Pedagogical Art in Activist and Curatorial Practices

This edited volume highlights the historical, philosophical and theoretical legacies of pedagogical art and examines its connections with various forms of activism and institutional transformation. Chapters reveal interconnected concerns related to institutional power structures, systemic racism, sexism and gender biases in art institutions, exclusionary tactics of neoliberal corporate interests and the politicization of culture in authoritarian regimes. This volume brings together leading and emerging scholars, curators and artists who have written case studies from various geographical, cultural and political contexts. Through a range of different approaches and diverse perspectives, contributors address key debates and conversations on this topic including the lessons that can be learned from exploring global histories of critical pedagogy, the possibilities and constraints of institutional critique and transformation within museums, universities and other educational institutions, and the many ways in which contemporary pedagogical art has intersected with art and activism around the world. Through these debates, contributors investigate the potential of pedagogical art as a transformative institutional tool with the potential to activate discursive spaces for generating, sharing and amplifying knowledge as a powerful form of collective resistance. This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, art education and museum studies, among other fields.

Izabel Galliera is the Dorothy and Dale Thompson Missouri Endowed Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), USA. She is the author of Socially Engaged Art After Socialism: Art and Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe (2017 and 2022). Noni Brynjolson is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Minnesota State University Moorhead, USA. She has published essays in a number of edited books and journals and is a member of the editorial collective of FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism.

Introduction: Pedagogical Art in Activist and Curatorial Practices Part 1: Pedagogies in Art: Histories, Theories and Philosophies 1. The Liberatory Lecturer: Cutting Through the Educational Fault Lines in Art and Politics 2. Teaching Across and Beyond the Waves: Mónica Mayer and the Generative Legacies of Feminist Artistic Pedagogy in Mexico 3. Archives as Didactic Tools: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Emancipatory Pedagogies in East-Central Europe 4. Radical Listening as Collective Education: Learning from Cádiz Carnival Music 5. Aesthetic Education in a Community Art Project in Rural China: A Case Study of the Shijiezi Art Museum 6. Pedagogy on Stage: Climate Change and the Performance-as-Lecture Part 2: Pedagogies as Tools in Institutional Transformations and Counter-Institutions 7. To Let the Art Do Its Job 8. Reading Theory to Overcome Institutional Crisis: Colectivo Artificio's Experiments in Dialogic Learning and Artistic Collaboration in El Salvador 9. Smoke and Mirrors: Fugitive Crip Way-Finding and Artful Deception in the Museum 10. The Classroom as Borderland: Borderlands Art Pedagogy 11. Challenging Institutional Narratives in the 21st Century: Visibilities, Museum Studies and the "Student Experience" Part 3: Pedagogies in Art and Activist Platforms 12. Communiversity: Inside and Outside Art Education 13. Indigenous Pedagogies in Portage: Intimate and Collaborative Learning to Support Climate Adaptation 14. Throwing Stones at the Wall: Pedagogical Art and the Immovability of Museums 15. Socially Engaged Art and Pedagogical Experiments from Contemporary China 16. Edupropaganda: Education in an Illiberal Democracy 17. A Conceptual Artist in Every School