Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art

Rethinking Art's Histories

by Mechtild Widrich

This book answers one of the most puzzling questions in contemporary how did performance artists of the '60s and '70s, famous for their opposition both to lasting art and the political establishment, become the foremost monument builders of the '80s, '90s and today? Not by selling out, nor by making self-undermining monuments.This book argues that the centrality of performance to monuments and indeed public art in general rests not on its ephemerality or anti-authoritarian rhetoric, but on its power to build interpersonal bonds both personal and social. Specifically, the survival of body art in photographs that cross time and space to meet new audiences makes it literally into a monument.Readers interested in contemporary art, politics, photography and performance will find in this book new facts and arguments for their interconnection.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 2014

About the author

Mechtild Widrich is Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.

Reviews

[Mills College Library]

709.04075 W641 2014