To be involved in politics without aspiring to govern, without seeking to be governed by the best leaders, without desiring to abolish all forms of government: such is the condition common to practitioners of nongovernmental politics. Whether these activists concern themselves with providing humanitarian aid, monitoring human rights violations, protecting the environment, educating consumers, or improving the safety of workers, the legitimacy and efficacy of their initiatives demand that they forsake conventional political ambitions. Yet even as they challenge specific governmental...

This generously illustrated volume surveys a new chapter in the history of environmental art, one in which space, geopolitics, human relations, urbanism, and utopian dreamwork play as important a role as, if not more than, raw earth. Discussed are case studies by seven artists and two artist teams--Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Yael Bartana, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Emre Huner, Andrea Geyer, Matthew Day Jackson, Lucy Raven, and Santiago Sierra. While some of these artists explore historical and symbolic configurations of space, others parse the...