Key Principle
Participatory art surges at moments of political rupture: 1917 (Bolshevik Revolution), 1968 (coordinated global challenges to authority), 1989 (fall of communism). These "form a narrative of the triumph, heroic last stand and collapse of a collectivist vision of society" (p. 3). Each produces "a utopian rethinking of art's relationship to the social" (p. 3). The contemporary resurgence accompanies the collapse of communism, absence of a viable left alternative, and marketisation of art and education (p. 277).
Why This Matters
Treating participatory art as a recent phenomenon obscures its deep historical roots and recurring failures. Each flashpoint produces distinctive contradictions that recur in later iterations. Understanding these patterns prevents repeating them.
Good Examples
1917: The Historic Avant-Garde (Ch. 2)
Three ideological positions mapped through participatory form:
- Italian Futurism (from 1910): "Spectatorphilic" provocation; audiences brought cow bells and vegetables. Participation as "total destruction" open to all classes (p. 46). But Marinetti instrumentalised it toward nationalism: "Futurist Theatre will be a gymnasium to train our race's spirit" (p. 47).
- Post-1917 Russia (Proletkult, mass spectacle): Collective authorship, de-specialisation. By 1927: 5,000+ Blue Blouse troupes, 7,000+ Living Newspaper groups (p. 57). Storming of the Winter Palace (1920): 8,000 participants, 100,000+ spectators (p. 59). But military structures underwrote ostensibly collective creation.
- Paris Dada (1920-22): Small-scale dissensus. Breton moved Dada from provocation to judgement via the Barres Trial, appropriating real social forms (courtroom, guided tour) rather than theatrical ones (p. 72).
1968: Three Competing Parisian Models (Ch. 3)
- SI: Sublation of art into life; dogmatic anti-visual Marxism; restricted participation to members only (p. 87).
- GRAV: Perceptual liberation through kinetic environments; technophilic populism; but "making someone participate undermines the claim to defeating apathy" (p. 89).
- Lebel: Transgressive collective rites channelling egregore (collective group mind); artist as dispositif (p. 97).
- All three were exhausted by May '68. None attended to the class composition of their audiences (p. 103).
1989: The Project as Art Form (Ch. 7)
- The term "project" replaces finite art object: "open-ended, post-studio, research-based, social process" (p. 194).
- The artistic project fills the vacuum left by collapsed grand political narratives (p. 194).
- Project-based practice mirrors neoliberal labour: adaptability, flexibility, intellectual mobility are indistinguishable from management literature's ideal worker (p. 216).
Counterpoints
- Participation's "most immediate heir" from Russian mass spectacle was the Nuremberg rallies, which used the slogan "No spectators, only actors" (p. 74).
- Under state socialism, the same participatory forms served opposite political ends: privatised individual experience was the radical gesture (p. 4, 129).
Key Quotes
"Participation is not inherently anti-capitalist or collectivist -- its political valence depends on the regime it operates within." -- Claire Bishop, p. 4
"the word chosen to describe these open-ended artistic activities arrives at a moment when there is a conspicuous lack of what we could call a social project -- a collective political horizon or goal" -- Claire Bishop, p. 194
Rules of Thumb
- Participatory art surges when collective political horizons shift -- map the political context before evaluating the form
- Each flashpoint generates successors with disturbing implications; trace the lineage
- Participant identity shifts across the century: crowd (1910s), masses (1920s), people (late 1960s), excluded (1980s), community (1990s), volunteers (today) (p. 277)
Related References
- Quality vs. Equality: The Persistent Dilemma - The 1917 tension that recurs at each flashpoint
- The East/West Inversion: Participation Under State Socialism - How 1989 inverted participation's meaning
- The Project as Post-1989 Art Form - The post-1989 art form