In an increasingly polarized world, with shifting and extreme politics, Social Forms illustrates artists at the forefront of political and social resistance. Highlighting different moments of crisis and how these are reflected and preserved through crucial artworks, it also asks how to make art in the age of Brexit, Trump, and the refugee and climate crises. In Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, renowned critic, curator, and writer Christian Viveros-Fauné has picked fifty representative artworks—from Francisco de Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810–1820) to David Hammons’s In the Hood (1993)—that give voice to some of modern art’s strongest calls to political action. In accessible and witty entries on each piece, Viveros-Fauné paints a picture of the context in which each work was created, the artist’s background, and the historical impact of each contribution. At times artists create projects that subvert existing power structures; at other moments they make artwork so powerful it challenges the very fabric of society. Whether it is Picasso’s Guernica and its place at the 1937 Worlds Fair, or Jenny Holzer’s Truisms (1977–1979), which still stop us in our tracks, this book tells the story behind some of the most important and unexpected encounters between artworks and the real worlds they engage with. Never professing to be a definitive history of political art, Social Forms delivers a unique and compelling portrait of how artists during the last 150 years have dealt with changing political systems, the violence of modern warfare, the rise of consumer culture worldwide, the prevalence of inequality and racism, and the challenges of technology.

This book argues for a renewed understanding of the fundamentally uncanny quality of the medium of photography. It especially makes the case for the capacity of certain photographs—precisely through their uncanniness—to contest structures of political and social dominance. The uncanny as a quality that unsettles the perception of home emerges as a symptom of modern and contemporary society and also as an aesthetic apparatus by which some key photographs critique the hegemony of capitalist and industrialist domains. The book’s historical scope is large, beginning with William Henry Fox Talbot and closing with contemporary indigenous photographer Bear Allison and contemporary African American photographer Devin Allen. Through close readings, exegesis, of individual photographs and careful deployment of contemporary political and aesthetic theory, The Photographic Uncanny argues for a re-envisioning of the political capacity of photography to expose the haunted, homeless, condition of modernity.

This book examines the role of post-conflict memorial arts in bringing about gender justice in transitional societies. Art and post-violence memorialisation are currently widely debated. Scholars of human rights and of commemorative arts discuss the aesthetics and politics not only of sites of commemoration, but of literature, poetry, visual arts and increasingly, film and comics. Art, memory and activism are also increasingly intertwined. But within the literature around post-conflict transitional justice and critical human rights studies, there is little questioning about what memorial arts do for gender justice, how women and men are included and represented, and how this intertwines with other questions of identity and representation, such as race and ethnicity. The book brings together research from scholars around the world who are interested in the gendered dimensions of memory-making in transitional societies. Addressing a global range of cases, including genocide, authoritarianism, civil war, electoral violence and apartheid, they consider not only the gendered commemoration of past violence, but also the possibility of producing counter-narratives that unsettle and challenge established stereotypes. Aimed at those interested in the fields of transitional justice, memory studies, post-conflict peacebuilding, human rights and gender studies, this book will appeal to academics, researchers and practitioners.

Politics as Public Art presents a keystone collection that pursues new frameworks for a critical understanding of the relationship between public art and protest movements through the utilization of socially engaged and choreopolitical approaches. This anthology draws from a unique combination of interdisciplinary scholarship and activism where it integrates geographically rich perspectives from political and grassroots community contexts spanning the United States, Europe, Australia, and Southeastern Africa. The volume questions, and reimagines, not only how public art practice can be integral to politics, including forms of surveillance and control of bodily movement. It also probes into how political participation itself can be construed as a form of public artmaking for radical social change and just worlds. This collection advocates for scholar-activist inquiry into how socially engaged public art practices can pave the way for thinking through—and working toward—championing more inclusive futures and, as such, choreographing greater intersectional justice. This book provides a wide appeal to audiences across humanities and social science scholarship, arts practice, and activism seeking conceptual and empirically informed tools for moving from public art and choreopolitical theory into modes of praxis: critical reflection and action.

An intellectual history of contrasting ideas around the power of the arts to bring about personal and societal change - for better and worse. A fascinating account of the value and functions of the arts in society, in both the private sphere of individual emotions and self-development and public sphere of politics and social distinction.

Taking inspiration from the classic text by Raymond Williams, Keywords in Criminology reflects on the language used by criminologists and offers a one‐stop guide to core concepts in the discipline. Written for the budding Criminology student, it offers a specialized but plain dictionary for a specialized discipline. From Abolitionism to Xenophobia, the entries unveil the ambiguities and conflicting interpretations of the concepts discussed, and explore their historical context, their analytical use, adoption or critical rejection. The original formulation of each concept is examined along with the practices the concept has shaped, and the favourable and unfavourable outcomes it has generated. Keywords in Criminology is a handy and pithy companion for any Criminology student. It offers excellent supplementary reading for core courses on criminological, social and cultural theory.

This volume is an anthology of current groundbreaking research on social practice art. Contributing scholars provide a variety of assessments of recent projects as well as earlier precedents, define approaches to art production, and provide crucial political context. The topics and art projects covered, many of which the authors have experienced firsthand, represent the work of innovative artists whose creative practice is utilized to engage audience members as active participants in effecting social and political change. Chapters are divided into four parts that cover history, specific examples, global perspectives, and critical analysis.