Theory In Contemporary Art Since 1985

Updated and reorganized to offer the best collection of state-of-the-art readings on the role of critical theory in contemporary art, this second edition of Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985 brings together scholarly essays, artists’ statements, and art reproductions to capture the vibrancy and dissonance that define today’s art scene. Incorporates new and updated topics that have become central to art theory and practice over the past decade New and updated chapters cover such topics as: international biennials, historicizing of the term “contemporary art”, aesthetics, art and politics, feminism and pornography, ecology and art, the Middle East and conflict studies, Eastern European art and politics, gender and war, and technology Features a thematic reconfiguration of sections and new introductions to make readings user–friendly Extensively illustrated throughout with an expanded color-plate section New contributions to this edition include those by Alexander Alberro, Claire Bishop, T.J. Demos, Anthony Downey, Liam Gillick, Marina Gr?iniæ, Mary Kelly, Chantal Mouffe, Beatriz Preciado, Jacques Ranciere, Blake Stimson, and Chin-Tao Wu.

Filmmaking in Germany and Austria has changed dramatically with digitalization and the use of video and the Internet. Introducing the work of filmmakers, this volume offers an assessments of the intent and effect of their productions, and describes overall trends.

The first specialized critical-aesthetic study to be published on the concept of hybridity in early Mughal painting, this book investigates the workings of the diverse creative forces that led to the formation of a unique Mughal pictorial language. Mughal pictoriality distinguishes itself from the Persianate models through the rationalization of the picture’s conceptual structure and other visual modes of expression involving the aesthetic concept of mimesis. If the stylistic and iconographic results of this transformational process have been well identified and evidenced, their hermeneutic interpretation greatly suffers from the neglect of a methodologically updated investigation of the images’ conceptual underpinning. Valerie Gonzalez addresses this lacuna by exploring the operations of cross-fertilization at the level of imagistic conceptualization resulting from the multifaceted encounter between the local legacy of Indo-Persianate book art, the freshly imported Persian models to Mughal India after 1555 and the influx of European art at the Mughal court in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author's close examination of the visuality, metaphysical order and aesthetic language of Mughal imagery and portraiture sheds new light on this particular aspect of its aesthetic hybridity, which is usually approached monolithically as a historical phenomenon of cross-cultural interaction. That approach fails to consider specific parameters and features inherent to the artistic practice, such as the differences between doxis and praxis, conceptualization and realization, intentionality and what lies beyond it. By studying the distinct phases and principles of hybridization between the variegated pictorial sources at work in the Mughal creative process at the successive levels of the project/intention, the practice/realization and the result/product, the author deciphers the modalities of appropriation and manipulation of the heterogeneous elements. Her unique

Video Art Theory: A Comparative Approach demonstrates howvideo art functions on the basis of a comparative media approach,providing a crucial understanding of video as a medium incontemporary art and of the visual mediations we encounter in dailylife. A critical investigation of the visual media and selected videoartworks which contributes to the understanding of video as amedium in contemporary art The only study specifically devoted to theorizing the medium ofvideo from the perspective of prominent characteristics whichresult from how video works deal with time, space, representation,and narrative The text has emerged out of the author’s own lectures andseminars on video art Offers a comparative approach which students find especiallyuseful, offering new perspectives

In a series of newly commissioned essays by both established and emerging scholars, Globalization and Contemporary Art probes the effects of internationalist culture and politics on art across a variety of media. Globalization and Contemporary Art is the first anthology to consider the role and impact of art and artist in an increasingly borderless world. First major anthology of essays concerned with the impact of globalization on contemporary art Extensive bibliography and a full index designed to enable the reader to broaden knowledge of art and its relationship to globalization Unique analysis of the contemporary art market and its operation in a globalized economy

Taking its departure point from the 1933 surrealist photographs of ?involuntary sculptures? by Brassa?nd Dal?Found Sculpture and Photography from Surrealism to Contemporary Art offers fresh perspectives on the sculptural object by relating it to both surrealist concerns with chance and the crucial role of photography in framing the everyday. This collection of essays questions the nature of sculptural practice, looking to forms of production and reproduction that blur the boundaries between things that are made and things that are found. One of the book?s central themes is the interplay of presence and absence in sculpture, as it is highlighted, disrupted, or multiplied through photography?s indexical nature. The essays examine the surrealist three-dimensional object, its relation to and transformation through photographs, as well as the enduring legacies of such concerns for the artwork?s materiality and temporality in performance and conceptual practices from the 1960s through the present. Found Sculpture and Photography sheds new light on the shifts in status of the art object, challenging the specificity of visual practices, pursuing a radical interrogation of agency in modern and contemporary practices, and exploring the boundaries between art and everyday life.

This substantial collection of newly commissioned essays presents an ambitious, entertaining, and accessible guide to developments in Asian art over the past 20 years of the epoch of globalization. The term ‘global Asia’ signals the genesis and evolution of contemporary art within the context of global economic, social, political, and intellectual change related to the end of the Cold War, decolonization, the emergence of postcolonial societies and cultures, and the rise of a global contemporary art world. In the handbook its editors establish, in an extended introductory section and in four section introductions, the theoretical, geographical, and historical parameters within which the contemporary visual arts of ‘global Asia’ may be described, analyzed, and evaluated. The collected chapters provide a diverse, multiauthored, heterogeneous, and genuinely plural account of art and its contexts. The democratic and inclusive character of globalization is reflected and produced within this anthology, which includes different styles of writing as well as varieties of analytic and thematic focus. The anthology will appeal to both scholars and students in art history, art practice, curation, contemporary art, fine art, cultural studies, and globalization studies.

Globalization euphoria and enthusiasm for the West are on the decline in contemporary China. Critical voices make themselves heard in artistic and cultural circles, turning towards their personal everyday lives to take stock. Their questions revolve around concrete experiences in the radical upheaval of lifeworlds, the continued significance of traditions after many of them have been thoroughly uprooted, and the paradoxes produced by the predominance of neo-liberalism. The 17 positions assembled in this volume provide a vivid illustration of such a »new thoughtfulness« in a wide variety of aspects ranging from aesthetics and art to theatre and photography.