Gestures of institutional critique

Abstract

Chapter I deals with the question of institutional critique in relation to participatory art. What is the place of institutional critique in relation to participatory performance? The chapter reflects on the conundrums of institutional critique, exploring the formation of participatory art forms as emergent from the critique of mainstream art institutions. It compares a number of approaches to institutional critique: the institutional affiliations of a community-based theatre project from Darfur, Sudan, a flash mob performance by an Israeli activist group protesting a Cape Town Opera production in Tel Aviv Opera House, a breaching experiment by visual artist Pilvi Takala, of trying to enter Disneyland dressed as Snow White, amongst others. Sometimes the gesture of critique consists in building counter-institutions, and sometimes in fleeing them. Institutional critique, understood as the explicit use of an artistic practice to interrogate, oppose or break out of art institutional frameworks has very asymmetrical trajectories across the world and across domains. The chapter argues that the changing institutional conditions of participation expose not just the norms of a certain institution, but also its specific traditions of institutional critique.