Suchergebnisse

In this paper I trace the contradictions embedded in global artistic circulation, which is dialectically analysed as a nexus of exploitation and a site where the commons can be instituted. To enable this argument, I synthesise the methodologies of dialectical materialism, the sociology of art and action research, supplementing a theoretical overview of systemic pressures with a keen observation of the social practices that emerge in critical response to it. Basing my analysis on empirical evidence, I examine social conflicts, triggered by the extracting value from the distributed labour of artistic networks, as political opportunities to be seized by progressive art workers. Thus, I propose a new perspective on current processes of incorporating contemporary art into the late-capitalist cycles of accumulation and modes of establishing and reproducing social distinctions. Instead of mourning for – presumably lost but still positively valorised – artistic autonomy, I argue for a revamping of the apparatuses regulating artistic circulation for the sake of the labouring multitudes.

The Critical Practice research group at Chelsea undertook an eighteen month research project resulted in PARADE. We collaborated with Polish curator Kuba Szreder to develop a project to explore the diverse, contested and vital conceptions of being in public. In a bespoke, temporary structure designed by award-winning Polish architects Ola Wasilkowska and Michał Piasecki - assembled in public - we produced a landmark event in Chelsea College of Art and Design's Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, with a host of international contributors. The event included both a day of barcamps and a market of ideas. The structure, whcih used over 4000 milk crates, was constructed by members of Critical Practice, with PhD students and students from the MA Interior and Spatial Design Course at Chelsea.