Asking the Audience: Participatory Art in 1980s New York

(Paperback)

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In Asking the Audience, Adair Rounthwaite analyzes the rising popularity of audience participation in American art during the 1980s. From artists and audiences to institutions, funders, and critics, Rounthwaite traces the networks that participatory art creates between various agents, demonstrating how, since the 1980s, leftist political engagement has become a cornerstone of the institutionalized consumption of contemporary art.

Reviews

"Asking the Audience provides an invaluable foundation for understanding the emergence of institutionalized social art practice over the past fifteen years. Adair Rounthwaite's detailed discussion of the role of pedagogy and education also provides important grounding of these projects in broader intellectual trends during the 1980s and early 90s."Grant Kester, University of California, San Diego

"As a high-definition snapshot of what cultural participation looked like toward the close of the twentieth century, Asking the Audience ultimately invites a deeper consideration of what it means today, at the dawn of the twenty-first."Panorama

"In her commitment to pursuing archival traces of audience responses, Rounthwaite produces a textured account of a carefully selected set of works." Postmodern Culture

Author Bio

Adair Rounthwaite is assistant professor of art history at the University of Washington in Seattle. She has published essays on a range of topics in contemporary global art history in journals such as Representations, Camera Obscura, Art Journal, and Third Text.