BiblioVault - Books about Group work in art

Collaborative Meaning in Medieval Scribal Culture: The Otho La3amon
Elizabeth J. Bryan
University of Michigan Press, 1999
Library of Congress PR2024.B783B79 1999 | Dewey Decimal 821.1

Before the technology of print, every book was unique. Two manuscripts of the "same" text could package and transmit that text very differently, depending on the choices made by scribes, compilers, translators, annotators, and decorators. Is it appropriate, Elizabeth Bryan asks, for us to read these books as products of a single author's consciousness? And if not, how do we read them?
In Collaborative Meaning in Medieval Scribal Culture, Bryan compares examples from the British Library Cotton Otho C.xiii manuscript of La3amon's Brut, the early thirteenth-century verse history that translated King Arthur into English for the first time. She discovers cultural attitudes that valued communal aspects of manuscript texts--for example, a view of the physical book as connecting all who read or even held it to each other.
The study is divided into two parts. Part one presents Early Middle English concepts of "enjoining" texts and explores the theoretical and methodological challenges they pose to present-day readers of scribally-produced texts. Part two conducts a detailed study of the multiple interpretations built into the manuscript text. Illustrations of manuscript pages accompany analysis, and the reader is invited to engage in interpreting the manuscript text.
Collaborative Meaning in Medieval Scribal Culture will be of interest to students and specialists in medieval chronicle histories, Middle English, Arthurian literature, and literary and textual theory.
Elizabeth J. Bryan is Associate Professor of English, Brown University.

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Collective Situations: Readings in Contemporary Latin American Art, 1995–2010
Bill Kelley Jr. and Grant H. Kester, editors
Duke University Press, 2017
Library of Congress N6502.6.C66 2017

In Collective Situations scholars, artists, and art collectives present a range of socially engaged art practices that emerged in Latin America during the Pink Tide period, between 1995 and 2010. This volume's essays, interviews, and artist's statements—many of which are appearing in English for the first time—demonstrate the complex relationship between moments of political transformation and artistic production. Whether addressing human rights in Colombia, the politics of urban spaces in Brazil, the violent legacy of military dictatorships in the region, or art’s intersection with public policy, health, and the environment, the contributors outline the region’s long-standing tradition of challenging ideas about art and the social sphere through experimentation. Introducing English-language readers to some of the most dynamic and innovative contemporary art in Latin America, Collective Situations documents new possibilities for artistic practice, collaboration, and creativity in ways that have the capacity to foster vibrant forms of democratic citizenship.

Contributors
Gavin Adams, Mariola V. Alvarez, Gustavo Buntinx, María Fernanda Cartagena, David Gutiérrez Castañeda, Fabian Cereijido, Paloma Checa-Gismero, Kency Cornejo, Raquel de Anda, Bill Kelley Jr., Grant H. Kester, Suzanne Lacy, Ana Longoni, Rodrigo Martí, Elize Mazadiego, Annie Mendoza, Alberto Muenala, Prerana Reddy, Maria Reyes Franco, Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, Juan Carlos Rodríguez

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Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema
Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris, and Sarah Street
Amsterdam University Press, 2007
Library of Congress PN1995.9.S4B47 2007 | Dewey Decimal 791.43

European cinema between World Wars I and II was renowned for its remarkable attention to detail and visual effects in set design. Visionary designers such as Vincent Korda and Alfred Junge extended their influence across national film industries in Paris, London, and Berlin, transforming the studio system into one of permeable artistic communities. For the first time, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination provides a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s. Based on a wealth of drawings, film stills, and archival documents from the period, this volume illuminates the emerging significance of transnational artistic collaboration in light of developments in Britain, France, and Germany. A comprehensive analysis of the practices, styles, and function of interwar cinematic production design, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination offers new insight into the period’s remarkable achievements and influence on subsequent generations.

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Networked Art
Craig J. Saper
University of Minnesota Press, 2001
Library of Congress N72.S6S285 2001 | Dewey Decimal 700.10309045

The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico since the 1980s
Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra
University of Texas Press, 2023
Library of Congress NX180.A77N49 2023

What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation
Tom Finkelpearl
Duke University Press, 2013
Library of Congress NX180.S6F56 2013 | Dewey Decimal 701.03

In What We Made, Tom Finkelpearl examines the activist, participatory, coauthored aesthetic experiences being created in contemporary art. He suggests social cooperation as a meaningful way to think about this work and provides a framework for understanding its emergence and acceptance. In a series of fifteen conversations, artists comment on their experiences working cooperatively, joined at times by colleagues from related fields, including social policy, architecture, art history, urban planning, and new media. Issues discussed include the experiences of working in public and of working with museums and libraries, opportunities for social change, the lines between education and art, spirituality, collaborative opportunities made available by new media, and the elusive criteria for evaluating cooperative art. Finkelpearl engages the art historians Grant Kester and Claire Bishop in conversation on the challenges of writing critically about this work and the aesthetic status of the dialogical encounter. He also interviews the often overlooked co-creators of cooperative art, "expert participants" who have worked with artists. In his conclusion, Finkelpearl argues that pragmatism offers a useful critical platform for understanding the experiential nature of social cooperation, and he brings pragmatism to bear in a discussion of Houston's Project Row Houses.

Interviewees. Naomi Beckwith, Claire Bishop, Tania Bruguera, Brett Cook, Teddy Cruz, Jay Dykeman, Wendy Ewald, Sondra Farganis, Harrell Fletcher, David Henry, Gregg Horowitz, Grant Kester, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Pedro Lasch, Rick Lowe, Daniel Martinez, Lee Mingwei, Jonah Peretti, Ernesto Pujol, Evan Roth, Ethan Seltzer, and Mark Stern

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