The gestures of participatory art / Sruti Bala.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Gestures of institutional critique -- 2. On the inconvenient means and ends of participation -- 3. Unsolicited gestures of participation -- 4. Vicarious gestures of participation -- 5. Delicate gestures of participation -- Conclusion: between image, act, body and language.

Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation and refusal, the book examines a range of artistic practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a way of theorising participatory art, situating it between the visual and the performing arts, as both individual and collective, both internal attitude and social habitude.

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