Beauty is among the most hotly contested subjects in current discussions on art and culture. After decades of disavowal, beauty's resurgence in recent art has engaged some of the most influential arti
Scavenging, replicating, or remixing, many influential artists today reinvent a legacy of "stealing" images and forms from other makers. Among the diverse, often contestatory strategies inc
Throughout its diverse manifestations, the utopian entails two related butcontradictory elements: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgement that its form mayonly ever live in our imagi
The Gothic is the first anthology to survey the pervasive role of 'the Gothic' in current art and visual culture. Today's Gothic takes its cue not only from its historic themes - the supernatural, tra
The "sonic turn" in recent art reflects a wider cultural awareness thatsight no longer dominates our perception or understanding of contemporary reality. The backgroundbuzz of myriad mechanically repr
What does 'contemporary' actually mean? This is among the fundamental questions aboutthe nature and politics of time that philosophers, artists and more recently curators haveinvestigated over the pas
The “death of painting” and its subsequent resurrection in transformed conditions is a leitmotif of the modern era. Painting’s postconceptual resurgence at the start of the 1980s be
The chance situation or random event--whether as a strategy or as a subject ofinvestigation--has been central to many artists' practices across a multiplicity of forms, includingexpressionism, automat
In the contemporary world, where technology, spectacle, and excess seem to eclipsenature, the individual, and society, what might be the characteristics of a contemporary sublime? Ifthere is any conse
Part of the acclaimed series of anthologies which document major themes and ideas in contemporary art. An essential collection of texts reflecting on the cultural and political complexities of trans
