Announcing the publication of Joshua Decter’s new book, Art Is a Problem: Selected Criticism, Essays, Interviews and Curatorial Projects (1986-2012). Published by JRP|Ringier, the book encompasses seven chapters: Institutional Critique® and its Discontents; Aporia (art as politics, the politics of art); Everything is Social (Platforms, Participations, Publics, Constituencies, Networks, Spaces, Sites, Situations, Collaborations, Cooperations, Conflicts, Interventions…); Convoluted Cities; The (Un)De-definition of Art; What Do We Want from Exhibitions?; and On the Curatorial Road. Decter examines art’s paradoxical condition: Art problematizes, and is intrinsically a problem. From this standpoint, he considers art’s definitions, functions, ethical entanglements, societal aspirations, and cultural contradictions.
Art Is a Problem will be launched in New York at the New York Public Library as part of the Art Book series, on Wednesday, April 23, 2014, from 6 to 8pm. Decter will be joined in discussion by artist and writer John Miller (the book’s editor), curator and writer Chelsea Haines, artist Paul Ramírez Jonas, and curator Ruba Katrib. For more information on this free event, please click here.
Book events featuring Decter will also take place in Los Angeles, London, Vienna and Berlin.
Los Angeles:
LA><ART
Saturday, May 3, 3pm
For more information and to RSVP for this free event, please click here.
London:
ICA
Friday, May 23, 1pm
Part of the Culture Now series (with Simon Sheikh). For more information and to book tickets, please click here.
Vienna:
Kunsthalle Vienna
Monday, May 26, 6pm
For more information, please click here.
Berlin:
Pro Qm
May 30, 8:30pm
With John Miller. For more information on this free event, please click here.
Joshua Decter is a New York-based writer, curator, and art historian whohas contributed to Artforum, Afterall, TEXTE ZUR KUNST, Flash Art, The Exhibitionist, Mousse, and other periodicals. He has curated exhibitions such as a/drift at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Transmute at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Tele[visions] at the Kunsthalle Vienna, Dark Places at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and was a curatorial interlocutor for inSite_05, Interventions (Tijuana/San Diego). Decter has taught at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, the School of Visual Arts in New York, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, New York University, UCLA, and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Decter was Director of the Master of Public Art Studies Program at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts in Los Angeles, where he founded the new graduate program, MA Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere. Decter is co-author of the forthcoming book, Exhibition as Social Intervention: ‘Culture in Action’ 1993, volume 5 of Afterall Books’ Exhibition Histories series. He has organized symposia such as “The Architecture of Display: New Approaches to Exhibition Design” at the Santa Monica Museum of Art; “The Situational Drive: Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement,” co-sponsored by inSite, Creative Time, and The Cooper Union, New York; “Participation and Friction: Rethinking Art and Architecture as Public Culture (Architecture, Design Art: Strategies for Survival & Art and Architecture in the Public Sphere of Cities)” at USC in Los Angeles. He was a participant in Creative Time’s 2013 Summit: “Art, Place & Dislocation in the 21st Century City.”
Edition English
ISBN: 978-3-03764-195-8
Softcover, 150 x 210 mm, 446 pages
Images: 95 b/w
27.5 CHF / 20 EUR / 15 GBP / 29.95 USD
Art Is a Problem is available in USA, Canada, Asia, and Australia through ARTBOOK/D.A.P., in France and Benelux through les presses du reel, in Germany and Austria through Vice Versa Distribution, in UK and other European countries through Cornerhouse Publications and in Switzerland through JRP|Ringier.
For more details, visit the JRP|Ringier website.
