Overview
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Key predecessor of contemporary artās 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 Materialās New Yorkābased collaboration across a decade that saw a wave of renewed interest in art as a domain of political mobilization. As Grace argues here, Group Materialās art was never just a means to an end; looking itself held urgency.
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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 groupās practice in both categories, examining such well-known projects as AIDS Timeline (1989) and Democracy (1988ā1989) and lesser-known works including Subculture (1983) and The Castle (1987). Grace shows that the politics running through Group Materialās practice ultimately resides in the artistsā particular recourse to the exhibition form. With that bearing, Group Materialās work insisted on the material in the face of postmodern theoryās 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.
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This book title, Art Demonstration (Group Material and the 1980s), ISBN: 9780262543521, by Claire Grace, published by MIT Press (April 5, 2022) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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