Performance | Objects | Participation

Press

Joshua Sofaer is a deeply attentive artist. His multifaceted works are careful, smart, witty and generous. At their heart sits the encounter: with ideas, people, places and objects. I can’t presume to ‘know’ Sofaer, but this gorgeous, layered and richly detailed book – an exquisite collection of documents, discussions and reflections – allows me to encounter him and to relish the unfolding perspectives.

Dee Heddon, Professor of Contemporary Performance, University of Glasgow

Joshua Sofaer operates in a predominantly relational field of artistic practice where the ‘artworks’ are so often site-specific, time- limited and ephemeral. This publication produces an analysis of practice that traverses art, society and theory. In doing so it offers an astute, polyphonic reading of a multi-layered practice. In the quality of its design, its rare combination of personal warmth and intellectual rigour, this book is truly greater than the sum of its parts. It is a waymaker, demonstrating how it is possible to reflect on and with an artist about their socially engaged and participatory practice in all of its artistic integrity and complex humanity.

Ailbhe Murphy, Director of Create Ireland

ed. by Roberta Mock and Mary Paterson
ISBN 9781789380910
Published by Live Art Development Agency and Intellect Books, Spring 2020
Hardback, 250 x 200 mm, 288 pages with colour images throughout

Joshua Sofaer: Performance | Objects | Participation is the seventh title in the Intellect Live series.

With a mixture of intellect, humour, and striking design, Joshua Sofaer: Performance | Objects | Participation analyses the artist’s oeuvre in the contexts of liveness, visual art and participatory practices.

Joshua Sofaer works across boundaries, borders and disciplines to create artworks that engage with all levels of society. In cultural institutions or on the street, for art galleries or personal homes, staged as operas or cast as golden sculptures, Sofaer’s work weaves with and through social fabric to consider the ideas that hold us together.

This lavishly illustrated volume is the first in-depth study of the artist’s work, featuring discussions with producers and participants, documentary images and a new photographic essay, interviews with the artist himself, and thirteen commissioned essays by scholars, curators and artists. Approaching his work from a wide range of perspectives – including opera criticism, archaeology, performance studies, and gossip – it explores his impact on audiences, on institutions, and on pedagogy. As a whole, this book articulates Sofaer’s influence on the fields of performance art, fine art, and participatory practices.

The book features specially commissioned photographs by Hugo Glendinning and contributions by Nadia Abdelaziz, Yuan-Liang An, Stuart Andrews, Maddy Costa, Robin Deacon, Konstantina Georgelou, Simon Gould, Sarah Harvey, Yu-Chin Hsiao, Lois Keidan, Yu-Ying Kung, Carl Lavery, Stacy Makishi, Roberta Mock, Mary Paterson, Sibylle Peters, Joanna Sofaer, and Daniel Somerville.

Publications

Publications

Performance | Objects | Participation