Martin Patrick explores the ways in which contemporary artists across media continue to reinvent art that straddles both public and private spheres. Examining the impact of various art movements on notions of performance, authorship, and identity, Across the Art/Life Divide argues that the most defining feature of contemporary art is the ongoing interest of artists in the problematic relationship between art and life. Looking at underexamined forms, such as standup comedy and sketch shows, alongside more traditional artistic media, he situates the work of a wide range of contemporary artists to ask: To what extent are artists presenting themselves? And does the portrayal of the "self" in art necessarily constitute authenticity? By dissecting the metaconditions and contexts surrounding the production of art, whether aesthetic or conceptual, social or political, Across the Art/Life Divide examines how ordinary, everyday life is transformed into art.
Chapter 1 - Art and How to Live It: Artists Performing Themselves (and Others)
Chapter 2 - Unfinished Filliou: On the Fluxus Ethos, Origins of Rational Aesthetics, and the Potential for a Non-Movement in Art
Chapter 3 - Autobiographical Voices and Entangled Identities: On Monologues and Memoirs; Comedians, Celebrity, and Camouflage
Chapter 4 - Reenactments, Remixing, and Restaging the Contemporary
Chapter 5 - Social Practices and the Shifting Discourse: On Collaborative Strategies and "Curating the Social"
Chapter 6 - Emergent Notions of Subjectivity and Authorship: How Might We Occupy the Present?
