Includes bibliographical references and index.

Series preface / Johanna Burton -- Director's foreword / Lisa Phillips -- Plight of the publics: an introduction to Public servants / Johanna Burton, Shannon Jackson, and Dominic Willsdon -- Public works. "We don't need another hero": war and public memory / Rosalyn Deutsche -- Who owns a vacant lot?: orthodoxy vs. culture industry / Lise Soskolne -- Art and the cultural contradictions of urban regeneration, social justice, and sustainability: Transforma Projects and Prospect.1 in post-Katrina New Orleans / Joshua Decter -- Latin America and a new political leadership: experimental acts of coexistence / Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman -- The destruction of destruction / Eyal Weizman -- Department of security. The fire this time: Black youth and the spectacle of postracial violence / Henry A. Giroux -- Photo requests from solitary / Jean Casella, Jeanine Oleson, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Solitary Watch, and Tamms Years Ten, with Steven Corotan, Darrius "D-Man" Fields, Robert Frazier, Rachel Herman, Chris Murphy, Frank Reyna, Robert Sauseda Jr., Willie Sterling, Kijana Tashiri Askari, and Robert Timm -- Can this machine kill mass incarceration? / Joshua Dubler -- Squeaky Dolphin to Normcore: anxiety in a big-data era / Kate Crawford -- Department of labor and economy. Biopolitics, identity, and the public sphere in the 1970s: Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge -- W.A.G.E.N.C.Y. / W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) -- Indent (to serve the debt) / Fred Moten and Stefano Harney -- In service: art, value, merit, and the making of publics / Andrea Phillips -- Portfolio / Simone Leigh ; Ashley Hunt ; Pedro Reyes ; Jeanne van Heeswijk ; Gregg Bordowitz ; Mel Chin ; Pablo Helguera ; Caroline Woolard ; Jonas Staal ; Andrea Fraser ; organized by Alicia Ritson and Kaegan Sparks -- Department of education. Neoliberalized knowledge / Wendy Brown -- Back to the future (of art school) / Alex Klein -- Sliding scale: between art and education / Marit Dewhurst in conversation with Johanna Burton -- Mutual rehabilitation: Norfolk Prison recordings of art books for blind readers / Mara Mills -- Department of health and environment. Art after nature: the post-natural condition / T.J. Demos -- Dear ---------, I write regarding toxic sovereignties in Windjarrameru / Elizabeth A. Povinelli -- Embodied memory: reimagining and legislating sumak kawsay in the modern Andes / Bill Kelley Jr. -- Women, Waves, Web / Carrie Lambert-Beatty -- Department of culture. Government agency / Tom Finkelpearl in conversation with Shannon Jackson -- A critique of social practice art: what does it mean to be a political artist? / Ben Davis -- Growing dialogue: what is the effectiveness of socially engaged art? / Ben Davis, Tom Finkelpearl, Deborah Fisher, Elizabeth Grady, Richard Kooyman, Rick Lowe, Louisa McCall, Ernesto Pujol, Katy Reckdahl, Gregory Sholette, Noah Simblist, Randall Szott, Nato Thompson, and Glenn Weiss -- Starting in the middle: NGOs and emergent forms for cultural institutions / Irit Rogoff.