Decentralize! Art, Power, and Space in the New York Art World

Abstract

Have we witnessed the return of critique in the U.S. art world? Taking the decentralization of art institutions as a tactic of critique, this paper identifies waves of critique in the contemporary art world, with particular attention to New York City in the late 1960s-early 1970s, and the 2010s. Though certain critical aims and strategies have persisted, this period spans an impassable divide: the end of affordable space – for artist studios, galleries, community art centers – in the urban cores of U.S. cities. By attending to changes in the ways artists have withdrawn from, attacked, or engaged with institutional spaces, this article traces the changing definitions of critique and criticality as a function of access to space.