What We Made

Tom Finkelpearl is Executive Director of the Queens Museum of Art. He is the author of Dialogues in Public Art.

“These conversations by key practitioners and thinkers are a snapshot of thinking around the emergence of social and collaborative art, which seeks to improve society and address social issues. Finkelpearl ably situates collaborative and participatory art within the chronology of American art history.” - Toro Castaño (Library Journal) "What What We Made does, perhaps better than anything I’ve read so far about this particular kind of art, is utterly refrain from arriving at singular summaries or judgments. Instead, the conversations foreground the nuanced and complex social relations tied up in any artwork, but particularly collaborative artwork that draws on communities operating largely outside of the arts marketplace. And the projects Finkelpearl has chosen to discuss and feature by and large demonstrate real possibilities for genuine exchange across networks and communities." - Alexis Clements (Hyperallergic) “What We Made is a good sourcebook of art that tackles  politics through participation and collaboration. The  author’s introduction provides a useful overview of the situation in contemporary America. . . .” - Sally O'Reilly (Art Monthly) “What We Made brings together the stars of the social practice world Rick Lowe, Tania Bruguera, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Harrell Fletcher, and more in conversations with urban planners, educators, and each other, to create a fluid and interdisciplinary dialogue about social practice and its complicated, beautiful and necessary implications in the world.” - Katie Bachler (The Art Book Review) “Finkelpearl has provided his readers with a rich description of a particular, influential movement in the art museum world. This book illustrates his own commitment to social collaboration. By presenting the conversations that make up the core of this volume, he brings this aspect of the art museum world to a larger public.” - George E. Hein (Curator)

• Preface ix1. Introduction The Art of Social Cooperation: An American Framework 12. Cooperation Goes Public Consequences of a Gesture and 100 Victoria/10,000 Tears 51Interview: Daniel Joseph Martinez, artist, and Gregg M. Horowitz, philosophy professor Chicago Urban Ecology Action Group 76Follow-Up Interview: Naomi Beckwith, participant 3. Museum, Education, Cooperation Memory of Surfaces 90Interview: Ernesto Pujol, artist, and David Henry, museum educator 4. Overview Temporary Coaltions, Mobilized Communities, and Dialogue as Art 114Interview: Grant Kester, art historian 5. Social Vision and a Cooperative Community Project Row Houses 132Interview: Rick Lowe, artist, and Mark Stern, professor of social history and urban studies 6. Participation, Planning, and a Cooperative Film Blot Out the Sun 152Interview: Harrell Fletcher, artist, and Ethan Seltzer, professor of urban studies and planning Ride Out the Sun 174Follow-up Interview: Jay Dykeman, collaborator 7. Education Art Catedra Arte del Conducta 179Interview: Tania Bruguera, artist Catedra de Conducta Follow-up Interview: Claire Bishop, art historian 8. A Political Alphabet 219Interview: Wendy Ewald, artist, and Sondra Farganis, political scientist 9. Crossing Borders Transnational Community-Based Production, Cooperative Art, and Informal Trade Networks 240Interview: Pedro Lasch, artist, and Teddy Cruz, architect 10. Spirituality and Cooperation Unburning Freedom Hall and The Packer School Project 269Interview: Brett Cook, artist, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, artist The Seer Project 301Interview: Lee Mingwei, artist 11. Interactive Internet Communication White Glove Tracking 313Interview: Evan Roth, artist White Glove Tracking 335Follow-up Interview: Jonah Peretti, contagious media pioneer Conclusion: Pragmatism and Social Cooperation 343Notes 363Bibliography 373Index 381