1

HAPTER THIRTEEN

Th c argument about the U;regfso-r:temporaryarutoday26**tee&in+hcs-

byway*of'showaniltelliy
,flrp,.t! elrrrenc
giv i ng prioriyJo. dirc-t--1gugtg-wi-tbaJt
ir.,*Ja."!bs*hgrh-"reb._"t"_a_t!_nrhpdsJh""h""
r -n.'. p,raded
to come clean' to relate
thc theoretical arfu-!-h#-bp:trp-hy*Time L^-l
hand'
npprJJn.;; th"t ;;; i" contention' to show my disciplinary
'uyjo by for artpractice' art criticism andl
f - "rking:What are the implications it is time that contempoary at wes I
rrrt theory of posing the possibility that
etrbjectto a certainkin iof atthstoncalanalyss? l

Ashingthe Question
with capital letters on
llwe ask the question "What is Contemp orary Atl?"
thewords..Contemporary',and..Art,''theanswerisobvious-andhasbeen
since the r

etan
ture"wiMisso*ur-sc;
ines and monumnts; mark s-e-9l!!.*

tur@ sales' art fairs'

Contemporaryart museums, galleries, biennials' auction
withwhole ranges of
magazines, televisionprog,"-', a"dWeb sites' along
associated products, seemlo be burgeoning
in both old and new economies.
niche
theyhave carved out a constantly changing' butprobablypermanent'
inthehistoricalunfoldingofthevisualatts,andinthebroaderculturalin-
presence in the inter-
dustries, of most countri' they are also a significant
?&\
 national economy, being closely connected with high culture industries s I world-its institutions, its beliefs, thc
rr r r This is how the contemporary art
as fashionand design, withmass culturalindustries suchas
those oftourir;rr r, t':lsemble of cultural practices that go into making it a socius, a "scene"-
and, toa lesser but still important degree, to specific sectos it is, it is what we
of reforn r .rrr,l i r;rswes the Contemporary Art question: it is what we say
change such as those of education, media, andporitics. Howcouldone
cl.rrlrr i o, it is the art that we show that we buy and sell, that we promote and in-
this, when milling about a t he u erniss age of the venice Biennale or any o r l r,.
I erpret. This scene is self-defining, constraining on practice and constantly
nearly hundred biennials and similar exhibitions staged cyclically
in cli t.r ,lviting its own self-representation. Its inclination is to insist on complic-
ent cities around the world, when reading ofyet another stratospheric
p r i, r
,
y with itself: it often does this by recycling centuries-old, romantic, and
achieved at a contemporary art auction, when opening the advertisen(,rr
filled pages o f Artforum orany other of the plethora of contemporay ar r r. r r
l
azines' whenattendingalectue course on contemporaryart (increasingly,,rr
offer in art schools and university departments), when scanning the li.s r ,,r
cultural institution.s in any tourist guide to any significant city in the w. r lr l
,

or noting that anything to do with the building of newmuseums

is gLr:r.:rr
teed upfront treatment byboth local and national news media
? IndeeJ, n,,,r r ly

all of the ninety or so significant new museums o new extensions that

wt,r ,,
commissioned around the world during the 199os were devoted to cor t(,r r

poraryart. Post-g /rr, manyoftheseprojectswent onhold orwere abancl.rrr.r

I

altogether. Recentl;r, museum building has recommenced, and conter rl)r r

rary galleries-public and private-are leading the surge.

contemporary Art is a culture that matters-to itself, as its own srrrr
culture, to the local cultural formations in which it is embedded, t. rlrr.
complex exchanges between proximate cultures, and. as a trendsetting rrt r,
within international high culture. Its globalizing character is essential rt r ir
,

but it also mobilizes nationalities, and even localisms, in quite specic. rrrr,l
complexways. As we have seen, since its completion rnry97,Frank Gch y,:,
Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao has become acknowledged everr,vhcrt,
,rr,
the paradigm of what a contemporary randmark, logo, or destination
br ir, r

ing should be' A supreme work of contemporary art in itself, it is celebrrrrr.r

r

as a cathedral ofcontemporary Artfor the globalized world, yet it i.s ,rr,.

that also serves-at official, if not local art worrd levels-a baslue rcgi,rr,rr
cultural agenda.
In settings such as these, the concept of "contempoary art" is in evcrytl,ry
usage as the general term for today's art taken as a significant wholc, ;rr,l
understood as distinct from modern art-the art of a historica periocl rlr,rr
is substantially complete, however resonant it may remain in thc livc.s
:rrr, r
trli

values of many. If used at all, the tem "postmodern" recals thc ,rorrt,rrr lli|lrrrttil'

of transition between these two eas, an anachronisnr frorr tlrt, r,17.s rrrr,l
r98os. These presumptions became thc'orr. ir urt discorr-st'rlrr.rrl,lr,rl
I i. r. N:rv irr l{lwa nchaikr-rl, Strper (M)art, zooo. Mixe d media installation, Palais de Tokyo,
the world during the r99os.'
l'.rri:;. (t,orrrlcsy o'Air dc lt;rris.)
 llly',lllVllll'lttr)(lr'i,"l ,t ,1,,'1,, r;lllil1l'lrv(
.illti,ltr It.t(ltt(.,:,ltrlr.t:,trrlrrillv,.r.tl,t(.srii,rnt.,lt H; r r.r rvt'l t' I lt,tl st't't tt:; I y;rrr .rl,ttttl I rryr;l i I y rrrli' l{rtllrt r tlt'rtt
ri.s;, l)r':at.y, lrrrrl [;r.stc. L..l< aPwlrr-tl irr.llrt':rlr-irrrr, llrr,(1.1i1,r.111,,.1,,,
,1,, rlrl :tlrottt llrt' lrtltt lict'o pcriotli/ili()l' il tttttrr'tl irrto tlotllrl
llrottl llrt'
**
Bilbao. or subrnit to thc sing[c lracl<irrg shot thul .swc(.1).s tlrr.orrlilr
tlrr, I lr *. r llri .rcy o historcrll thirrl<irrg itscl'
mitage and through scene after lovingly obscrvccl sccrc . rlrt, r:rr;r r
r,rl r irl within [hc frameworks of orthodox art history, with its sus-
1l ()rc stays
the prerevolution Russian empire in Alexander Sokurov'.s zoo-, lrlrrr
li 1:Jirry Lrrrrtrg narratives about the succession of"great
schools" constituting the
rle. At the other end of the spectrum of contemporary is understandable. As
rt,'r'lrrr i rr r r i r, r rd,ri, rir
a 1,r,,{icn but incessant reflowering of art, this concen
Rawanchaikul ironized his own situation, and that of his conrcrrrpor ,u r'r,,
lr! .,r.r.slhevisualartsareconcerned,itisevidentthat,sincetheyearsaround
his work sup er (u)art,an installation at the entrance to the l)ari.s rit,rrrr.rlr= be a can didate
+r r, r.,, tendency has achieved such prominence that it might
r, no
the Palais de Tokyo in zooo that obliged visitors to pass throtrglr it
1,, lrecoming the dominant style of the
period' Much effort went into pro-
1,.11,,*u, '
that featured a vibrant image of an artist/barker who shoutccl .rrr ..return to painting" in the early r98os, while installation, large-
vr,:rrrl ri ting the
slogans exhorting us to celebrate this exhibition of work byyorrrrll ',,.,1u video, and digital projection have been ubiquitous
in
,rrrr,,ra fhotography,
as if it were an art trade fair. This was an acute response conceptualism as
to the acivcr r .l r l r * r crri years. But nothing has succeeded minimalism and
,,
voracious collector, a figure whose seemingly infinite funds, declic:rrirrrr of retro-
rrr ,| rityles. The closest c"ndid"t. -ouldbe the spectacular adhockery
smart investment etuns, unformed tastes, and taste for the unforrrrt,t An
lr,r,i ',, rsationalist art, o perhaps the erudite refinements of remodernism'
come to dominate the international art scene in recentyears. between these new mediums and these shock
,r1 i cnuated, incoherent nexus

