The Arts of Logistics

We live in a world where nothing is untouched by supply chains—art included. In this major contribution to the study of contemporary culture and supply chains, Michael Shane Boyle has assembled a global inventory of aesthetics since the 1950s that reveals logistics to be a pervasive means of artistic production. The Arts of Logistics provides a new map of supply chain capitalism, scrutinizing how artists retool technologies designed for circulating commodities. What emerges is a magisterial account of the logistics revolution that foregrounds the role played by art in the long downturn of global capitalism.

With chapters on art produced from technologies including ships, barrels, containers, and drones, Boyle narrates the long history of art's connection to logistics, beginning in the transatlantic slave trade and continuing today in Silicon Valley's dreams of automation. The global reach of the artists considered reflects the geographies of supply chain capitalism itself. In taking stock of how performance, sculpture, and popular culture are entangled in trade and racialized labor regimes, Boyle profiles influential work by artists such as Christo and Allan Kaprow alongside that of contemporary figures including Cai Guo-Qiang and Selina Thompson. This incisive study demonstrates that art and logistics are linked by the infrastructures and violence that keep supply chains moving.

"This book is by far one of the most brilliant books in a crop of very brilliant books on logistics. It is original, beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated, and it fizzes and pops with imagination, righteous outrage, hefty analysis, and humor." —Laleh Khalili, University of Exeter

"This is the book about logistics and art that we have been waiting for. Both broad and deep enough to do justice to its topic, it is engagingly written and a pleasure to read." —Susan Zieger, University of California Riverside