Edited by Gregory Sholette and Oliver Ressler with contributions by Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes
London, Pluto Press, 2013
Pages: 192
Dimensions: 9.4" x 6.7"
Cover: hard
Binding: hard, sewn bound
Process: Offset
Color: full color cover and throughout
Edition Size: unknown
ISBN-10: 0745333699
ISBN-13: 978-0745333694

This book comes in the wake of an exhibition sharing the same title and organized by the book's editors Gregory Sholette and Oliver Ressler.

Publisher and author description:

It’s the Political Economy, Stupid argues that it is time to push back against the dictates of the capitalist logic and, by use of both theoretical and artistic means, launch a rescue of the very notion of the social. Edited and organized by two activist artists, Gregory Sholette and Oliver Resler, the project offers a powerful indictment of the current capitalist crisis.

It’s the Political Economy, Stupid combines analytical and theoretical responses from internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers including Slavoj Zizek, David Graeber, Judith Butler, John Roberts, and Brian Holmes, Julia Brian-Wilson, Liz Park, Thom Donovan, Angela Dimitrakaki, Kirsten Lloyd, Kerstin Stakemeier, Dread Scott, Nis Rømer, Melanie Gilligan, Filippo Berta, Linda Bilda, Sherry Millner, Ernie Lawson, Flo 6X8, Maureen Connor, Karl Lorac, The Institute for Wishful Thinking among others.

It’s the Political Economy, Stupid was designed by artist and activist Noel Douglas using visual themes based on graphics derived from Goldman Sachs online stock market pages and features images from the exhibition of the same name that was presented in Pori, Finland.

Reviews:

'In the wake of the capitalist crisis, very few cultural institutions have dared to address the horrors of greed that plague us in such a direct and haunting way." - Alexander Cavaluzzo, Hyperallergic

'Confrontational, intellectual, and occasionally amusing group show, which squarely aligns itself with the Occupy movement." - Village Voice (praise for the exhibition on which the book is based)

About the Authors:

Gregory Sholette is an artist, activist and author based in New York. He co-founded two artists' collectives: Political Art Documentation and Distribution (1980-88) and REPOhistory (1989-2000). He is the author of Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (Pluto, 2010) and co-editor of Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945 (2007) and The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life (2004).

Oliver Ressler is an artist and filmmaker based in Vienna. His work has been exhibited across the world including at the Berkeley Art Museum, USA; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul and the Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Egypt. He is the editor of Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies (2007).