Institutional Critique : an anthology of artists\' writings / edited by Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Institutional critique" is an artistic practice that reflects critically on its own place within galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Such concerns have always been a part of modern art but took on new urgency at the end of the 1960s, when--driven by the social upheaval of the time and enabled by the tools and techniques of conceptual art--institutional critique emerged as a genre. This anthology traces the development of institutional critique as an artistic concern from the 1960s to the present, gathering writings and representative art projects of artists who developed and extended the genre. The artists come from across Europe and throughout North America. The texts and artworks included are notable for the range of perspectives and positions they reflect, and for their influence in pushing the boundaries of what is meant by institutional critique. Like Alberro and Stimson's Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology,this volume will shed new light on its subject through its critical and historical framing. Even readers already familiar with institutional critique will come away from this book with a greater and often redirected understanding of its significance. Artists represented include: Wieslaw Borowski, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel, Hans Haacke, Robert Smithson, John Knight, Graciela Carnevale, Osvaldo Mateo Boglione, Guerilla Art Action Group, Art Workers' Coalition, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Michael Asher, Mel Ramsden, Adrian Piper, The Guerrilla Girls, Laibach, Silvia Kolbowski, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Maria Eichhorn, Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau d'Etudes, WochenKlausur, The Yes Men, Hito Steyerl, Andreas Siekmann

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrations (p. xii)
• Preface (p. xvi)
• Institutions, Critique, and Institutional Critique (p. 2)
• What Was Institutional Critique? (p. 20)
• I Framing
• An Introduction to the General Theory of Place (1966) (p. 44)
• Statement (1967) (p. 50)
• Where Art Thou, Sweet Muse? (IÆm Hung Up at the Whitney) (1967) (p. 52)
• What Is a Museum? A Dialogue (1967) (p. 56)
• New Commitment (1968) (p. 62)
• Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel
• Demystifying Art (1968) (p. 66)
• Project for the Experimental Art Series (1968) (p. 72)
• Project for the Experimental Art Series (1968) (p. 76)
• We Must Always Resist the Lures of Complicity (1968) (p. 80)
• A Conversation with Freddy de Vree, 1969 (1969) (p. 82)
• A Call for the Immediate Resignation of All of the Rockefellers from the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art (1969) (p. 86)
• Guerrilla Art Action Group
• Statement of Demands (1969) (p. 88)
• Art Workers' Coalition
• Art WorkersÆ Coalition Open Hearing Presentation (1969) (p. 90)
• Art WorkersÆ Coalition Open Hearing Statement (1969) (p. 94)
• Communique (1969) (p. 98)
• Guerrilla Art Action Group
• The Function of the Museum (1970) (p. 102)
• The Function of the Studio (1971) (p. 110)
• Provisional Remarks (1971) (p. 120)
• Project: Inside / Outside the Museum (1971) (p. 130)
• A Conversation with Freddy de Vree, 1971 (1971) (p. 134)
• Musee dÆArt Moderne, Departement des Aigles (1972) (p. 138)
• Cultural Confinement (1972) (p. 140)
• Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an Exhibition ôCAREö (1969) (p. 144)
• September 21-October 12, 1974, Claire Copley Gallery, Inc., Los Angeles, California (1974) (p. 150)
• The Constituency (1976) (p. 156)
• The Agent (1977) (p. 164)
• II Institution of Art
• On Practice (1975) (p. 170)
• Lookers, Buyers, Dealers, and Makers: Thoughts on Audience (1979) (p. 206)
• Caution! Alternative Space! (1982) (p. 236)
• Group Material
• Statement (1983) (p. 238)
• Group Material
• Some Thoughts on the Political Character of This Situation (1983) (p. 242)
• Power Relations within Existing Art Institutions (1983) (p. 246)
• Museums, Managers of Consciousness (1984) (p. 276)
• In and Out of Place (1985) (p. 292)
• Why Third Text? (1987) (p. 302)
• Enlarged from the Catalogue: The Art of Precolumbian Gold, The Jan Mitchell Collection (1990) (p. 310)
• III Institutionalizing
• An Artist's Statement (1992) (p. 318)
• Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums (1992) (p. 330)
• A Conversation with Martha Buskirk (1994) (p. 350)
• Symbolic Capital Management, or What to Do with the Good, the True, and the Beautiful (1997) (p. 356)
• The Museum as MuseùAsher Reflects (1999) (p. 368)
• Untitled (1999) (p. 382)
• Maria Eichhorn Public Limited Company (2002) (p. 386)
• Who's Afraid of JK? (2005) (p. 396)
• From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique (2005) (p. 408)
• IV Exit Strategies
• 10 Items of the Covenant (1983) (p. 426)
• Tactical Media (1996) (p. 432)
• Critical Art Ensemble
• Tactics Inside and Out (2004) (p. 440)
• Resymbolizing Machines: Art after Oyvind Fahlstrom (2004) (p. 452)
• From the Object to the Concrete Intervention (2005) (p. 462)
• Engaging Ambivalence: Interventions in Engineering Culture (2005) (p. 470)
• Institute for Applied Autonomy
• Jude Finisterra Interviewed (2004): The Yes Men (p. 478)
• The Institution of Critique (2006) (p. 486)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Alexander Alberro is Virginia Bloedel Wright '51 Associate Professor of Art History at Barnard College. He is the author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (2000). Blake Stimson is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation (2004). Alberro and Stimson are coeditors of Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (2006), all published by the MIT Press.