Just because this scene can be so dazzring, so entrancing, so dist rirr.l rrr|, r.rr:tics serves for many as the marker of international
contemporaly art, as
the question "what is contemporary art?" calls for further answers,
trr.rwrr .r..indoftaken.for'granted..housestyle,''asignatureexclusivitythatsetsit L

from wider perspectives. Let me propose another approach: one that is ., , . , from older or more prosaic modes. This
,
is too unreflexive to be an answer
r

historical in a number of senses. yet it begins from art practice, from

trrt, t,v i r the question, Whaiis contempora ry arl? Rather,
rr
it substitutes passive
dent fact that contemporary art pactice is saturated with deep,
deta i rct I
"r:ceptance for interrogation. Yet
it does disguise a deep concern' Sometime
but not always (or even often) systematic-knowledge of art history. r98os it b.g"tt to occur to opinion makers in the
art world that
rn P:rr i'r the late I

ticular, critical art is alert to artt historywithin history, and respnsivt, art in the past was
r,, ;rirother overall style of the kind that seemed to shape
the shaping powes ofhistorical forces. This has been evident
trougrr.rr r rcreasinglyunlikely to appear'' Some began to fear-others delightedly I

this book, and is in the after-

subject to which I wilr return at its end. Before doing s.,
a
rinticipate-that, perhaps' contemporary art might always live
L

however, it is important to review the range of answers to the questiorr . in an I

,lath of this "crisis," that it might be our "history" to be suspended

contemporary art that have been offered in recent years by commenta locking into
to r.s , ncessant shifting, one that would prevent another paradigm
critics, curators, and occasionally, historians. to mean periodlessness'
piace. "Contemporary," therefore' could well come
,-reing perpetually out of time, or at least not subject
to historical unfolding'
another period in social
Passing the posthistorical iMill there ever be another predominant style in art,
us that one t
i:ulture or epoch in human thought? Fredric Jameson has shown
During the r99os and around zooo there was, paradoxically, a widespreacl the key impulses of modernitywas its high anxiety
about defining histori-
of ..contemporary''
sense of contempoary art as being made in a state "beyond the word
history', or..after cal periods, its incessant periodizing'n In contrast,
.

the end of history." Although it has the fragility of the Romanor, "to be out of time,"
,, .o"r, on this reading, to mean not "to be with time" but
its overt subject, and that of the then imploding soviet empire "-pir. ,,",. after or beyond history' a condition ofbeing al-
as its impliecl to be suspended in
target, Russian Arh was just one among many melancholyyet lyric "
medita- w"yr"rrdonlyinapresentthatiswithouteitherpastorfuture'Wouldthis
tions on this broad, seemingly "posthistorical" state (and not the only
one to be horrific, debilitating or liberating?
offer art as the answer-or, at least, as the solace). This condition
was theo- Yet the "posthistorical" approach, I believe' means
surrendering what art
ll
rizedas definitive of the time, notably by Francis Fukuyama., Fom
present history, hirtori.al materialist critique more generally' can offer to an
perspectives, however, it is the conjunction ofhistoricism and "rr
blank-slate understandingofthepresent.ItistotaketheinstitutionofContemporary
:;:.;.:.. CH APT ER TH I RTEEN WHAT IS CONTEN4PORARY ART?
 Arl,rl il:;w,rrtl. l,o,rl<irr1ir.rrt,rrlly,,rrrtl lislt,rrrrrl, lor llrt.:,(,1tr(lslrr.lrirrrl t', il llrI
lltc l)(.(.()l(,lilllr.lrr,,tt.llr;ttt,t tttttttlttttlily irl llrr'1il,rlr.rl rlr'trl<t lPl'rr
bltl'stt'r-, ltllow.s tts lo tli.sce rtr lt rlcr'pt'r-.scl o t'ur-r't,rrl.s,
ruui.slil(:l)ly lrislrrrir irl lrrtist.sistlrcirrtlrcr-luttctt tltt'irowtrt'ltt-t't't-s,:ttttl i'
ones"fhe artists lnost thorolrghly con-rmittccl to rrrlkirrg :rrl irr of publicity it
llrr, t ,rrrli llrc succc.ss o :rrry cxhibition is urcasurcd lry thc arnor-rrlr
'rirrrlrr.y(.()n(r.rrro
tions of co'temporaneity know that they carry unresolvccr lcgacics this tellus about the role of thevisual arts in our
..rrr r rrr 1,,crcrates, what does
history of art, especially those that shoo< art to its roots ch-rripg
rlr(, r1,,r! arrItureTu
and r96os. Many of these innovations were, at their core,
extraor-crirr:rr y r,l
forts to grasp the contemporaneityof things, others, images, ,r,lr,.y 'l'hese are not unreasonable questions' Timms is angry at the arrogance
'.
and scr.
resonate still. At the same time, artists have become more art po-
and morc ;rt.r rr.ry tlr;rt, he believes, attends the "general reluctance of contemporay
aware that the powerful currents that drive broader
visual culturc.s j r ,,, r .r,r l,"ssionals to engage with such fundamental questions" and their dismissal
deeply inflect their fields of possibility, especiany the This leads straight to
visuar languagc.s ( )r ,{.r r ,, cloubters as consevative, ignorant, or unhelpful''
to them. consequent marginalization:
l.rr'l< of public confidence in the arts, and their
what are these unresolved regaciesz My suggestion has been that on attacting atten-
ilr.rr.\rb 'n rtists and curators, knowing that their careers depend
these days cannot turn awayfrom the fact that theymake
artwithin ctrlrrrr,,r tiontothemselvesatanycost,areincreasinglyturningtovisualgags'titil-
that are predominantly visual, that are driven by image, newsworthy so-
spectacre, att r',rr l:r[ion, public scandal or platitudinous commentaries on
tion, and celebrity on a scale far beyond that with whi their perceptions'"'8 on this
predeccs;s( | F ) , ial issues, under the pretence of 'challenging public
had to deal- Additionally, they are embroiled willy-nilly in willingly in a decline
th.la.t tha r r lriri vrew, contemporary art participates more and more
image economy is shaped and reshaped by a constant of a radical critique
warring betwee , r rrr, standards, but does so hypocritically, in the name
visceral urgencies ofinnervation on the one hand and the 'rf
debilitating rlr ilr , , . the causes of this decline.
It is a fraud perpetuated on the public by art
towards eneruation on the other. In their efforts to find figure on to defend their
within f'or.rrr, ,,rorld professionals, a condescending elite who then go
to win it from formlessness, artists cannot avoid using practi.es to impose on
of sur:rt l."- ir the name of higher values which, in turn, they seek
ing and screening which, along with the rise and ris,e oie
photogenic (r rrr Llrepublicforitsbetterment.Inreturnforthistrickery,theyseekrewardsas-
photographic, rhe cinematic, and the digitar), and the corr..f
trr"liJt impu rsr lLreprovidersofpublicgoods.Incontast,Timmsadvocates..artthatseeks
to the provisionalization ofart itsel{ are the great aesthetic of any superficial ap-
and technic;rl ,o pi"y a part in arresting that process, not by means
legacies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.s involvement in the legends' myths and
l,ropri"tirr, Uut through meaningful
stories that define cultures."n
the same phenom-
The Trickster Effect In his High Art Lite,Julian Stallabrass acknowledges
it as the art that
urrot , b,rifrom the opposite political position' Recognizing
To manypeople, contemporary art remains such and perhaps had to have' an art
a specialist discourse th.r trate capitalist, spectacle society deserved,
to discuss it in terms such as those used throughout this
book seems irrr that its producers could not but produce' he examines it for its traces of
plausible. It can seem the most baffling, hermetic, and. crazyof adhominem targets at which
ail the arrs, these connections' seeking deeper causes' tol
a sideshow of bad faith, and a serf-serving, elitist enterprise that precip 199os' a decade dominated
i to cast blame. Focusing on British art during the
tates mistrust among broader publics. This feeling is response to the del-
concisery put Ly pet,,,. by the yBas, he shows that these artists emerged in
Timms inhis What's Wrong With C ontetnporary Art? on British
recession-generating impact of radical conservatism
"t"riorrr, scornfully dis-
society-..society" was a concept that Margaret Thatcher
why is contemporary at so in thrall to spruikers to transform their art into a simulacrum of
[those who promotc -isr" as meaningless-only
their own cause, e.g., a barker] and promoters, for exampl., In its first phase' art
why do the illusory class consensus pomoted by New Labor'
their lofty claims so rarely match the reality? why do", "rr
ih. market havc createdbytheyBaswascharacterizedbyfourtraits:its..overtlycontempo-
such overwhelming power, even in areas, such as government "the provincial air of much
funding rary flavor"; its international sawy in contrast to
and public broadcasting, previously thought to be its
foil? tf art has previousnritishworli'(Warholandschnabel'henotes'weregeneralmodels'
CHAPTER THIRTFFN WHAT S CONTEVPORARY AR?
 witlrtlrt'n('xl 1l('n(.t.li,'nlt.tllryk,oorr:;, liitlit.llrrrr,trrtl(;olr.,r ,:;n()t.(.s,,r.,rlrr Milli,rrr:; .tll.trrl llll:;('llll:;, 'rrrtl lrlilli()l:; :l(" 'tllr'tt
lr'tl ltt t ttltlt'ttl|o
tltl;rrrtil'r
orlt's); ":t ttt'w ltlttl tlistirrt l rcl:ttiorr ltr llrt'rrr;r.ss nrt.rli:r," inclurlirrli r(.rl1r,trl I l|.y :U'1,.s i, l.rslriorLrlrility, rrrrtl lrLlzz. Yt'l :rlorrg witlr tlris
;rr.:;llrr.t ,
ir deepcr' qr-ralitetive
usc of llatcrials ioll.l lass cLrltu rc; :rrrd thc prc.scr [l[i()r o'"corrt'<'plr
r:rl w,r l, trvc growtlr, lltrtl tlris with-it-ncss, [hcrc is' I bclicvc'
in visually accessible and spectaclrlal form.",o whie thesc chunrcrt,r.ir;r rr ,, ..iriigoing on. At rhe Docr_rmenta rr exhibition in I(assel in mid-zooz, I
learning more about the current state of world
might seem quintessentially avant-garde, they were so onry a.s ir)r)(,ir,:r r., af-
'rltrr.lr.dmore people from official and commer-
stallabrass's label "high art lite," trading as it does on an analogy ro
bct,r. w ir lr ,rirs than was pssible, at that time' to glean
low alcohol content, is aimed at "an art that rooks like but is not qtrirt, , r;tl media. The interrogation of contemporaneity
by artists and the new
,rr r,
There are a variety of
that acts as a substitute for it."" His diagnosis of this essential amb iv:r lt,r rr ,, vrtues emergent fro-ihi, are slowly spreading'
has turned out to be quite acute: "To court a wid.er audience, higlr
;r r t rrr,. i teractions-difficult and dangerous, to be sure-between critical prac-
took on an accessible veneer, building in references and forms that t ce and institutionalized contemporary art' In this Faustian exchange'
lrt,rrlr'
without specialist knowledge would understand-and even someti,. rt.r; lllththeconformistandthecriticaltendenciestakeadvantageofthefact
, rrr

