The Battleground of Art. Radical Curating In The Crisis of Neoliberalism

Please join us at the Banqueting Hall at Chelsea College of Arts, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU

Monday 2 November 2026

16.00 - 18.00

• Marco Barravalle
• Dave Beech, Reader in Art and Marxism, UAL
• Jennifer Warren

Abstract:

In The Battleground of Art. Radical Curating In The Crisis of Neoliberalism (Verso, 2026), Baravalle examines radical curating as a response to the neoliberalisation of art and culture. He looks at how artists, curators and cultural workers have developed alternative institutional forms. Drawing on Operaismo, decolonial theory and twenty years of radical curatorial practice, he explores “alter-institutions”: collective, autonomous infrastructures that challenge dominant models of cultural and economic organisation. The book moves between histories of radical art and present-day practices, from independent cultural spaces in Venice to cultural resistance in Palestine, and raises questions of institutional autonomy, collective organisation, cultural labour, decolonisation and the commons.

Image Credit: cover battleground, Marco Barravalle