Art Is a Problem. Selected Criticism, Essays, Interviews and Curatorial Projects (1986-2012)

This volume of selected essays, interviews, reviews and curatorial texts, spanning the 1986–2012 period, represents a significant part of Joshua Decter’s ongoing work as a critic, curator and educator. In fact, the writings presented here--as edited by John Miller--form a discourse that engages the interrelationship of these vocations. Decter rejects the conventional form–content dichotomy; rather, he views the artwork from a public perspective and consistently probes its placement in a cultural continuum, and the social relations organized around it. Among the topics Decter addresses in Art Is a Problem are: institutional critique, the relationship between art and politics, the privatization of the public sphere and curatorial practices. “If art is a problem,” he says, “this book does not claim to be the solution … a more difficult question to consider is whether art ever did pose any problems--and what criteria would we use to measure this?”