Dumbadze A., Hudson S. (eds.) Contemporary Art. 1989 to the Present

Chichester, West Sussex, England: Wiley-blackwell, 2013. — 512 p. — ISBN: 978-1444338669.An exciting report on the contemporary art world, which presents original articles by leading international art historians, critics, curators and artists, presenting different points of view on the most important debates and discussions taking place in the world. The Edition contains a collection of brand new essays organized around fourteen specific topics selected to reflect the latest debates in contemporary art since 1989.
The contemporary art world has expanded exponentially—in size and complexity—over the last two decades, precipitating a general uncertainty as to what matters and why, much less how we should look at, write about, and historicize these recent practices. Admitting from the outset the implications of this profound and often antagonistic situation, we have eschewed producing a descriptive text of our own and have instead brought together nearly fifty leading international creative, critical, and curatorial voices to examine what contemporary art is today. This book follows the principle given poetic shape in the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant, in which a company of individuals feels a single region of the elephant’s body. One might grope a leg, while another the tusk, or an ear. Each touch yields a different tactile experience, as well as a distinct vantage from which to extrapolate the contours of the whole. Precisely because of the variability of the animal’s features—much less the horizon of one’s perception—the resultant points of view are at once catholic and incommensurate.
The history presented in this book is necessarily partial, and the better for its aggregation of conflicting opinions, interpretations, and approaches. It goes without saying that Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present is neither meant to be absolute nor prescriptive, but investigative, even speculative. It aims to generate a picture of a heterogeneous whole through the specificity of positions moored in disparate practices, locations, and philosophies. It is with this goal in mind that the essays in Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present emphasize the virtues of partisanship in the task of understanding the recent past, and the book’s success depends upon the vigor of debate it generates—debates we hope will provide the groundwork for successive histories of contemporary art.The Contemporary and Globalization
Art after Modernism and Postmodernism
Formalism
Medium Specificity
Art and Technology
Biennials
Participation
Activism
Agency
The Rise of Fundamentalism
Judgment
Markets
Art Schools and the Academy
Scholarship