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Examining art practice, exhibition strategies, art criticism, and graduate education, Relyea aligns the transformation of the art world with the advent of globalization and the neoliberal economy. He analyzes the new networked, participatory art world - hailed by some as inherently democratic - in terms of the pressures of part-time temp work in a service economy, the calculated stockpiling of business contacts, and the anxious duty of being a "team player" at work. Relyea calls attention to certain networked forms of art - including relational aesthetics, multiple or fictive artist identities, and bricolaged objects - that can be seen to oppose the values of neoliberalism rather than romanticizing and idealizing them. Relyea offers a powerful answer to the claim that the interlocking functions of the network - each act of communicating, of connecting, or practice - are without political content.

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"That Relyea manages to build this examination from a wide lens, taking such a sweeping range of information and artists into account, pushes what could be a topic of limited interest into the realm of compelling theory, provocative while resisting any easy conclusions and ultimately finding insights that extend beyond the world of contemporary art." - Publishers Weekly

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Lane Relyea is Associate Professor and Chair of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University and the Editor-in-Chief of Art Journal. His essays and reviews have appeared in such journals as Artforum, Parkett, Frieze, Art in America, and Flash Art.

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