image economy' the

its use of mass culture, incorporating material that those with a
spccirrlr,r ilet contemporary art is uniquely plugged in to the
knowledge would generally not understand, having been too busywitlr r lrt.ii ,, rmbolic exchange b.t-et" ptople,
interest groups and cultures that
accepted that visual-
1,,{..s pr.do-inantly visual forms' It is everywhere
art historical monographs and too snobbish to have allowed themservt.s
,r,
interest inpop music or soap opera. In this way, the new art set out to ,Lyispreeminentinnewsandentertainment'advertising'television'print
irlrPt.,rl
to the media and to enage conservatives, generating the publicity
on ,r
,red,ia, fashion, commodity design, and utban
architecture' Its force in
w r ri r r

it was comingto rely."r, (albeit unconscious)

r,lraping the self-images of most of us is less evident
This sategy has had predictable results. 'As the art market revivecl ;rrrr I t,*Jrrol.r, powerful. It is in recognition of the subtle powe and the all-
success beckoned, the new art became more evidently two,faced,
lookirr;i in images, that I call it'theiconomy'"" The
,ervasiveness of this trafficking
still to the mass media and a broad audience but also to the particular t.,rr and the most critical ele-
, ommon visual language of the most conformist
cerns of the narrowworld of art-buyers and dealers. To please both nents of this visual economy is also that most
widely used in contemporaly
wa.s rr.r
an easy task. could the artists face both ways at once, and take ,,rt and design. This is tricky territory. we have seen
it in play throughout
both st,r:r
of viewers seriously? That split in attention . . . led to a wide public :lds book.
bcirrli
successfully courted but not seriously addressed. It has left a large audicrrr.r.
for high art lite intrigued but unsatisfi ed,, puzzledat the workk mearirrll
and wanting explanations that are never vouchsafed."r, Thus the s ContemporaryArt More of a Challen$e
angcr. .l
influential writers during the rggos, particularly art critics and reviewcr.r; .o InterPretation than Before?

such as Robert Hughes, peter Fuller, and Dave Hickey, and of philosopht,rs contemporary art seem such a challenge to its
committed inter-
,rVhy does
such as Jean Baudrillard, who accused the art world of conspiring
in its ow rr _rreters? To curators, who wish to display
its currents, its array; to critics'
disappearance. tn
.uho *"nt to grasp what is pertinent within iU to those
few who would dis-
may be important within
However well founded when directed at specific targets such as
the pu rr ern the outlines of its incipient history-what
licity machines of artists such as I(oons and the now aging and establislr rT , and also of course, -tty
ttti' may be so' now and in the future? And to
mentyBas, this anger falls short on two counts. It fails to recognize ,lrtists, because they have, like it or not' inherited
from the best of modern-
the rcrrl,
if uneven, achievement of certain of these artists-Damien Hirst o Ma r.sm the sense (even obligation) that to make art
now is' in significanlpart'
r

