporary exhibition as a prime mode of intervention. Projects sited on walls, subways, and billboards targeted some of the most sensitive political conflicts of the era, from U.S. military interventions in Latin America to the AIDS crisis. In Art Demonstration, Claire Grace examines Group Material’s New York–based collaboration across a decade that saw a wave of renewed interest in art as a domain of political mobilization. As Grace argues here, Group Material’s art was never just a means to an end; looking itself held urgency. Grace distinguishes between two types of Group Material projects: room-scale interiors featuring distinctive wall treatments, soundtracks, and boundary-crossing arrangements of objects, and works in spaces usually reserved for advertising. Grace analyzes the group’s practice in both categories, examining such well-known projects as AIDS Timeline (1989) and Democracy (1988–1989) and lesser-known works including Subculture (1983) and The Castle (1987). Grace shows that the politics running through Group Material’s practice ultimately resides in the artists’ particular recourse to the exhibition form. With that bearing, Group Material’s work insisted on the material in the face of postmodern theory’s privileging of the discursive, and redistributed authorship within protean and pivotally diverse collective structures, testing in so doing the ever fragile contours of democratic participation as art became a commodity for speculative investment.
