Abstract
‘What story do you want to hear about social practices?’ was the opening question Coombs posed to the artists she met. The responses are fleshed out in this engaging ethnography of a complex, contested field of arts practice. Borrowing the title from Lucy Lippard’s 1997 book Lure of the Local, Lure of the Social focuses on the artist-led end of the social practice spectrum. It is the culmination of five years of research, focusing on accounts from 15 artists and one curator and her engagements in 12 academic and ‘industry’ conferences. The result is a collection of encounters, contextual framings and interpretations. The tensions between community arts, socially engaged arts and social practices are interwoven throughout the pages, rooting these differences in a predominantly Californian educational context, between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The book is divided into two main sections. The first collates fieldnotes including personal reflections and impressions of her meetings with artists. The author’s presence is felt throughout, but in a way that acknowledges it is only ever going to be her interpretation of events. That she confesses she is an unreliable narrator makes me trust her interpretation even more. I appreciate how the intimacy of the fieldnotes allows me to get to know the philosophical, political and practical approaches the artists are taking to their work. After a chapter on art colleges that have developed nuanced approaches to teaching social practices and some background to the limitations, formats and significance of related conferences, the book moves on to a series of field notes from the ‘gatherings’ Coombs has attended. These are where the practices of the aforementioned artists, among many others, and their political and theoretical framings are debated, unpacked and repackaged.
A thread that runs through is the issue of critique. The practices under discussion often embody radical intentions of social justice. Yet artists can be highly critical of adjacent practices that are too political or not poetically opaque enough; too convivial and not undermining the structures of inequity enough; too much about reforming systems and not revolutionary enough. However, Coombs found critique was not always welcome, even during conferences which often purport to be critical spaces for these debates. These events are often bound up in reputation management for a precarious class of practitioners who need to market themselves for the next gig. There’s perhaps no wonder there is little public critique promoted on the conference circuit. As Coombs states, this can lead to promoting ‘an almost entirely affirmative account’ of these practices. Coombs also notes less ping-pong and karaoke at conference gatherings and more calls for direct action. With the desire to reflect on the practice as an object of study and an increasing sense of urgency to effect change, I am left pondering how much longer I can remain in the bind between art being practically useful and poetically pointless.
It is the moments in the book when Coombs shares her feelings of discomfort, frustration, and unease that I find the most compelling. Her visceral responses to conference fatigue; how the term ‘assemblage’, or ‘assembly’ makes her ‘eyes bleed’ and ‘ears ring’; that we’re going around in circles; that the same voices are given time on the stage. These intimate revelations of anger and disappointment point to the underlying structures and infrastructures of the practices which often remain invisible.
I share Coombs’s conference fatigue but like her, intrigue keeps drawing me back. These gatherings become excuses to meet others who share fears, frustrations and passions for this work. One of Coombs’s encounters is with Robby Herbst who suggests the institutional discourse of social practice is a distraction. While this book could be couched in these terms, it also contains important critical reflections on the role of pedagogical spaces for experimenting with different ways of working. Coombs questions who and what these forums are for: ‘who gets to speak?’, as calls continue for more diverse voices to lead the discussion, frame the debate and set the scene.
We can never get a real sense of the places, people and processes involved in social practices unless we were there, but thankfully Coombs was listening in, taking notes. The result is a collection of encounters that trace the ideas that have informed these socially engaged artists. The whispers between delegates, the discussions over lunches have informed Coombs’ own positionality and understanding of the stories artists tell. The way she has written these up allows for the contradictions felt in these practices to be aired. The book presents hope in these ‘pockets of resistance’, that these processes and ways of working can effect change.
How do we develop critical relationships to the conditions in which we work? Who benefits when it comes to the career of a socially engaged contemporary artist? Coombs quotes Lippard when she asks, ‘Where do we go from here?’ How do we continue to feel close to other practices in contexts different to our own? Coombs offers us vignettes, reminding us of the importance of continuing to create encounters, build solidarities and just see where the conversations take us.
