Review
"This Companion represents a move away from the more traditionally conceived broad surveys of contemporary art available to date, and is refreshing in its innovative approach to this complex subject ... essential reading for students and scholars of contemporary art history, visual culture, and visual theory, and general readers just wishing to develop their understanding of this complex subject." Reference Reviews
“Provocative, wide–ranging, and impressively inclusive…a welcome and important addition for the understanding of the art of our historical present and a boon companion for the general reader, the artist, the student, the art historian and the critic alike.” Abigail Solomon–Godeau, University of California, Santa Barbara
“By keeping its finger on the pulse of the present, while commenting on the recent past, this book reminds us why contemporary art, and contemporary art history, matters." Geoffrey Batchen, City University of New York
Product Description
A Companion to Contemporary Art is a major survey covering the major works and movements, the most important theoretical developments, and the historical, social, political, and aesthetic issues in contemporary art since 1945, primarily in the Euro-American context.
- Collects 27 original essays by expert scholars describing the current state of scholarship in art history and visual studies, and pointing to future directions in the field.
- Contains dual chronological and thematic coverage of the major themes in the art of our time: politics, culture wars, public space, diaspora, the artist, identity politics, the body, and visual culture.
- Offers synthetic analysis, as well as new approaches to, debates central to the visual arts since 1945 such as those addressing formalism, the avant-garde, the role of the artist, technology and art, and the society of the spectacle.
