OCCUPY BIENNALE? SOCIALLY-ENGAGED ART PRACTICE AND ART INSTITUTION

Abstract

The political phenomenon of Occupy Wall Street obtained the global attention in the fall of 2011 with its encampment in the Zuccotti Park (New York). As the movement grew, there also seemed to be an aesthetic component to it revealed in socially-engaged, participatory practices. Those presuppositions provoked the debate focused on the emerging issue of activist art and on the art’s capability to transmit the aims of political protest. Consequently, curators and art institutions attempted to endorse the Occupy movement, while incorporating it into various art events. This text seeks to explore those issues through the analyses of emerging discourse on socially-engaged practices and its existence within art institution on the example of Berlin Biennale 7.