thew Barne;r, for example. More importantly, it cannot be generalized. a proposition about what it is to make
art now' or might be?
to ail 'o put forward
contemporary at. To do the latter is to ignore the substantial accomplislr Alofwhichleadstoanotherquestion'onethat'itseems'begstobeasked
ment of those many artists who, during the same period and since, have, in concert with the first. Is contemporary at
more of a challenge to inter-
rr.s
a key part of the
I showed in the latter part of this book, made art on quite other premiscs, pretation than before? What "before" means is' of course'
and to powerful or subtle effect. nproblem-but I will show its possible solution'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN WHAT IS CONTEI'4PORARY ART?
 l
l ltct, lr.rv, .rlw.ry:; lrr.t,rr .r lror,l o ()l)vi()11; i lr.rllt.rr1,1.1; lp I lrt, I r,.trly rrrl.r tt'tt:;ttttttl'; 'tl"lt1"
.11,:i()()lr('t ,tr(l\,vlllrlt:,:;vtllilrli,lolioottrittl',(l()w(ll'ttl
Ptt'l:rliorr () :ll'l i.s it lr:tppt'ns, (luitlili('.s llrltl rrt'w ir.l .s(,(.rs tp r;lrrrrt,willr 1 (.()Ut.s(,, willr v:l:;t rt,t.yclirrg()l Pltsl
:rt'1, its(()l[('ll)()lit-y rt'lt'vlttttt':tlttl
cur
cvcrything thaI comcs 'rcshly into thc wor[cl: rrsccrcc, prccipit.lrrsrrcss,
t t t lcrcsI lr ililr liglr tctl. Orr
top o[ tlris, tlrcrc is a .rcrrzy o[.ir-r [crcst allolg
immaturi[r, incompeteness, and provisionality. Then there arc effect' in the early years of
qualiric.s ors and youlg scholars in the -recent past-in
related to its differences from other art: novelty, unfamiliarity,
rarity, anc i' iL l rent, contempoary art'
so forth. More difficurties follow from just where it medium' content' loca-
appears, how, and to Itis more diverse than everbefore in all its aspects:
whom: its legibility, its mode of address, accessibility, or availability. effect ofthe fact that'
rhesc rion, affect, effect. this perception is' perhaps' an
are commonplace problems that interpretation must conceptual art)' there has
work to overcome_as r;ir-rce late high modernlt- (pop' minimalism'
r it does, withvarying and changeable degrees of success. Beyond of aestheric power that the very
them, how- reen no p"rld sryle. so distant is this kind
I

| - ever, there is nowadays a widespread sense that recent

andcurrent contem- ,Jea of a contemporary period style seems
not only odd and undesirable but
porary art has these qualities to an unusual degree, perhaps
moe so than at o have all but faded frol mt-o'y'
No qualities of any kind' at any level' are
any time in the previous history of art. And that it has some make even their contemporane-
further qualities rhared by a suffi'cient number of works to
that make its contemporaneity distinct from that of previous
art. iusness self-evident. A paradoxical result
is that not all contemporary art
aithough this sense is wid.espread, a recent statement by Donald not look like art at all'
Ifuspit, loks "contemporary," and much of it does
in an essay entitled "The contemporary and the Historicar,',
registers them Itsbenggenerakdallovertheworld,,rLotjustatalimitedsetofcenters.How-
all at once:
'rirerpersistentsomegeneralities,impositions'influences'andthelikemay
re, they are drowning in a rising tide
of particularity' Local knowledge and
There has always been more contemporary than historical
art-.or, to uften the native language t"tdtd to begin to grasp the point of the work'
put it more broadly, there has always been more contempoaneity "" any one person to encompass'
than llhis requirement has become too much for
historicity-but this fact only became emphaticaily explicit in moder, etc.) are struggling to
r-jven teams of local experts (curators, critics, writers,
A subset ofthis concern
)int Art history's attempt to control contemporaneity-and with that uresent obj ective picttires ofregional developments'
the temporal flow of art events-by stripping certain
; .,r"rr,, of their id- rsthesense thatcontempotatyttisncreasnglybeingdissemnated,Iocally're-
iosyncrasy and incidentalness in the name of some absolute that arebeginning to bypass the
')
system of gionally,laterally,andcriss-currently'trtways
art'
value, was overwhermed by the abundance of contempo rary
arevidence .rti."ily market and publicity system for international
integrated
that proposed alternative and often radicaliy.ont.ar| ideas quichly thanbefore.This
ofvaue.'u Itisbingmad.ebyyounger artisis and" exhbitedmore
of "art school art" in the biennales,
is abundantly evident in lhe phenomena
Let me break this rament down into a list of oft-heard claims, galleries, and auctions as the
all o, of overstocked art firs replacing museums,
which-singly and together-charenge previous interpretative modes. placestoseeandbe,.",',*dof,,oraciouscollectorssettingagendasacross
Ther e se ems t o b e mor e c o nt emp or ary art than ev er b efor e.,, Before', c an mean theentireartworld,includingtheestablishmentofmuseumsconsistingof
any moment before this current decade, but the far horizonis (advised by their
usually the their own collections, fro- *hi.h they enthusiastically
r95os, and looming large before it (as we look back) of artists whom they consider
are the r96os, when curators, or off their own bat) mount shows
modernism was at its most developed, so powerfulry writing on idiosyncratic themes or
its current interesting' present interpretive exhibitions
and future agenda, and its prehistory, all the while hovering rary artthat they happen to have
oi th. cusp o. promote certain tendencies in contempo
eclipse. Each decade since has offered striking markers
of significant change. collected.
viewed from the present, the big story is the shift from
porary art. This has occurred against many backgrounds,
-od.r'to contem-
not least a massivc:
worldwide expansion of the culturar industries, The visual Canons, Plurality, and Particularity
art-producing
institutions (art schools, museums, galleries, auction houses,
publishers, Adefactostrategyinthefaceofthislonglistofconcernsistoacknowledge
educators) have ramped up to industrial levels and are putting
orr -or" rr"r" most,ifnotall,ofthembutinsistthattheworkofcertainartistsandthc
.,-,:.: CHApER THTRTFFN WHAT IS CONTEI'/ PORARY ART?
 l)lll:;llll()l (('ll:illl)l.l(li(('.\(()tr:;lilul('llr('(()r'(.() ('()n[('rrl)()riuyillllJti.s I tlisltppt':rr,',l,l"lrttt'pl:rtt'tllry":;oti'tl'trrtltlr:;lilrlliolr;rllotttt'tlitttlr'ldt
lil<cly t. lust. cr-rrltors, critics, a'cl historians, as wel as art markets ancl wltost'ttto
tcrttt'syct' lrLrt
,'trly tlo ttoI lllvc lrrry c()lccl)ts:rtttl
I

