The Subversive Imagination: The Artist, Society and Social Responsiblity - Paperback

In The Subversive Imagination, professional writers, artists and cultural critics from around the world offer their views on the issue of the artist's responsibility to society. The contributors look beyond censorship and free speech issues and instead emphasize the subject of freedom. More specifically, the contributors question the ethical, mutual responsibilities between artists and the societies in which they live. The original essays address an eclectic range of subjects: censorship, multiculturalism, the transition from communism to capitalism in Eastern Europe, postmodernism, Salman Rushdie, and young black filmmakers' responsibility to the black community.

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'The essays, gathered from various and sometimes surprising sources by Carol Becker, are not only stimulating in themselves but serve as guides to a sector of contemporary artistic activity many find perplexing and many more find troubling. The works conceived of in the spirit of these texts not only challenge how we are to think about art, but how we are to respond to the social questions art addresses, sometimes vehemently. For the art is not only political in intention, but subversive in its means.