Overview

The Agency of Access examines how access can be employed as a methodology for curating art exhibitions using a multi-sensorial approach. Crip curator and art historian Amanda Cachia illustrates how bodies take in information and process stimuli, making the inequities in museums and galleries more transparent. She also argues that, as contemporary disabled artists move away from representations of disability, they create an art of access, or access aesthetics, through works that center translation, sensory expansion, touch, and movement for audiences and offer an experience of “being with” disability. Showcasing artwork by contemporary disabled artists Corban Walker, Christine Sun Kim, and Carmen Papalia, among others, The Agency of Access inscribes contemporary disability art in the broad canon of contemporary art, where the artistic past is regarded differently. Cachia is an outspoken advocate for artists living with sensory disabilities. She understands disabled artists’ experiences in both the world and the gallery. The artists she has curated make bold, astonishing, and compelling statements about interdependency, care, and the ways in which our environment affects disabled, ill, and immunocompromised bodies.

Full Product Details

9781439926239

Table of Contents

Reviews

""The Agency of Access is a groundbreaking book that the international disability arts community has been waiting for: a rigorous yet accessible exploration of disability's transformative potential in the arts. Through a dynamic blend of scholarship, curatorial practice, advocacy, and lived experience, Amanda Cachia reveals how subjugated disability knowledge can unlock fresh aesthetic possibilities across artistic mediums. This essential work not only chronicles the emergence and evolution of the diverse disability arts movement but also offers practical guidance for artists and arts organizations alike. A major contribution to the field, The Agency of Access challenges artists and arts organizations to reimagine creativity and access in bold new ways.""--Carrie Sandahl, Director of the Program on Disability Art, Culture, and Humanities at the University of Illinois Chicago ""It is not often that you find a book on contemporary art that is a must-read for art historians, critics, curators, exhibition designers, public-facing museum staff, museum programmers, architects, and just about anyone else who works at or visits museums and art galleries, but this is one. Amanda Cachia makes the case that art is a wholebody experience--and we all have different bodies that are to a greater or lesser degree acknowledged within the canons and institutions of art. Artists with disabilities are making works that allow us to access parts of our sensorial experience that are often overlooked and to examine our institutions critically to discover how their structures and norms disable their audiences. Written from a deeply invested point of view by someone who has been developing languages around disability activism and curating for some time, The Agency of Access is very exciting.""--Aruna D'Souza, art critic, curator, and author of Imperfect Solidarities

“The Agency of Access is a groundbreaking book that the international disability arts community has been waiting for: a rigorous yet accessible exploration of disability’s transformative potential in the arts. Through a dynamic blend of scholarship, curatorial practice, advocacy, and lived experience, Amanda Cachia reveals how subjugated disability knowledge can unlock fresh aesthetic possibilities across artistic mediums. This essential work not only chronicles the emergence and evolution of the diverse disability arts movement but also offers practical guidance for artists and arts organizations alike. A major contribution to the field, The Agency of Access challenges artists and arts organizations to reimagine creativity and access in bold new ways.”-Carrie Sandahl, Director of the Program on Disability Art, Culture, and Humanities at the University of Illinois Chicago “It is not often that you find a book on contemporary art that is a must-read for art historians, critics, curators, exhibition designers, public-facing museum staff, museum programmers, architects, and just about anyone else who works at or visits museums and art galleries, but this is one. Amanda Cachia makes the case that art is a wholebody experience-and we all have different bodies that are to a greater or lesser degree acknowledged within the canons and institutions of art. Artists with disabilities are making works that allow us to access parts of our sensorial experience that are often overlooked and to examine our institutions critically to discover how their structures and norms disable their audiences. Written from a deeply invested point of view by someone who has been developing languages around disability activism and curating for some time, The Agency of Access is very exciting.”-Aruna D’Souza, art critic, curator, and author of Imperfect Solidarities

Author Information

Amanda Cachia is Assistant Professor of Arts Leadership and the Assistant Director of Arts Leadership in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston. She is the editor of Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation, and a recipient of the 2023 Creative Capital Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

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