Performative monuments : the rematerialisation of public art /

By contending that traditional monumental public sculpture is overlooked today, Widrich (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) argues that the most forceful monuments of the past century were designed by performance artists. Focusing her monograph on European artists working from the end of WW II through 1989, the author asserts the conceptual significance of performance, temporality, and the actions of spectators to the revival of the public monument over this period. Examining the work of VALIE EXPORT, Marina Abramovic, Santiago Serra, and others, Widrich sees monuments less as authoritarian, static, and ideological behemoths and more as social forces that aim to mediate site, context, and audience as well as to critique memory culture. The detailed examinations offer much to the broader discussions of contemporary art and public art. Performative Monuments will be of use to students and scholars seeking insight into and an understanding of the intersections among contemporary art, politics, and performance theory. Five chapters provide copious notes and 68 black-and-white figures that are supplemented by a thorough bibliography and index. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Juilee Decker, Rochester Institute of Technology