Assuming Boycott

Laura Raicovich is President and Executive Director of The Queens Museum of the City of New York. A champion of socially engaged art practices that address the most pressing social, political, and ecological issues of our times, she has defined her career with artist-driven projects and programs. Recent projects at the Queens Museum include “Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Maintenance Art”; “William Gropper: Bearing Witness”; “Mickalene Thomas: Untitled”; “Mariam Ghani: Garden of Forked Tongues”; “Duke Riley: That’s What She Said”; “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” as well as a series of programs designed with Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly Shapiro to launch their “Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas.” She lectures internationally, has contributed regularly to The Brooklyn Rail, and is the author of A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties and At the Lightning Field.

Praise for Assuming Boycott"Artistic resistance has seldom proven so socially useful, or as complicated. This intellectually engaging study targets the paradoxes, limitations, and media spectacle of organized cultural boycotts and state-sponsored censorship from South African apartheid in the 1980s, to present day Israel-Palestine, Cuba, the Gulf States, the United Kingdom, and the United States among other geopolitical zones of conflict." —Gregory Sholette, artist and author of Delirium and Resistance: Activist Art and the Crisis of Capitalism"Assuming Boycott defiantly holds the best arguments regarding boycott. It shows that boycott is not only a form of sanctions but also an invitation to dialogue. This collection of essays offers a historical perspective with comparative case studies, making it the ultimate resource to help decide where to draw the ethical line." —Galit Eilat, writer and curator, co-curator of 31st São Paulo Biennial"Assuming Boycott is an essential contribution to an ongoing, urgent conversation about how artists, writers, and thinkers have time and again created subtle, meaningful, powerful, and vibrant ways to engage the political sphere. This book is a valuable guide to cultural boycotts from South Africa to Palestine." —Walid Raad, artist, professor, Cooper Union"The brilliant writers and debaters assembled here come at the issue from different angles, all from the central belief that art is never not political." —Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic, The New York Times"An essential guide to the terrain of cultural politics today. With colleagues and comrades like these, one feels not only bolstered but downright emboldened." —Hal Foster, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University

• Introduction by Kareem EstefanI. The Cultural Boycott of Apartheid South AfricaSean Jacobs, The Legacy of the Cultural Boycott Against South AfricaJohn Peffer, Art, Resistance, and Community in 1980s South AfricaHlonipha Mokoena, Kwaito: The Revolution Was Not Televised; It Announced Itself in SongFrank B. Wilderson III, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid (excerpt)II. BDS and the Cultural Boycott of IsraelAriella Azoulay, “We,” Palestinians and Jewish Israelis: The Right Not to Be a PerpetratorNoura Erakat, The Case for BDS and the Path to Co-ResistanceEyal Weizman and Kareem Estefan, Extending Co-ResistanceNasser Abourahme, Boycott, Decolonization, Return: BDS and the Limits of Political SolidarityJoshua Simon, Neoliberal Politics, Protective Edge, and BDSYazan Khalili, The Utopian ConflictIII. Who Speaks? Who Is Silenced?Tania Bruguera, The Shifting Grounds of Censorship and Freedom of Expression, from Cuba to IsraelNaeem Mohaiemen, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance CampaignSvetlana Mintcheva, Structures of Power and the Ethical Limits of SpeechAnn Laura Stoler, By Colonial Design: Or, Why We Say We Don’t Know EnoughIV. Dis/engagement From AfarChelsea Haines, The Distant ImageMariam Ghani with Haig Aivazian, 52 Weeks, and Engaging by DisengagingNathan Gray and Ahmet Öğüt, Not Walking Away: Participation and Withdrawal in the 2014 Sydney BiennialRadhika Subramaniam, Loose Connection