A man selling kebabs in the shadow of a papier mache tree; a woman standing with a small stage built around her breasts while people wait their turn to touch them; another woman projecting snapshots of Belgrade with the official buildings painted out: what do these events have in common? All are works of public art. And all take a cue from the fugitive art of performance. The most forceful monuments of the last few decades, whether built to last on national malls or flashed as signs of protest, were in fact designed by performance artists.
This book argues for the conceptual significance...

If participation has been an ideal in politics since ancient democracy, in art it became central only with the avant-gardes emerging from WWI and the Russian Revolution. Politics and aesthetics are still catching up with each other. In the 21st Century, since the revolutionary unrest of the 1960s, participation in art and architecture has lost its utopian glow and become the focus of a fierce debate: does participatory art and architecture shape social reality, or is it shaped by it?Contemporary critics see in participation only technocratic control, while others embrace it as a viable...

If participation has been an ideal in politics since ancient democracy, in art it became central only with the avant-gardes emerging from WWI and the Russian Revolution. Politics and aesthetics are still catching up with each other. In the 21st century, since the revolutionary unrest of the 1960s, participation in art and architecture has lost its utopian glow and become the focus of a fierce debate: does 'participatory' art and architecture shape social reality, or is it shaped by it? Contemporary critics see in participation only technocratic control, while others embrace it as a viable...