The award-winning highly acclaimed Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical
overview of socially engaged participatory art known in the US as social practice. In recent
decades the art gallery and the museum have become a place for participatory art where an
audience is encouraged to take part in the artwork. This has been heralded as a revolutionary
practise that can promote new emancipatory social relations. What was it is really? In this
fully updated edition Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and
examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in
Futurism and Dada the Situationist International Happenings in Eastern Europe Argentina and
Paris the 1970s Community Arts Movement and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a
discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn
Tania Bruguera Pawel Althamer and Paul Chan. Bishop challenges the political and aesthetic
ambitions of participatory art this practise. She not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims
but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such
artworks. In response Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and
politics and for more compelling troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and
criticism.
