The Book of Everyday Instruction
In 2015, I began a two-year chronicle of one-on-one social interactions, beginning with the question “How do we know when we’re really together?” Through private performances, interactive experiences, text installations, interviews and photography, I explored the pair relationship, expanding ideas of place, history, activity, and distance. In developing the project, I had conceptualized the book as an exhibit; now, in collaboration with The Operating System, the exhibit is a book.
Available from Barnes & Noble.
What is Shared, What is Offered
For exactly two years (2017-19) Chloë Bass has convened friends, colleagues, and fellow artists—Doug Ashford, Bill Dietz, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Lisi Raskin, and Jessica Lynne—for intimate, yet public discussions at ICI in New York, as part of her ongoing project What is shared, what is offered. Bass’ new e-book, which shares this title, celebrates these conversations. The e-book includes an introduction by Bass, transcripts of the discussions from each event, and a newly commissioned text by artist, composer and performer Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste reflecting on these events and the project’s structure.
What is shared, what is offered was part of The Book of Everyday Instruction, an eight-chapter project that investigated one-on-one interaction. In each of the event five events at ICI in New York, Chloë and her invited guest played a game. First, each selected a series of images that the other had not seen. At the event, images were revealed one by one and Chloë and her guest responded to one another’s selections.
Available from Independent Curators International.
Art As Social Action
Art As Social Action (2018), co-edited by myself and Dr. Gregory Sholette, is both a general introduction to and an illustrated, practical textbook for the field of social practice, an art medium that has been gaining popularity in the public sphere. With content arranged thematically around such topics as direct action, alternative organizing, urban imaginaries, anti-bias work, and collective learning, among others, Art as Social Action is a comprehensive manual for teachers about how to teach art as social practice. Along with a series of introductions by leading social practice artists in the field, valuable lesson plans offer examples of pedagogical projects for instructors at both college and high school levels with contributions written by prominent social practice artists, teachers, and thinkers. Available from Allworth Press.
Say Something Janie
Say Something, Jamie is a collaboration featuring new writing by Jamieson Webster, written in parallel with Chloë Bass‘s Analog project, Obligation to Others Holds Me in My Place. This Critical Writing publication takes the form of a gorgeous yet discreetly designed 36-page, saddle-stitched booklet with writing by psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster and notes/images/interventions/design by 2018 Analog artist-in-residence Chloë Bass. Printed in a limited edition of 100 copies. Available from RECESS.
The Bureau of Self-Recognition
The Bureau of Self-Recognition book is a limited edition artist monograph designed in conjunction with Jessalyn Wakefield and am i human Press. The book contains original essays by Eric Heist (director of Momenta Art), Esther Neff (performance artist, critic, and curator), and Jessalyn Wakefield, alongside documentation of the full project and commentary by Chloë Bass.
Specs: 8″ x 8″, hardcover, 90 full-color pages.
This book is no longer available for sale. For inquiries about viewing a copy, please submit a direct request.
Books & Short Form Writing
Ongoing Publication
You’re most likely to have encountered my writing in Hyperallergic, where I published semi-frequently from 2013 – 2018.
My articles on Hyperallergic include a review of Adrian Piper’s retrospective A Synthesis of Intuitions at the Museum of Modern Art (2018), a conversation with Jillian Steinhauer and Seph Rodney on failures of imagination with regards to race and empathy (2017), and an essay on abstraction and the value of Black lives (2016).
Selected Articles
“Accessibility Caption: Death,” CSPA Quarterly #34 (Bodies in Community), Winter 2022. (PDF)
“Public art as an invitation towards abolition,” Finnish Cultural Institute, Summer 2021.
“Accessibility Caption: Continuity,” Paletten Issue 321-322, Winter 2021.
“Reflections from Nowhere: Social Media Activism & the Strange Politics of Participation,” FIELD Journal, Spring 2019.
Contributor Essay, As radical, as mother, as salad, as shelter, what should art institutions do now?, published by Paper Monument, October 2018. (PDF)
Contributor Essay, Out of Easy Reach Catalogue, published by DePaul Art Museum, September 2018.
“What We Don’t Know: The Failure of Presumed Understanding,” The Walker Reader, January 2018.
“Sorry not sorry,” Arts.Black, October 2017.
“Re-stagings No. 1: Choreographing Lewitt,” Performance Review, Women & Performance Journal, October 2017. (PDF)
Contributor Essay, Living and Sustaining a Creative Life: The Artist as Culture Producer (ed: Sharon Louden), published by Intellect Press, March 2017.
“The Role of the Question,” I Wish to Say: Activating Democracy One Voice at a Time(ed: Sheryl Oring), published by Intellect Press, September 2016.
“Experiments in Joy (Score)” Obsidian 41.1 and 41.2 (guest eds.: Gabrielle Civil and Ebony Noelle Golden), 2015.
“This slideshow is here so we both know what to do,” Emergency Index, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, 2014.
“‘What Would You Do With . . .?’ (A conversation about value),” Emergency Index, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013.
“Tea Will Be Served,” Emergency Index, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012.
“Not Ruined Enough,” Lab for Urban Futures: Detroit, published by SUPERFRONT, 2012.
“Notes from Architecture at Occupy Wall Street,” Broken English, published in conjunction with Performa 11, edited by Julieta Aranda and Carlos Motta, November 2011. (With Mitch McEwen.)
“7884 Collaboration Profile” (working title), YAF Connections, published by AIA Young Architects Forum, November 2011. (With Mitch McEwen.)
“Defining a City,” City As Lab, edited by Adriana Young. Published by Parsons School of Design, 2011.
“From Small Plates to Big Purpose: Investigating Cities Bite by Bite,” Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, published by SUPERFRONT, 2011.
“Is Brooklyn (Abu Dhabi) Over?” New City Reader, published in conjunction with the New Museum’s Last Newspaper exhibit, 2010.
Old Blogs
I used to blog infrequently for Exit Strata, word servents, Culturebot, and Brooklyn Based.