Commoning Art

NOTE:
expected early August 2026
If you pre-order this title with others, full order will be posted upon availability of all tiles ordered.

Commoning Art brings contemporary commons and art discourses into dialogue through feminist, queer, ecosocial, and critical studies perspectives. It outlines three positions in current practice: Art for Commons, centering the commons as a political and aesthetic concern; Art as Commons, challenging ownership and copyright; and Commoning Art, approaching art as an ongoing process of collective self-organization.

Drawing on a variety of situated examples from artistic and curatorial practice, the transdisciplinary team of authors develops a methodology that advances an ontological reorientation of art, shifting away from the myth of individual autonomy towards forms of practice grounded in relationality and interdependence. From this perspective, art is understood as infrastructure that is collectively sustained through commoning processes of care, shared responsibility, and collective decision-making. Commoning Art opens pathways towards legal, organizational, and material conditions that allow cultural work to be sustained with greater stability and reduced dependence on market- and state-based arrangements.

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This book builds on the intellectual legacy of Silke Helfrich (1967–2021), one of the most influential figures in contemporary commons theory, and constitutes her final contribution to the field. The patterns of commoning, developed through long-standing collaborative commons research, form a central conceptual reference throughout the book.

First published in German in 2022, Commoning Art quickly became a key reference in debates on art, commons, and cultural self-organization. Discussed in academic contexts, artist-run spaces, and cultural institutions, the book has contributed to shaping how commons and commoning in the arts are theorized and practiced. This English edition makes the work newly accessible to a broader international readership.

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For more info, and updates on the project, see commoning.art

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