Conversation
Pieces: Community and Communication in
Modern Art
by Grant Kester
University of California Press, Berkeley,
CA, 2004
253 pp., illus. 32 b/w. Trade, $65.00;
paper, $24.95
ISBN: 0-520-23838-9; ISBN: 0-520-23839-7.
Reviewed by Andrea Dahlberg
andrea.dahlberg@bakernet.com
Grant Kester's intention in this book
is not just to define and conceptualize
community or socially engaged art but
to trace its antecedents in art history,
locate it in relation to critical theory,
and provide a framework for responding
to it and evaluating it. He succeeds on
all counts.
In the search for the roots of this art
form Kester undertakes a brilliant critical
re-evaluation of art critical methodologies.
He tackles the important question head
on: all the works he examines were presented
as works of art as opposed to social or
political activism, so what does it mean
to take this claim seriously? How can
a critical response be formulated? Kester's
attempt to answer this question leads
him to question the tradition of art criticism
and, in doing so, he challenges and expands
the whole subject of art theory. Anyone
interested in art theory and criticism
today would find the first two chapters
of the book interesting.
Kester's definition of a socially engaged
art practice is one that the aesthetic
experience is constructed so as to challenge
conventional social perceptions. This
is a non-object based artistic practice
that is more concerned with communication
and praxis. Kester takes as his first
example an orchestrated series of conversations
on a boat involving politicians, sex workers,
journalists, and activists in Zurich.
Their task was to discuss the issues and
problems faced by drug addicts in Zurich
who had turned to prostitution to support
their habit. The eventual outcome of these
ritualised conversations between parties
with conflicting views was a safe haven
for sex workers. Kester considers and
develops his theory in relation to numerous
other socially engaged art practices that
are described throughout the book. His
direct engagement with this work is valuable
not only in testing his ideas, but it
has the additional benefit of reclaiming
and preserving some of this work, which
so easily disappears from the historian's
and critic's gaze precisely because it
does not produce objects that can be preserved
and displayed in collections.
Kester shows how these collaborative,
socially engaged art works are structured
through processes of exchange and dialogue
that unfold through time. In all these
ways they challenge conventional notions
of arteven the art of the
avant-gardethat are founded
on a concept of aesthetic experience that
is instantaneous and provides the viewer
with a shock of insight.
But Kester's engagement with these works
also shows that while the concept of the
aesthetic is central to his definition
of this work, it does not feature (or
features little) in his descriptions and
analyses of the actual works themselves.
This is probably the major weakness in
the book as without a more prominent role
for the aesthetic at this level is easy
for the reader to begin understand these
works as drama or sociology. Yet the concept
of the aesthetic is central to Kester's
theory, and he is insistent that this
is not a hybrid art form that cuts across
boundaries. His argument that dialogue
is central to these art works and that
they "unfold through a process of performative
interaction" only serves to reinforce
the view that this work is as much (or
even more so) a dramatic or sociological
product as an artistic one. Kester is
aware that his analysis focuses more on
the communicative practices of this work
as opposed to its visual impact, and one
is left believing that the application
of his theory could be developed further
to more fully embrace the aesthetic and
thus claim this work entirely for the
visual arts.
Kester has provided an impressive critical
and historical foundation for this often
ignored artistic practice. The debate
on the nature and value of this art form
has been enriched immeasurably. I look
forward to the response of the Critical
Art Ensemble and many of the others who
have opposed this form of artistic practice
in preference to continuing to work within
the avant-garde tradition of the twentieth
century.