Defining the actual parameters of “social practice art” seems to be a red herring. Sometimes a dinner party should just be a dinner party, sometimes calling a dinner party an art project makes it a richer experience for the individuals participating. Social practice art doesn’t necessarily create more democratic exchange between art and audiences, often times it creates hierarchical distinctions between artists in art school and ordinary people with creative hobbies and interests that don’t have anything to do with an art career. But while it continues to be problematic territory, the larger anxiety it brings up is pretty interesting. How are artists defining the communities their work operates in, especially when traditional contexts such as commercial galleries, museums, and non-profits aren’t the intended landing pad? If one’s work is about engaging publics supposedly outside the artworld and eschewing art-speak when it comes to creative expression, who cares if it’s called art other than social practice artists? The issue then becomes not how to judge social practice within the confines of other art disciplines, but rather how the value of that work is being defined and by who. If social practice offers us anything, it openly asks not what kind of artist one wants to be but what kind of person one wants to be and how one wants their work to operate in the world.

This article was published in the most recent issue of Proximity Magazine, called “Education as Art.” It was an incredibly exciting issue, we hope you check out the rest of the contributions and buy a copy at your local bookstore. And please use this syllabus and let us know what you think.

Download the pdf here: InCUBATE- What do Artists Know (for the fancier layout with pictures, you’ll have to buy the magazine).

InCUBATE's trivia night with host Randall Szott at Open Engagement 2010

InCUBATE's Romantic-comedy picture identification round at trivia night

The winning team

More information is here

And coverage in the Chicago Reader here and Chicago Artists Resource here

Spring 2011 (all programs are at 7 pm, unless otherwise noted):
Tuesday, January 25: Penelope Bingham, Who Cooks? American Cookbooks and Changes in Gender Roles
Tuesday, February 15: Chad Elias, How to Do Things With Words in Public Space
Thursday, March 24: Sara Daleiden, Los Angeles Urban Rangers
Saturday, April 9: Erika Nelson, The Worlds Largest Collection of the Worlds Smallest Versions of the Worlds Largest Things
Tuesday, April 19: Katie Hargrave

Penelope Bingham lecture (1/25/11)

Tuesday, January 25th
7:00-9:00PM
threewalls
119 N Peoria St #2C

“American cookbooks—their authors, their implied audience, the social structure implicit in their recipes and meal plans—tell the story of the changes in the role of women and social structure in 20th century America. The cookbook is much more than a ‘how-to’ manual; it documents the expectations for ‘good food’ and for a ‘good cook.’ Looking at the century’s most popular cookbooks brings to light its changing values. This program invites the audience to think about the links between who cooks our food and how our society is structured.”

Bingham will be bringing a number of vintage cookbooks from her epic collection to share.

About Bingham:
Following lifelong passions for books and for cooking, Penelope Bingham began accumulating cookbooks over 40 years ago. Her personal collection of cookbooks now exceeds 2,000 volumes. She is particularly interested in the stories American cookbooks of the last two centuries tell about American culture and identity. She has given programs on American Cookbooks and Culture to libraries and cultural organizations throughout Illinois as a Road Scholar for the Illinois Humanities Council, as well as in conjunction with the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibition, “Key Ingredients: America By Food”. She has also addressed the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the Culinary Historians of Chicago, The Wednesday Club of the Newberry Library of Chicago, the Cookware Manufacturers Association, and home economists of Kraft Foods. Her work with American Cookbooks and Culture was recently featured in Chicago Magazine and on WBBM/TV’s “Table For Two”. Since 1990, she has been the volunteer “Cookbook Lady” for the Annual Book Fair of the Newberry Library of Chicago, preparing for sale the thousands of vintage cookbooks that are donated each year. Penelope holds degrees from Wellesley College and the University of Chicago. She is a member of the Culinary Historians of Chicago and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

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The Public Culture Lecture Series, co-organized by Randall Szott and InCUBATE, seeks to highlight examinations and enactments of public culture. Rather than following a preformed idea of what public culture actually is, the lecture series treats it as an open question and invites attendees to explore the question with us. A variety of people and practices will be drawn on to present the ways that the notion of “the public” emerges in their work and/or informs it.

Editorial excerpt from Issue 00:

SCAPEGOAT is a new journal of architecture, landscape and political economy. It examines the relationship between capitalism and the built environment, confronting the coercive and violent organization of space, the exploitation of labour and resources, and the unequal distribution of environmental risks and benefits. Issue 00 focuses on Property, because it is the literal foundation for all spatial design practices. Architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design each begin with a space that is already drawn, organized, and formed by the concrete abstraction of the property lines. From our perspective, property stands as the most fundamental, yet underestimated, point of intersection between architecture, landscape architecture, and political economy. What is a “site” except a piece of property? What are architecture and landscape architecture but subtle and consistent attempts to express determined property relations as open aesthetic possibilities? How can these practices facilitate other forms of relation?

http://sundaysoup.org/

And, a thoughtful review on all the proceedings here

We’re excited to say that we were one of the projects chosen for an award from the Propeller Fund!

We’ll be receiving $2000 for our ongoing self-publishing project Pilot Studies. We’ll be making the first five issues available for free online, printing some more, and commissioning new issues as well!