Catherine Spencer – författare

The essays in this collection explore the extraordinarily rich networks of international artists and art practices that emerged in and around London during the 1960s and ’70s, a period that saw an explosion of new media and fresh attitudes and approaches to making and thinking about art.The contributors to London Art Worlds examine the many activities and movements that existed alongside more established institutions in this period, from the rise of cybernetics and the founding of alternative publications to the public protests and new pedagogical models in London’s art schools. The essays explore how international artists and the rise of alternative venues, publications, and exhibitions, along with a growing mobilization of artists around political and cultural issues ranging from feminism to democracy, pushed the boundaries of the London art scene beyond the West End’s familiar galleries and posed a radical challenge to established modes of making and understanding art.Engaging, wide-ranging, and original, London Art Worlds provides a necessary perspective on the visual culture of the London art scene in the 1960s and ’70s. Art historians and scholars of the era will find these essays especially valuable and thought provoking.In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Elena Crippa, Antony Hudek, Dominic Johnson, Carmen Juliá, Courtney J. Martin, Lucy Reynolds, Joy Sleeman, Isobel Whitelegg, and Andrew Wilson.

The essays in this collection explore the extraordinarily rich networks of international artists and art practices that emerged in and around London during the 1960s and ’70s, a period that saw an explosion of new media and fresh attitudes and approaches to making and thinking about art.The contributors to London Art Worlds examine the many activities and movements that existed alongside more established institutions in this period, from the rise of cybernetics and the founding of alternative publications to the public protests and new pedagogical models in London’s art schools. The essays explore how international artists and the rise of alternative venues, publications, and exhibitions, along with a growing mobilization of artists around political and cultural issues ranging from feminism to democracy, pushed the boundaries of the London art scene beyond the West End’s familiar galleries and posed a radical challenge to established modes of making and understanding art.Engaging, wide-ranging, and original, London Art Worlds provides a necessary perspective on the visual culture of the London art scene in the 1960s and ’70s. Art historians and scholars of the era will find these essays especially valuable and thought provoking.In addition to the editors, contributors to this volume are Elena Crippa, Antony Hudek, Dominic Johnson, Carmen Juliá, Courtney J. Martin, Lucy Reynolds, Joy Sleeman, Isobel Whitelegg, and Andrew Wilson.

Grassroots Artmaking is a pioneering, open-access historical survey that compiles diverse studies, artist interviews, case studies, and roundtable discussions to explore how UK-based art activism has moulded contemporary art over six decades. Addressing political turmoil in the UK since the 1960s, marked by racist immigration laws, far-right ascent, nuclear proliferation, gender oppression and Thatcher's governance, this timely book traces the evolution of grassroots artistic self-organization as a means of resistance. From artist-led initiatives like the Caribbean Artists Movement and the Blk Arts Group, to AIDS activist visual production and community photography initiatives, it showcases a vital strand of British art history beyond mainstream institutions and geographic centres. Contextualizing the importance of this work in relation to recent seismic events such as austerity, Brexit, Covid, Grenfell, and BLM, the book brings contemporary and historical realities into dialogue with a uniquely cross-media perspective, covering photography and film-making, as well as multiple forms of organizing and artistic practice; from curating, archiving, and administration, to studio management, poster production and institution building.Richly illustrated with archival material from a wide range of sources, Grassroots Artmaking provides a lively, visually enticing account of the formative connections between grassroots activism and art practice. It lays the groundwork for a new approach to teaching modern and contemporary British art histories and will serve as an indispensable tool for researchers and artists alike. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.

Grassroots Artmaking is a pioneering, open-access historical survey that compiles diverse studies, artist interviews, case studies, and roundtable discussions to explore how UK-based art activism has moulded contemporary art over six decades. Addressing political turmoil in the UK since the 1960s, marked by racist immigration laws, far-right ascent, nuclear proliferation, gender oppression and Thatcher's governance, this timely book traces the evolution of grassroots artistic self-organization as a means of resistance. From artist-led initiatives like the Caribbean Artists Movement and the Blk Arts Group, to AIDS activist visual production and community photography initiatives, it showcases a vital strand of British art history beyond mainstream institutions and geographic centres. Contextualizing the importance of this work in relation to recent seismic events such as austerity, Brexit, Covid, Grenfell, and BLM, the book brings contemporary and historical realities into dialogue with a uniquely cross-media perspective, covering photography and film-making, as well as multiple forms of organizing and artistic practice; from curating, archiving, and administration, to studio management, poster production and institution building.Richly illustrated with archival material from a wide range of sources, Grassroots Artmaking provides a lively, visually enticing account of the formative connections between grassroots activism and art practice. It lays the groundwork for a new approach to teaching modern and contemporary British art histories and will serve as an indispensable tool for researchers and artists alike. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.

Beyond the Happening uncovers the heterogeneous, uniquely interdisciplinary performance-based works that emerged in the aftermath of the early Happenings. By the mid-1960s Happenings were widely declared outmoded or even ‘dead’, but this book reveals how many practitioners continued to work with the form during the late 1960s and 1970s, developing it into a vehicle for studying interpersonal communication that simultaneously deployed and questioned contemporary sociology and psychology. Focussing on the artists Allan Kaprow, Marta Minujín, Carolee Schneemann and Lea Lublin, it charts how they revised and retooled the premises of the Happening within a wider network of dynamic international activity. The resulting performances directly intervened in the wider discourse of communication studies, as it manifested in the politics of countercultural dropout, soft power and cultural diplomacy, alternative pedagogies, sociological art and feminist consciousness-raising.