ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I unpack how, through managerialism, cultural institutions operate a regime of regulation and discipline that inadvertently, and sometimes deliberately, disables the artist, thereby disabling a key process of democracy, freedom of expression, and by consequence, democracy itself. I then offer a counter-narrative that depicts Artists' resistance to their complicity in the institution’s accommodation of neoliberal values. This narrative includes the Artists' boycott of the Biennale of Sydney (2014), the #freethearts movement (2015–2016), and The Artists Committee protests at the National Gallery of Victoria (2017). I confine my remarks to Australian cultural conditions.
