Judith Kapferer and her collaborators present an insightful volume that
interrogates relations between the state and the arts in diverse
national and cultural settings. The authors critique the
taken-for-granted assumption about the place of the arts in liberal or
social democratic states and the role of the arts in supporting or
opposing the ideological work of government and non-government
institutions. This innovative volume explores the challenges posed by
the state to the arts and by the arts to the state, focusing on several
transformations of the interrelations between state and commercial arts
policies in the current era. These ongoing challenges include the
control of repressive tolerance, complicity with and resistance to state
power, and the commoditization of the arts, including their
accommodation to market and state apparatuses. While endeavouring to
avoid the currently dominant pragmatic and didactic priorities of
officialdom, the contributors tackle social and cultural policy and
practice in the arts as well as connections between national states and
dissenting art from a range of genres.