How to Do Things with Art

This book attempts to answer this question on a theoretical level, and to indicate, through the analysis of works by James Coleman, Daniel Buren, Jeff Koons, and Tino Sehgal, how artists can create and shape social relevance; in other words, to provide what could be called a pragmatic understanding of art´s societal impact.

If Hantelmann´s line of argument is based on the two theoretical premises of Langshaw Austin´s and Judith Butler´s notion of ‘performativity’, this book offers a real semantic of how an artwork, not in spite of, but rather by virtue of its integration in certain conventions, ‘acts’.