whiclr wt'11,11
o'
institutions, just have to wait a littre-resist the latest ancl incompre hensiblc to nrost
fashions yet leavc ,lr-ts opcrlncli r.r.,,.r
"p'q'te
out the lure-and some works of art will, in time, join '.in'ptofootdly by outstanding critics' of a bafflement
the canon. From this Lls."" These ate honest admissions'
perspective' anotherparadox arises: contemporay
art is that art being made i hat is shared by most of their colleagues'
today that will eventua[y become of rong-term art
historical interest. But Yet the canonical ho-ti"'internally flexible' reaches.its 1im-
"pp'o"th' slip behind his-
how; now, canyou (fore)tell?
Lsin many ways: it is inherently conservative and so will
A variant of this view held strongly in the western turn overwhelmingly conservative
at centers, is that ory unless historical forces themselves
to the disposition
the best art oftoday is consistent with earrier art
ofconsequence that was i;rs, evidently, many of them have these days); it is tied
produced within the modernist, avant,garde traditions
oi the twentieth ,rf power in the cultural institutions and to
their increasingly volatile fates
centuy-taking these murtiple, cosmopolitan modernities version of canonicity relies on the
as richly con- ,vithin contempora".irrint modernist
of which are
flicted at the great metroporitan centers, and as including
art created at lraradox of av"rr,-g"'at
;"pture and individrral renovation' both
many of the connected peripheries, as wen as in the innovative artists turn away
artistic trafficking be- ,.ro-ing increasingly difficult to maintain as inevi-
tween them' New art can be assessed against this is a European' Western story of
diverse and comprex relacy. l'rom even antimodernism; finally' it
This is a difficult, but not impossible, task, and centers, on" th"t, after the postcolonial
many historians and critics rable recursion to the metropolitan
have tackled it from a spectrum ofperspective, to sell both at home and abroad''o
since the r97os. Thejournal Iurn, has beco-. i"t""'i"g aifnt"tt some of
october, for example, was founded as an ongoing a valety of pluralistviews'
critique of narrow views In contrast to canonicity, there are
of modernism, and has closely examined art that
flo-, fro- -odernist and whichshaderntorelatiuism'includingradicalrelativism'Itisacommon-
. postmodernpremises, but rarely shows interest in art that has resulted. from grasped untii it becomes' in some sense' a
place that the present cannot be
is taken
the postcolonial turn. rf Since of Minerva flying only at twilight
ryoois a recent textbook that reflects this ap, past. Hegel's metaphor of the owl
--) proach. By organizing entries according to theyear is an o)cymoron' The practical
difficul-
ofthe occunence oftheir to mean that contemporary history On the ' '
content, it tracks above an the contemporaneity of
modern art, rather than Lies of seeing a pattern wiin
the flux of curent events are evident'
its history-at most, it implies a limited numbers (and past evidence enough)
that au-
of histories of modernist clther hand, there is gtttrri"" concern
art: double modernism (formar and informal) for two
of its authors (Rosalind thoritative statements by curatos'
cltlcs' and now collectors on tendencies
thus
I(rauss and yve-Alain Bois), or a continuing by artists' to their becoming trends'
and heroic, but urtimately futile, could lead to their being followed
struggle by certain neo-avant,garde artists against art's "natural" historical
the seductions and the ,listorting the practice f art and second,guessing
degradations of the Culture Industry (Benjamin Buchloh).,,
While a large evolution-which,onthisview,shouldbeleftentirelytoartists'(Giventhe it
portion ofthe entries are devoted to artists active since drives much contempoary art-as
the r96os, it reaves position-taking and contestation that
ambiguous the question of whether anything fundamental modern past-this is nave')
has changed. The has much of the art of at least the
implication is that it has not, or, if so, it has changed
in ways that exceed the Aswehaveseen,Donaldlfuspitoffersaversionofthepluraiistposition
'' frameworks used in the book. one of the authors, that he believes contemporary
Hal Foster, was fran< about that is precisely cafrated to the situation
his observa-
this' Asking "Are there prausibre ways to narrate the now
myriad. practices art has reached,to*, the early twenty-first centuy' I cited
of contemporay arover the past twentyyears?"
he d.escribes the two ..pri- 't
donsthat.orr,.*no'"t"itytt"'exceededarthistory'seffortstoestablish
mary models" that they have used during this period-.bn but his ex-
when this change occurred'
the one hand, the value' He does not specify irecisely
model of a medium-specific modernism chailenged during the r96os' when "the turbu-
by an interdisciprinary amples al1 imply that it -"' i"t'od"ced
postmodernism, and, on the other, the mod.el of a hisiorical exponentially in the postmodern
avant-garde . . . lent pluralism of modern art ' ' ' increased
and a neoavant-garde"-as having become "dysfunctional.,,ru historically, evolved
Ano'ther au- situarion.,, ,"t ., it i, to be the naturalry, or at least
thor, Benjamin Buchloh, admits that "the bourgeois '. and so attacks artists' critics' cura-
pubric sphere,, to which state ofcontemporary art production'
both previous avant-gardes were rerated, albeit criticany, ,,irretrievabry to second guess art history by preferring
has tors and historians who would try
..::il: CHAPTER THIRTEEN WHAT IS CONTEIVPORARY ART?
"llrt'lr.rPPy t'w or llrt'()rrr'.rlrrl t)rrly truly rlrtl:rlrsolrrlt'ly sil,lrilctrlrl ;rr'l lr,rvt,lrt.r.il rr..rt lr,.,l, llrt.wor lrl:;l.rrrrl:; l,lr'r'lo .rr t willr rlr;,11,
rrr,rll,r il:: I r, ll
i.st."'l'lrt'r('sl)or.sil)lcrolcor"o"iticisrrrirrllriscorrtcxr is,hcbclicvcs,tokcc;r | ()ltl('ltl)()r.rrrt'i t y.
advancing a "plur:alisrn of critica interprctations" of current, rcccllt rt(l (,ontcrnPor:Utciry is, accordirg to sta[dard dclnitions, "a col]tclpofalc-
"contemporary,"
past art in order to "keep t in contemporary pIay." For i(uspit, "the powt'r otrs colclition or sta[e." ln the expandcd sense of the term
be-
of contemporay art cores from the insecurity of being ephemeral," so Ih is me ans a srate defined above all by the play of multiple relationships
that nominating particular artworks, or works by select artists, as todlyi; r,
we en being and time. obviously, this condition
has been a vital part of hu-

arfor the future is to reduce them to "sterile homogeneity." In the cu:rcrt rran experience since the beginning of consciousness' Equally self-evident
belief,
context, which he sees quite accurately as dominated on the one hand by :r the fact that other relationships-not least structures of religious
s
Malthusian overproduction of artists, and on the other by the exclusivisr ,.r_rltural universalism, systems of thought and political
ideologies-have
superficiality of extraordinary auction prices and media-sensationalist ct. ,nediated these particular ones. In recent times' however' there has been a
these struc-
lebrity, any form of interpretive generalizationwill be self-defeating at bcst ,
loticeable spread of the sense that the encompassing powe of
evi-
complicit at worst. When this is put alongside the incommensurate partic r r inres has weakened considerably, not least because ofthe everywhere
larity and radical incompleteness that is natural to the contemporary, tlrt' rlent contestation between them. Nowadays, the frictions of multiplicitous
near and
only option for criticism is, he believes, to make "an interpretive case for;r iJ..ifference shape all that is around us, and within us' everything
ir, every surface and depth. w-ith the passing of modernity'
the evaporation
particular art's interestingness by tracking its environmental developmctr I
in the context of the observer-interpretert phenomenological articulation ,rf the postmodern and ih. ,ire of fundamentalisms, with the eruptions of
of his or her complex experience of it."" Criticism, then, not history. Or un overstressed planet and the diminution of imaginable futures, contem-
we have' It seems, too' that almost every kind
history as accreted criticism. Despite his use of the term "pluralism," tlris ;roraneity ,""-, ,o be all that
),f past has returned to haunt the present, making it even stange to
itself.
is a particularis position.
Ifuspit is right about the dangers of generalization in a situation whe rt. ls this a new era, or have we passed beyond the cusp of the
last period that
us to this
the shots are being called by inimical institutional,, media and market forccs. ,:ould plausibly be identified as such? These considerations lead
of our tmes, mani- I
But singularizing particularity, however shrouded in objections to the largc r ccrntention. contemporaneity is thefund,amental condition.

forces, is no solution. An engaged, implicated relativism is more difficuh, i'est in the most distinctive qualities of contemporatyltfe'from the interac-
of cultures
but more responsible. But what are its consistent dimensions? How do thcy iions between humans and the geosphere, through the multeity l

vary according to the situation in which they seek relevanceT
A Distinction, Three Contentions,
and Some Proposed Lines of Inquiry
In the introduction I argued that the concept ofthe conternporary has al
ways served to acknowledge the quickly passing present, but that it aso
had a great but insufficiently tapped porenrial to grasp the multiplicity o'
relationships between being and time that were occurring now and that harl
occurred in the past. It would do so, of course, as it always has, alongsidt,
other terms that addressed other aspects of the nature of human being irr
time-notably the "modern," which has dominated historical thinking, antl
thinking about history, during the past two centuries at least. This begarr
to change in the latter decades of the twentieth century, first under the rr_r
bric of the "postmodern." Now as the limits of postmodernist explanatiorr
and the ideoscape of global politics to the interiority r:f
individual being'
Against its grain, we must write its history, as it is happening' otherwise it
rarill elude us-even, perhaps' destroy us'
contem-
From this it follows that the primary object of any history of
poary art worthy of the name is not the Contemporary Art that subsists
a gen-
n public consciousness and mass media, or that which occurs as
eral category in non-art discourses' These conceptions are worthy
ofnote'
that prevail
xrut th.y arenot the main game. similarly, the self-conceptions
in the intersecting sets of interest that constitutes the art world-including
the territories of those committed to contemporary Art-are
indispensable
to inquiry, but are in themselves mostly symptomatic'--Since the r95os' all 7
over the world, an increasing number of artists have been
highlighting as
of
their essential subj ect matter the ontology of the present (to use a phrase
Fredric Jameson's)-that is to say, elements of what it is to be
in time." onc
then-r-
after another, each of the relevant professional expositors-artist.s

CHAPTER THIRTEEN WHAT IS CONTE14PORARY ART?

