Marco Baravalle: The Battleground of Art
by Brian Holmes via nettime-l
[ Hyperallergic just published this review of Marco Baravalle's important
new book. Kudos to them! BH ]
How to Free the Art World From Its Neoliberal Capture
Nitasha Dhillon
https://hyperallergic.com/how-to-free-the-art-world-from-its-neoliberal-capture
In “The Battleground of Art,” curator and activist Marco Baravalle dissects
the art establishment’s co-optation of radical politics and uplifts the
stories of collectives that resist it.
***
We first met Marco Baravalle in 2015 at the 56th Venice Biennale, All the
World’s Futures, when we were organizing with the Gulf Labor Coalition. The
group and our autonomous direct-action wing, Global Ultra Luxury Faction
(G.U.L.F.), had been invited by curator Okwui Enwezor to present our
research and organizing against migrant worker exploitation in the
construction of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. An artist boycott was underway,
direct actions were escalating, and days earlier, on May 1, we had shut
down the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Through Baravalle, a longtime researcher, curator, and activist, we
encountered a network of autonomous spaces in Venice and Milan. These were
not simply cultural centers; they formed the infrastructure for collective
organizing, resistance, and enacting other worlds.
Eleven years later, The Battleground of Art: Radical Curating in the Crisis
of Neoliberalism (2026) extends this praxis into an important and timely
call to action. Drawing on his two decades of experience, Baravalle offers
what we have called movement-generated theory and practice, rooted in the
dialectic of doing and knowing. The book confronts the neoliberal capture
of the art world, while also excavating histories and practices of
abolition and autonomy that offer other possibilities.
Across seven chapters, Baravalle traces the Italian art sce...
https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-2611/msg00013.html
