Book Description

A long overdue look at the artistic investigations of the late artist Beatriz da Costa, revealing the depth and prescience of her work. Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics is the most comprehensive documentation and analysis to date of late artist Beatriz da Costa’s (1974–2012) groundbreaking work. As a retrospective of a brilliant young artist, it renders a social portrait of her artistic practice by both contextualizing the work in its historical period (late 1990s to early 2010s) and extending the work’s socio-political concerns to the present. The book, edited by Daniela Lieja Quintanar, features a collection of essays by curators, artists, and researchers from a variety of fields, including technoscience, tactical media, cancer research, environmental justice, performance art, and participatory art. It also includes a group of reflections written by former collaborators and close friends. Beginning with da Costa’s early projects in the late 1990s as a student in the arts and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, the book surveys her collaborative work with collectives Critical Art Ensemble and Preemptive Media, as well as her research-based and large-scale installations made in the early 2000s. The publication is a faithful record of da Costa’s entire oeuvre, including information about artworks she left incomplete due to financial, health, or time limitations. Additionally, the book includes da Costa’s own critical writing on art and politics, as well as self-authored descriptions of her own work and an unflinching interview with cancer researcher Robert Schneider, who was a fundamental figure for da Costa at the end of her young life. The book accompanies a solo exhibition at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) as part of the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative.