ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at transgression and prefiguration as elements of, and approaches to, art activism. The place of transgression in art activism is addressed first, including the different forms that transgression can take, from the transgression of spatial boundaries to the symbolic transgression of political lyrics. The chapter looks at the ways in which art activist groups that oppose oil sponsorship of the arts intervene into the physical spaces of cultural institutions, and how their lyrics and words push the boundaries and norms of those spaces. From this follows a discussion of performativity in transgressive and prefigurative politics, which leads to an exploration of prefiguration as an approach that defines art activist groups’ attempt to enact a series of values and beliefs in the now. Prefiguration is considered in relation to examples of these groups’ organising processes such as the way in which scripts are written and how decision-making works. This leads to a theoretical proposal on the relationship between transgression and prefiguration as intrinsically linked characteristics of art activist practice.