 1i("lv('1;,(illr(1"r('l)()t l('t:;,(ll.rl()r:;,(l(.,l(.t:;,.1t(lior(.('r:;,.u(l(.()ll(,(l()r1; lt,t,- ilt.y t() l,,rr1i,.r 1,r.1,,r:;silrl,. llr.trI ltir;lori,.tl l,'lIl; w( 'l('ll{rl l'rlliilrli 'rl"'rrl
c()trlt'tttP0rltly stylt''
:tltt'rrryrlt'tl to itlt'rrlily wlrrrl i.slloirrliorr irr:rr'l :r.s il lrr.s lrt,t,rr lr:r1rpt.rrirr1,. ;1.,, 1, lrt, :rrriv;rl t. s.t.t.r,ssiorr o orrt., ltll t'rrt orrrPlr.ssirtg
as sr,rc[r. lt clocs tlrcatt, how-
clrawtl attctrtiolt to itrrportant irctors, trsrr;rlly irr lirrc witlr llrcir- irrtr.rr..,l.,
ha.s lris clocs t()[ tc1u thc insLarrt clcat[r of'stylc
Sowly, however, elements of a plar,rsiblc pictllrc lravc ctllrrc irrlo irt'rr:; Nlra,, ' vcr, that any styles that do persist
will do so as anachronisms' Thus my
and
after a fewfalse stats, it is the historiank turn to set out an ovcr-vit,w. trrr rrt ,,,r.sitioning of -h", t have cailed retro-sensationalism' remodernism'
what? Far thehistory of contemtorary a.rt, the core object of inqurry i.s ftt, rrr./ , lIr ' l)cctacle art.
art' when the concept
ideas,the culturalpractices andthevalues that are credted"withinthc currrlrlrlrr, Ilxamining those occasions, within debates about
of key values seen to be
of contemporaneity. showing what, how; and why these have re ccrr t ly r;rlir,r r. , . i the "conte mporatt'' has surfaced as the indicator
perhaps even sketch a
and are currently taking, the forms that they do is the core task o'corrlr.r' i stake would enabe us to note some prefigurations,
Exploring such situations
porary art history. The backstory is the shift-nascent during 111 1tl,,,,,, ehistory, of contemporary within modern art'
, u

emergent in the r96os, contested during the r97os, but unmistakablt. sirr, ,, ta;k: it would be foundational to a well-grounded
i depth is an importanr
some striking examples
the rg8os-from modern to contempo tary at. rstory of contempoary art' We have already noted
r
reaction against
Implied in these two contentions are many others of relevance to a r.r lrr,, ,,hile iscussing, in the first chapter, such precedents as the
in 1948' In British
tory as a discipline. contemporaneity tself has many histories, and hisr.r rr,., toMA by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston
formed'
withinthehistoriesof art.MostIy, arthistorians tendto notice conte rrrp.r.r ,llonies throughoutthe r93os' contemporary art societies were
neous elements in a work of art as distractions that, they believe, will rt.t,r.,l,. 'rostly as artists' exhibiting
organizations' in opposition to local academies'
in importance-indeed, disappear from sight-once a more measurctl lri,, charter of the Contemporary
'lee Art Society' founded in Melbourne in 1938'
torical gazerecognizes the true nature of the work's achievement. But r r( )r , ; typical: "By the expression'contemporary
art'is meant all contemporary
or are orig-
subtle understanding of contemporaneity as constituting all the possil,l,. ,,"i.ring, ,.rrlp,*.' d'rawing, and other visual art forms which is
relationships between being and time identifies a shifting body of sulr jt,r creative or which strive to give expression
to contemporary thought
r L;ral and
and retrogressive including
matter that has atrways been available to art. Different sets become relcv;r rr r .rnd lifeas opposed to work which is reactionary
at particular times, in specific places. The art historical quest unleashctl l,y ,nork which has no other aim than representati
ot."tn Irt every case there is
this idea obliges us to ask some unexpected questions. To what extent, irrl ;rnutterlyspeciicconjunctionofartistictendencies'oneofwhichtakesthe
together'
how; was awareness of the disjunctions between being and time regis tc rt.t I rtame "contemporary'Lfor that time' in that circumstance' Taken
theprehstoryof thecontem-
within the symbolic languages that adorned the caves of Africa, markecl r lr,. fheyhint atthe richness, andthe complexity' of
interest that may lie-for
deserts and the roc\y plateaus of what became Australia, were painted i rr l I r r. poory within the mod'ern'They suggest' too' the
modernisms" project-in
caves of what became Europe, and were created on the plains and islancls r, the "alternative modernities'l or-"cosmopolitan
pathways' As well as a further challenge:
what became Asia and the Pacific? And so on, everywhere, throughout tirr rr., rracking these largely forgotten
up to the present. distinctiu.
rracing the -Jy, in which arr in each of these regions shifted
From these contentions, a number of lines of historical inquiry folkrw from modern to contemPorary art'
quite directly." tf, during the past two centuries, the elements of corr While the term ".o"t"-po'ary" did not come
to dominate institu-
in a number of centers
temporaneity have been subsidiary to the powerful forces constitutirrli tional art discourse until the r99os' artists working
modernity, what has caused the recent ascendancy of the contemporar-y:' throughouttheworldbegantopaydifferentkindsofverycloseatten-
years earlier' What role
How might these changes be traced within language use in general, artl lion to the nature of .o"tt-poraneity some forty
art discourse in particular? But this changeover has not been a simpl. acknowledged as a time of
did these concerns play in urhat is everlnrhere
transfer, or translation, from one state (modernity) to another, similar orrt, majortransformationinthehistoryofart?Arethesethefirstsignsofwhat
(contemporaneity). The state of what it is to be a state, the conditions .s Some now see as the shift from modern
to contemporary arl? or did they
to what counts as a condition, are changed. In historical terms, thereforc, signifytransitionsonasmallerscale(to'orwithin"'latemodern'artand
when it comes to considering the pesent and the future, period.izatiorr architecture, for examPle) ?

CHAPTER TH]RTEEN WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY ART?

