Institutional Critique

An anthology of writings and projects by artists who developed and extended the genre of institutional critique.

Institutional critique" is an artistic practice that reflects critically on its own housing in galleries and museums and on the concept and social function of art itself. Such concerns have always been a part of modern art but took on new urgency at the end of the 1960s, when--driven by the social upheaval of the time and enabled by the tools and techniques of conceptual art--institutional critique emerged as a genre. This anthology traces the development of institutional critique as an artistic concern from the 1960s to the present by gathering writings and representative art projects of artists from across Europe and throughout the Americas who developed and extended the genre. The texts and artworks included are notable for the range of perspectives and positions they reflect and for their influence in pushing the boundaries of what is meant by institutional critique. Like Alberro and Stimson's Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology this volume will shed new light on its subject through its critical and historical framing. Even readers already familiar with institutional critique will come away from this book with a greater and often redirected understanding of its significance.

Artists represented include
Wieslaw Borowski, Daniel Buren, Marcel Broodthaers, Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel, Hans Haacke, Robert Smithson, John Knight, Graciela Carnevale, Osvaldo Mateo Boglione, Guerilla Art Action Group, Art Workers' Coalition, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Michael Asher, Mel Ramsden, Adrian Piper, The Guerrilla Girls, Laibach, Silvia Kolbowski, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson, Mark Dion, Maria Eichhorn, Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau d'Études, WochenKlausur, The Yes Men, Hito Steyerl, Andreas Siekmann.

Blake Stimson is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation (2004), and coeditor (with Alexander Alberro) of Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (2000), both published by the MIT Press.

Alexander Alberro is Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Art History at Barnard College. He is the author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity and the coeditor of Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, both published by The MIT Press.

Blake Stimson is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation (2004), and coeditor (with Alexander Alberro) of Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (2000), both published by the MIT Press.

Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union.

Michael Asher was a conceptual artist often associated with site specificity and institutional critique. For many years he taught the famous and influential "Post Studio" class at California Institute of the Arts.

Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union.

Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union.

Martha Rosler lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has taught and lectured on photography since the mid-1970s. Her work was the subject of a major retrospective, Martha Rosler: Positions in the Life World, in 2000. She is the author of 14 books and numerous essays.

Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union.

Andrea Fraser is an artist and Professor of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser, published by the MIT Press.

Andrea Fraser is an artist and Professor of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser, published by the MIT Press.

Hans Haacke is a German-born artist who lives and works in New York. From 1967 to 2002, he taught at The Cooper Union.

Michael Asher was a conceptual artist often associated with site specificity and institutional critique. For many years he taught the famous and influential "Post Studio" class at California Institute of the Arts.

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and an editor of October magazine. He is the author of Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975 (MIT Press) and other books.

Isabelle Graw (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin) is Professor of Art Theory and Art History at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste-Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. In 1990 Graw and Stefan Germer founded the quarterly magazine Texte zur Kunst. In 2003, Graw and Daniel Birnbaum founded the Institut für Kunstkritik at the Städelschule.

Andrea Fraser is an artist and Professor of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of Museum Highlights: The Writings of Andrea Fraser, published by the MIT Press.

Gregg Bordowitz is an artist, writer, and Director of the Low Residency MFA Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recipient of the 2006 Frank Jewitt Mather Award from the College Art Association, he is the author of The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous and Other Writings (1986-2003) (MIT Press) and General Idea: Imagevirus (Afterall Books/MIT Press).