Critical Response: Participatory and Political Arts (Book Review Sample)

Critical Response
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Critical Response
Participatory art and political art do not go hand in hand. A Lepik (n.d) support this by indicating that architectural works has a great influence on social change. Despite the fact that several critics and curators do not agree with this, Bishop (2012) scrutinizes the claim through implementing a less prescriptive approach to politics and the works of art. Through this, the author brings out an argument that new emancipatory social relations cannot be simply arrived at by encouraging an audience to participate in political art. The author supports this by analyzing various key moments resulting in the development of participatory aesthetics. The bottom line of the author’s argument is that social art practices are speciously linked to ethics whereby people are used as objects if not material. Through the first part of the book, Bishop (2012) outlines a social turn within the art field, from that of the 1990s, by criticizing artists who utilize their exceptional status to intervene in the social sense and overlook reconciling their produced artistic works as resultant pieces of artwork. The author convinces the audience of the benefits of the social turn through implementing various examples from the field of visual art and how they have disregarded their artist pieces. For instance, the last stand and Triumph.
Artists are not drivers of social abstraction. Literature shows that artists should be socially responsible. This plays an important role when it comes to preserving social values. Despite this, there is no link existing between an artwork and social values. Muschamp (1994) indicates that there is no harm in requiring successful artists to be more socially responsible however there is also no harm if these artists opt to glorify themselves further through the use of snazzy statements from the artistic field as being an artist is considered an act of social responsibility in itself. Indeed, people should look at artistic works from different perspectives. For instance, other than looking at Gehry’s buildings and feeling compassion for the homeless in the society, people should consider the artist works as a formal means of heightening social awareness.
Architects should adopt change by considering individual needs when coming up with their artistic works. ...