Social Works: Performing Arts, Supporting Publics

With admirable clarity and impressively rich material of concrete examples and detailed case studies, Shannon Jackson's study outlines the tensions and vectors in the very nerve centre of contemporary theorizing of theatre, art and performance as "social art" or as social practice. ... Everybody studying experimental theatre, contemporary art and performance will gratefully rely on Shannon Jackson's book. Hans-Thies Lehmann, Goethe-University, Germany

Over the last decade many critics in the arts have struggled to find words to describe the new interactive-participatory-relational art. Shannon Jackson, with her keen analysis of performative practices and deep perception of social structures is uniquely qualified to do so. Social Works is a game-changer, a must-read for scholars, students and artists alike. Tom Finkelpearl, Author of Dialogues in Public Art

With her characteristic clarity and keenness of mind, Shannon Jackson gives shape to this vibrant but notoriously amorphous field we call performance studies. More importantly, she compels us to grapple with performance's internal social work. Anne A. Cheng, Princeton University, USA

Exploring the limits of what she aptly calls "aesthetic conviviality," the "social turn" in contemporary art and performance, in Social Works Shannon Jackson once again writes a vivid and clear analysis of a key aspect of performative and visual cultures. Jackson interrogates this shift in practice to explore the limits of art's engagement with sociality itself---there could be no more important topic today, nor a sharper interlocutor. Social Works should be required reading for anyone interested in how and why art can be political today. Amelia Jones, McGill University, USA

At a time when artworld critics and curators heavily debate the social, and when community organizers and civic activists are reconsidering the role of aesthetics in social reform, this book makes explicit some of the contradictions and competing stakes of contemporary experimental art-making.

Social Works is an interdisciplinary approach to the forms, goals, and histories of innovative social practice in both contemporary performance and visual art. Shannon Jackson uses a range of case studies and contemporary methodologiesto mediate between the fields of visual and performance studies. The resultis a brilliant analysis that not only incorporates current political and aesthetic discourses but also provides a practical understanding of social practice.