 W..lr.tv..tt.ttt.trIi.'tl llr.rl /\r|.!i|1|({'|1)()1,. l(l
Ilr llrr'lorrl',:tllr't tttltllr o Wtrlltl W.rr ll,:r rlrrrrlrt'r ol .uli:;1..; irr tlillt.rt'nl t.|lt,t'l:;ttl rltlt t()ll('lll|)()l.rlrr'rly)'
siltt'tli'rrr'
l):t'ls o tlrc worlrl r'lt crtrrrpcllt'tl to t'xpcrirr('rt witlr tlrc itlcrr o rrr;rl<irr1i .rlltt itsottlr;lltlrtlittgtltrrrlilits'w:t:; r;tllrit'tllollri:;
somctlring that, in the rst instancc o'its conccption anc] apprclctsi()tr, ltlcotrlrltst'tlrcpclstctllolrilrltttt.rtltltsgClcrltc(lllrcrrcctlbrtlltrr:rtivcs
tlrul. work orl global, rcgional, and
local levcls' Thesc are cssential to un-
would be as if it were something that might have come into an uucrcrrtt'rl
existence. Lucio Fontana began to conceive of paintings in this wrry in tcrstanding art, not oJy "' it is created
within cultures but also as it en-
icrs into the exchanges etween them'
While its history is as old as human
79+g, as didJiro Yoshihara and Shozo Shimamoto in r95o, along with otlrt'r
to be the most obvious feature of
members of Gutai in ry54. Yves Idein soon after saw into the void, as cl it I nanufacture, this circulation has come
Guy Debord, in his anti-filmllurlements enfaueur de Sade (June r95z). Robcr.r (]ontempolalyart.Pluralistandparticularistobjectionsleadtopassivitybe-
an inability to trace in art and culture
Rauschenbergk surfaces, covered with black or white house paint durirrli Iore the impacts of globalization' and
r95r and 1952,wete mere receivers of light, shadows and other occurenc('s. rheunfoldingofdecolonization'Theyareblockingthepostcolonialproject.
those on the South American-
In the latter year, John Cage used them in his "concerted action" (later rc R.ecognizing this, many scholars' especially
in Africa and throughout Asia
named Theatre Piece No. r) at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. Ancly continent, in Eastern and central Europe'
and Oceania, are developing moe
nuancedpositions''u Thework of scholars
Warholt lasting significance is less his celebration of consumerist imag
ery than his registration, in his works of the early r96os, of death in thc from the regions, tho" in the centers pursuing the full implications of
"rrd of comparative studies of con-
present-the violent deaths of ordinary Americans as much as those of ;ff the postcolonial turn, raises the possibility
possibility of tracing the shift
,

Maril)ryr Monroe, and others. These examples suggest that attempts to grasp, temporay art as it happens, ""diht further
in specific ways in different
and to escape, contemporaneitywere crucial drivers of the great changes in from modern to contemporary art as it occurred
late modern art. regionsthroughouttheworld.Tellingthesestoriesisthegreatchallenge
If artists took the lead in facing the demands of the contemporary in the facing historians of conte mp oray art'27
generation of art historians al-
r95os and r96os, can we say that critics were most prominent in both ob- In the Euro-American centers' a younger
a revisionist history of art made and
structing (the formalists) and facilitating (everyone else) openness to these ready has begun the task of writing
art there, as elsewhere' is'
values during the latter decade and the ry7os? Can we say that the market shown in those centers. After all, contempoaly
Revived interest in the r96os and
returned to reclaim the agenda during the r98os, whereas curators domi- by any timeline, at least forty years old'
r97os is.not merely retro-fashion' It
is a response to the thirst on the part of
nated art world self-definition during the r99os (staging a contest between
either long dead (warhol by over
internationalist but antiglobalization biennales and globalizing museums institutions to take stock of work by artists
long and productive careers' For
of modernist art)? Can we say that since the turn of the century, collectors, twentyyears) or nearing the natural end-of
see the r96os and r97os in ways distinct
followed quickly by auction houses and art fairs, have led in highlighting the current younger g"lt'"tio"' to
and from above' by survivors
what counts as current art? I believe that we can outline the recent history from the interpretatilons offered on all sides'
of art world discourse in this way, and that when we do we find that the in- from that moment, wouid be to arrive at an independent view of the great
to them in ways useful to present
changes in art that occurred then' and
see
creasingly complex variety within contemporaneity has become the main
have beenundertaken
subject of this discourse. pr".t.. and thinking." Full-scale revisionsof this art
is being repositioned both in
Recent books on contemporary art are divided between pictorial compi- by a number of .,t'"-to" and historians-it
of contemporaneity: those
lations accompanied by minimal information text and brief artists' state- relation to previous art and to the key thematics
ments (the Taschen model); anthologies of interpretive essays by theorists, of t.-por"lity, multiplicity, and dislocation''n
critics, and curators (the Blackwell model); or long lists of themes deemed
to be of current concern." A few textbooks have been attempted, with more
WhatlcndofArtMattesNow?CuratosstagetheDebate
se to come. Meanwhile, art discourse finds itself in an oddly suspended
like all polemics worth their salt'
state between an arrested art criticism and a nervous historicism (this state Ambitious big-picture interpretations'
seems to have lasted longer than before-itself a sign of the debilitating aimtobeacutedescriptionsorno-particular(artistic)practicesrelateto
WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY ART?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
 l'('r('r,rl (:;r,t i.rl) r orrtlir i,rrr:;. 'r'lrt y .rr t',rlrorrr tlr.:;ir.rlrt. prr:;rr rorr.rlir y. rr :i(,(.rr:i rrt.tl,po:,lt,rlrlW,rrl:;rr'l,pt':;lttltt'l"1iit'tl'll'ttt:;lt'tli'rtr'rl'tlt'l'rlitdrirl
Io trlt'llrlrt' irt vistt:tl :tll tl isr'orr-st'irr llrt'yt'rrr'.s.rltrrrrrtl .,ooo, l'lristli'rlt'tltt'tl'ttlItltrisr'
lw. 1ri1,.111 ,r,,1,,1,.,,,q,,',r, 1ilt'l''rlwt'rl'll'''tl't'ttwlilltrl'
swcrs canc to fgurc brth arnidst thc rrrLrltitutlc o srrurllt'r ,l'lri.s
oncs. w,rr, iltcll)lsltlcsllrlllislrirrtagirrlrtivcltlrdcotrctcltllirrkswitlrirrLhcvariotts
especially evident in the major world art dis tributioll ntcrs. frrorrr b rolrt k,rce
lrrtljcctso.trroderrriry.r'heirimpact,aswellastheirmaterialandsyrr]'
worldperspectives, however, theirprominence is miseading, of translation' interpreta-
ancr, pcrrrrr;rr;, bolic ordering, is woven though procedures
reas-
self-defeating. The multitudes maybe on the cusp of having
their day. t ion, subversion, hybridi
zation'reolization' displacement' and
The fierce debate that divided the international art in different parts of the
word after the D.t.r r semblage. What emerges in this transformation
menta rr exhibition of zooz exposed certain varue antipathies and artistic networks
that have bt,r,r r world produc.s a .'iti"l ordering of intellectual
looming since around r9go, and had been at the baseline
of art worrcr rlir; oftheglobalizingworld.TheexhibitionaSadiagnostictoolboxactively
course for at least a decade. sometimes, when the grinding and disjunctions between
between trrt,rrr ,..k, stage the relationships' conjunctions'
gets too hard' they appea in raw terms. In the first chapter
I cited MoM /\ differentrealities:betweenartists'institutions'disciplines'genres'gen-
and sub-
chief curator Kurt varnedoe locating, in zooo, the historical
significancc rrr erations, processes, fbrms, media' activities; between identity
his museum's collections of recent art: the supposed
jectification. Linked together the exhibition counteposes
a rethinking of modernity
purity and autonomy o"f tht "'t object against . 'i
There is an argument to be made that the revolutions
that originallypr.tr based on ideas oftransculturality
and extraterritoriality.'Thus, the ex-
duced modern art, in the rate nineteenth and early twentiet
centurit,s, hibitionprojectofthefifthPlatformislessareceptacleofcommodity-..'
have not been concluded or superseded_and thus of voices' a material reflection on
;

that contemporar.y objects thao" container for a piurality

art today can be understood as the ongoing extension and of disparate and interconnected actions
and processes'tt
revision .r a series
those founding innovations and debates. The collection
of the Museu rr r

of Modern Art is, in a very real sense, that agument.

