Socially engaged art

Two very different models of socially engaged art practice. There's nuance in between and things have moved forward since these arguments were put forward by art critics Grant Kester (model 1) and Claire Bishop (model 2) but I've found it useful to revisit these ideas for the research I'm doing independently and with Arts Education Exchange.

Model 1:

A) dialogue and collaboration are prioritised for a process-oriented approach that focuses on the relationships between artists and communities, rather than the final artistic product.

B) socially engaged art should foreground ethical values and social engagement and challenge traditional notions of aesthetics and autonomy. ie it's less about the artistic outcome and more about what happens between people (intersubjectivity) and beyond the artefact.

C) moves away from formal aesthetics as the prime factor to evaluate art because they distract from the social realities experienced by communities/participants. Kester advocates for a 'dialogical aesthetics'.

Model 2:

A) argues for the importance of aesthetic quality (rather than ethical considerations) as having the ability to make disruptive political statements = product over process and 'event' over durational projects.

B) promotes the autonomy of the artist to make provocative work and evoke discomfort for audiences so new perspectives are gained. In this model the artist maintains their authorial voice, the artwork is by the artist.

C) Participants are the material for the artwork rather than co creators.

It's worth noting that 'relational aesthetics' sits within Bishop's model because artists working in this field predominantly practice within the institution ie using galleries and art spaces to engage participants.There is an argument that Kester puts forward that art made through model 2 will always be subsumed by capitalism and the free market of the commercial art world and therefore is limited in its ability to reconfigure social realities. Bishops model relies on the disruptive experience an audience might have with an artwork, which often relies on having the cultural capital to access particular spaces which are ultimately hegoninically coded. Whereas Kester advocates for change happening within the systems and structures and in dialogue with communities and participants. It's worth chucking in that the history of autonomy dates back to the enlightenment where the separation from absolute power (monarchy/religion) gave the artist freedom to explore new possibilities and present audiences with a glimpse of hope beyond their day to day. Autonomy literally means to create your own norms and values. The problem is aligning individual norms and values with the collective and negotiating power in the process. My understanding is still quite basic and I'm trying to be impartial but I'm more in favour of model 1. In fact, the ideas and motivation to set up Arts Education Exchange came from participation theory in contemporary art and critical pedagogy - ie challenging traditional hierarchies and aiming towards social transformation. Knowing the constraints within schools I wanted to establish an alternative - an opposite image to the institution = small groups, informal / professional spaces, co-created 'curriculum', more time to plan and reflect, supervision etc so much of the school system is non-conducive to creativity or critical thinking - hence the 'creativity crisis' described in the @runnymeadtrust report 'Visualise'.[Images of drawing as thinking]

Books that informed the above: Artificial Hells by Claire Bishop; The Sovereign Self and The One and the Many by Grant Kester.