Art, Activism, and Democracy: WochenKlausur's Social Interventions

Abstract

This essay explores the sociopolitical practice of the Austrian art group WochenKlausur. Since 1993, members of this collective have produced what they call “concrete interventions”; using funds provided by various cultural institutions, they enact long‐term, problem‐solving measures in the surrounding communities. Mobilizing their status as an “art” group, they are able to draw attention to otherwise overlooked social ills. Their practice foregrounds the critical issues that arise when art is paired with activism, including the crucial and much‐contested differentiation between ethics and aesthetics. I ultimately find that this group's practical successes productively, if only locally, intervene in areas that have traditionally been the purview of democratic governments, while their works that fail in these terms serve as a mirror to governments' own failures to create and maintain programs of social betterment and to promote democratic inclusion.