What effects do works of art have on consciousness and society? Ecological art asks this question in a new and urgent way, by calling upon us to befriend endangered nature.
What distinguishes a blank canvas from an empty frame? A simple object from a readymade? What is this mysterious gap that art digs as it separates from life? Such are the questions posed by Arthur Danto, a major figure of contemporary art theory.
In mainstream contemporary art, price formation is a multisite process no longer solely handled by artists, dealers, and collectors but also by dark intermediaries. This essay examines the impact of four layers of value (technique, innovation, aura, and emotions) as well as the development of an invisible art market for the top-earning 1% and the rise of “global galleries.”
Where does the value of contemporary art begin in a globalized art market? Taking as a point of departure the comparison between influential sociological studies exploring prices and markets, this two-part essay examines the profound changes that the contemporary art market has experienced before, during and after the Great Recession.
Scattered all over the world are abandoned places, promises of modernity that history, economics or politics have shattered. The Suspended Spaces collective has undertaken to project the gaze of contemporary artists onto these ghostly spaces.
Is an art historian looking at modern and contemporary art through the lens of medieval art necessarily risking anachronism? Breaking the taboo of cross-period comparison, Alexander Nagel’s Medieval Modern uncovers deep similarities between two seemingly distant periods of art history, which challenge our own sense of time and space.
Can art have an impact on sociopolitical reality? What matters most? Political content or aesthetic qualities? These questions have haunted contemporary art since the late sixties. Yet some artists, such as Kara Walker and Brigitte Zieger, have avoided the pitfalls encountered in the effort to reconcile beauty and politics by choosing to heighten their work’s capacity for formal seduction—only to plunge the spectator brutally and unexpectedly back into reality.
Since April 2011, a collective of Syrian filmmakers has been working on behalf of a people fighting for its freedom. Their short films invent a new cinematographic language adapted to the urgency of the situation. Abounaddara tells the story.
