Afterword

Abstract

I have sought in this book to investigate contemporary, often explicitly socially engaged art and performance practices in London in particular, in order to test the relationship of these practices to vying contemporary social forces of, on one hand, social democracy and, on the other, rising neoliberal capitalism. I have endeavoured to test the efficacy of this ‘social turn’ in contemporary art and performance, to test its contribution to an ongoing social commitment to welfare, democracy, social responsibility and social engagement, as well as to test its capitulation to the rising economic and ideological forces of neoliberal capitalism, with its emphases on individualism and market economics.