What are the mutual responsibilities between artists and the societies in which they live? How can we look beyond First Amendment issues—the bane of today’s censorship debates—to a more productive discussion of artistic freedom within an historical context? In The Subversive Imagination, Carol Becker argues that the North American art world has failed to ask these serious questions, and she challenges an international group of artists and intellectuals to explore the controversy in a truly meaningful way through an exploration of their identities, experiences and artistic and political commitments.
Featuring Kathy Acker, Carol Becker, Page duBois, Michael Eric Dyson, Felipe Ehrenberg, Elizam Escobar, Coco Fusco, Henry A. Giroux, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Eva Hauser, Evva Kuryluk, Njabulo S. Ndebele, B. Ruby Rich, Martha Rosler, and Ahmad Sadri.
“If you want to think about what’s happening to the arts across the world today, you need to read this book. It brings the reader face to face with a lot of new situations. An unavoidable book. After that, you can start arguing like hell with it.”
— John Berger
“The essays, gathered from various and sometimes surprising sources by Carol Becker, are not only stimulating in themselves but serve as guides to a sector of contemporary artistic activity many find perplexing and many more find troubling. The works conceived of in the spirit of these texts not only challenge how we are to think about art, but how we are to respond to the social questions art addresses, sometimes vehemently. For the art is not only political in intention, but subversive in its means. It demands some transformation of social consciousness, and through this some transformation of the social world. However one stands on such art, it cannot easily be ignored today, which makes [The Subversive Imagination] that much more welcome—we need all the help we can get.”
— Arthur C. Danto
“As a provocative group of essays, this anthology is a useful first step in creating what, one hopes, will be a continuing dialogue on art, society, and responsibility.”
— The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism