Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism - Gregory Sholette (ed. Kim Charnley)

Draws on thirty years of critical debates and practices by artists and activist group to advocate the undermining of capitalism through art

In the aftermath of the 2016 US elections, Brexit, and a global upsurge of nationalist populism, it is evident that the delirium and the crisis of neoliberal capitalism is now the delirium and crisis of liberal democracy and its culture. And though capitalist crisis does not begin within art, art can reflect and amplify its effects, to positive and negative ends.

In this follow-up to his influential 2010 book, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, Sholette engages in critical dialogue with artists' collectives, counter-institutions, and activist groups to offer an insightful, firsthand account of the relationship between politics and art in neoliberal society. Sholette lays out clear examples of art's deep involvement in capitalism: the dizzying prices achieved by artists who pander to the financial elite, the proliferation of museums that contribute to global competition between cities in order to attract capital, and the strange relationship between art and rampant gentrification that restructures the urban landscape.

With a preface by noted author Lucy R. Lippard and an introduction by theorist Kim Charnley, Delirium and Resistance draws on over thirty years of critical debates and practices both in and beyond the art world to historicize and advocate for the art activist tradition that radically - and, at times, deliriously - entangles the visual art with political struggles.

Gregory Sholette is a New York City based artist, writer and core member of the activist art collective Gulf Labor Coalition. He is the author of Delirium and Resistance (Pluto, 2017), Dark Matter (Pluto, 2010) and co-author of It's The Political Economy, Stupid (Pluto, 2013). He currently teaches in the Queens College Art Department, City University of New York.

Kim Charnley is an art theorist and art historian based at Plymouth College of Art, whose work examines the relationship between politics and contemporary art. He is editor of Delirium and Resistance (Pluto, 2017).

“Read this book and you will never see contemporary art the same way again. So much of what's wrong with the global economy is wrong with the establishment art world ... In the many art worlds that exist, we're happy and proud to be a part of Gregory's.”
— Guerrilla Girls

“A timely contribution to this ongoing global conversation between several generations of art activists around the ways in which their practice weaves between the contexts of art display, political campaigning and social movements.“
— Frieze

Published by Pluto Press, 2017
Edited by Kim Charnley
Foreword by Lucy R. Lippard
Paperback, 290 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7453-3684-8
15 x 23 cm