Art and the City

Artistic practices have long been disturbing the relationships between art and space. They have challenged the boundaries of performer/spectator, of public/private, introduced intervention and installation, ephemerality and performance, and constantly sought out new modes of distressing expectations about what is construed as art. But when we expand the world in which we look at art, how does this change our understanding of critical artistic practice? This book presents a global perspective on the relationship between art and the city. International and leading scholars and artists themselves present critical theory and practice of contemporary art as a politicised force. It extends thinking on contemporary arts practices in the urban and political context of protest and social resilience and offers the prism of a 'critical artscape' in which to view the urgent interaction of arts and the urban politic. The global appeal of the book is established through the general topic as well as the specific chapters, which are geographically, socially, politically and professionally varied. Contributing authors come from many different institutional and anti-institutional perspectives from across the world. This will be valuable reading for those interested in cultural geography, urban geography and urban culture, as well as contemporary art theorists, practitioners and policymakers.

Jason Luger is an urban researcher and Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. Julie Ren is a Fellow in Human Geography at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom.

Foreword. Introduction. 1. How Colour Replaces Fear 2. The Collective Moment: Post-Museum's Rowell Road Period 3. Art/Movement as a Public Platform: Artistic Creations in the Sunflower Movement and the Umbrella Movement 4. Ghana ThinkTank: Mobility, Reversal and Cultural Differences 5. Diversifying the Stage of Policymaking - A New Policy Network in Berlin's Cultural Field 6. Alternative Art Schools in London: Contested Space and the Emergence of New Modes of Learning in Practice 7. RENT Poet: Commodity, Respectability and Scam in Los Angeles 8. Artist Activism as Essential Threshold from the 'Peaceful, Rational, Non-violence' Demonstrations towards Revolution: Social Actions in Hong Kong in the pre-Umbrella Movement Era 9. The Climate Games: Space, Politics and Resistance at the COP21 Paris 10. New Genre Public Commission? The Subversive Dimensions of Public Art in post-Fordist Capitalism 11. Unpacking Public Places in Gothenburg - The Event City: Becoming a Cannibal 12. Our House in the Middle of the Street 13. Crowd Creations: Interpreting Occupy Art in Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement 14. #Beirut, Urbanism and I: Framing the City through Space, Identity and Conflict. Conclusion