Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good [Hardcover]

Essays, dialogues, and art projects that illuminate the changing role of art as it responds to radical economic, political, and global shifts.

How should we understand the purpose of publicly engaged art in the twenty-first century, when the very term "public art" is largely insufficient to describe such practices??
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Concepts such as "new genre public art," "social practice," or "socially engaged art" may imply a synergy between the role of art and the role of government in providing social services. Yet the arts and social services differ crucially in terms of their methods and metrics. Socially engaged artists need not be aligned (and may often be opposed) to the public sector and to institutionalized systems.?In many countries, structures of democratic governance and public responsibility are shifting, eroding, and being remade in profound waysdriven by radical economic, political, and global forces. According to what terms and through what means can art engage with these changes?
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This volume gathers essays, dialogues, and art projectssome previously published and some newly commissionedto illuminate the ways the arts shape and reshape a rapidly changing social and governmental landscape. An artist portfolio section presents original statements and projects by some of the key figures grappling with these ideas.

Public Servants boldly reaffirms the necessity of talking about art and politics together. In it, everything we thought we knew about both becomes questionable. This bracing, passionate, thrilling collection shakes it all up and goes after the clich?s and the taboos with unrelenting fervor. It doesn't tell us what to do, but it will certainly help us to figure that out for ourselves.

Extraordinary in its range and depth, Public Servants is an essenl³.