contemporary ar.t Seekingamiddlepathbetweenthesetwocontendingforces-oneatiring
is collected and presented at this Museum as pa,rt of a common
modern ait-as b. the other swarming of attackvehicles-hasbecome
a
longing within, and responding to, and expanding upon '*gg"rrr".i,, the Hamburger l(unstverein
the framework ,uiolrit. The zoo5 exhibition Formalismus at
ofinitiatives and challenges established by the earlier history
ofprogrc.s lrasconceived,inthewordsofBerlincriticDiedrichDiederichsen'es"a
sive art since the clawn of the twentieth century.3o 'eexaminationofthebasicideasofmodernisminthelightoftheverycon-
ofpresentation and production is
Iemporay cognizance that every detail
compare this conception of what was most at stake in millennial Grounding one set of values
art rlo"ay .nt"tinrt.d by specific histories'""
exhibitions to that of another cuator, okwui Enwezor, introducing
thc thesedaysusuallymeansdoingsoinrelationtotheothersets.Diederichsen
debate this way:
platforms that constituted Documenta', of which he
was artistic director. relationship etween the two sides in the
understands the
After a series of discussions held in different cities throughout
zoor and
introduced by such titles as "Democracy unrearized" the exhibition offered.a so- 7
(viea and Berlin), Theoretical ambitions notwithstanding'
work provided an alternative to
'
"Experiments with Truth: Transitional
Justice and the processes of Trutrr phisticated overview of art today' The
and Reconciliation" (New Delhi), "creolit and creolization , tendencies: on the one hand' the
(st. Lucia), ancl certain regressive and particularistic ) i
"under siege: Four African cities, Freetown, images in keeping
Johannesburg, Kinshasa, La- etun to the normality of painting and 'pttt"t"t"t
gos" (Lagos), the exhibition opened at I(assel, German;2, to an art at
in zooz. Enwezor with the logic of the -"'kt" onthe other' the recourse
"*
'

describes his project in a language inconceivable to

Varned.oe: issatisfiedwithconstructingglobalnetworksofsemi'politicizedcreative;
subcultures.t'
The collected result in the form of a series of volumes
and exhibitions is
placed at the dialectical intersection ofcontemporary
art and culture. From where he stands, both of these
big answes-remoderni'st and
such an intersection equany marks the limits out of is as empty as the other' This
which the postcolo, postcolonial-are reductive options' and each
CHAPTER THIRTEEN WHAT IS CONTEI'4PORARY ART?
 vr(wriwrtl.'lylrt.lrl lotl.ry_'lol)it'rlt,l itrltt'ttry(l llrttrr
itlr:;t.rr,,r.., lur ()llrt.r:,, llrt.,rrrlyw,ry1. rrto:;l ol llt(.((l()tl(.:; .ilrrlw.ll,,ttl.tIlttl,ttrtl lt,tttrlorttt''tl
r witr-rl i.s bcI wcctt llrt'rtt, v irt "clialccL icrrl .syr tlc.s i.s. "'l'lr is is ncit lrcr-
]()o(l I lcl,(, l,lrt,sr.t.lr:rrr1.t's:r'r.rttttt'tl l. .t t itt rlitly o t'xt
lt;tlt11t' trrlts'sivt'ly tltrt't1tt:tl'
lianism nor brave theory. A more complex sense of dialectical r-rry lrtrI tlrc P|cciPitrttiorr o clrlttrgc wlts loI clrtircly
w.s a r<t,y lrr.ovirrcillisl Io lrc srrrc' '
thcir own modernities' and thcy '
to Enwezor's conception of Documenta rr. Indeed, he has since gonc
claim that postcoloniality is not confined to those countries that were
ject to and subsequentlyfreed themselves from the colonialyoke.
on t.
su[,r
The entirc
1

r rrL: wl) tra'c.'t'he "provinccs" generated

, lid so in varying degrees of

.n't being generated at the centers'

of their contemporaneousness with
"t"""t" This cosmopolitan trafficking' as Bet-
i
modern art''u
world today is, in his view, a "postcolonial constellation."rn In chapter
9, t r,:ird among others, has shown' became international
Smith,
argued that this perspective is pivotal to grasping the conditions
'
World War II' with the breaking
in which y the r95os, howevet' in the aftermath of
contemporary art is being made everywhere in the world today. of the world into numbered
.np^., of in. colonial system and the djvision
The third term that one might expect from a classic dialectic-thc artbeganto change' then shifted
spheres, the conditions for making modern
synthesis-has yet to take a clear shape in art world discourse. A pointer :;eismicallY. 1
changes-indeed' t would
I

is a set ofideas advanced since 1997 by the then curator at palais

de Tolcyo, Contemporary art has inherited all of these
Paris, Nicolas Bourriaud, under key terms such as ..relational
aesthetics" irgue, it rs att of th.,t changes as they
continue to play olrl 0's drt' This is
and
"postproduction art." 'no-"t to i-pore the priorities of stcondary disciplnes
on those of art prac-
aspirebeyond conformitg or anach-
rice. Most worhs of contempordrA drt ' if theA
The possibility ofa relational art (an art taking as its theoretical
horizon ronism, are d"e facto ,ugg'trtio'' os to what
a worh of contempotary art might
kinds of
the realm of human interactions and its sociar context, rather
than the in circumston
lte r, ,url o, these. Btttthey are, these days' different
assertion of an independent and private symboric space), points that are qualitatively different
to a radi- proposition, put forward within conditions
cal upheaval of the aesthetic, cultural and political goals introduced
by fromthosethatshapedtheartoftheirmodernistandevenpostmodern-
modern art. . . . Every artist whose work stems from relational
aesthetics istpredecessors.somescholars,suchasAlexanderAlberro'recognizethat
has a world of forms, a set of probrems and a-trajectorywhich of period'" others' such
are ail his contempoay art is the outcome of a differentkind
own. They are not connected together by any style, theme, or iconogra, the same phenomena to a
ascurator Nicoras Bourriaud, continue to a[ocate
phy' what they do share together is much more decisive, to In his zoog Altetmodern Manifesto '
wit, the fact continuing, if much altered, modernity'
of operating within one and the same practical and theoretical horizon:
Bourriaudpoposesthatthisdifferenceamountstoan..altermodernity'',
the sphere of inter-human relations. Their works involve method.s between agents from differ-
of so- driven above all by "planetary negotiations"
mobile practices
cial exchanges, interactivity with the viewer within the aesthetic
experi- R.rponri-," artists, he suggests' seek highly
ent cultures.
ence being offered hirn/hea and the various communication and journey in open-endedways
processes, that employpolyglot modes of translation'
in their tangible dimension This captures much of what I
as toors serving to rink individuar groups through space and time, including history'
together. so they are all wor<ing within a relationar sphere, whrch is
to have been suggesting--although a"ptoy' however ironically' the mani-
today's art what mass production was to pop Art and Minimal and to highlight one quality'
Art.3' festo format (a classically modernist move)'
the essence' risks the reduction of
however internally to-pit*' as being of
The irreconcilability of these constructions-more than the
force that this profound' proliferative--indeed' paradigmatic--change to another
each of them might claim in and of itself-calls for the identification
of "ism"inart'shistory'Nevertheless'thelaudableaimistobringintofocus
another narrative about modernism, one that underlies my approach, what Bourriaud characterizes
and the way at least some artists are imagining
increasingly that of many others. we can now see that avant-g"rd. appropriate to the twenty-first
pr".ti.., as "the modernity to come, the modernity
arguing that this art to come is already with
and various kinds of institutional modernisms, in all of their ....rr,ly us' and
r..orr- century."38I have been
ered complexity, did drive modern art in Europe from the rg5os
to the 19oos. hasbeentakingshapealongsideothercurrentsthatcontinuetoplayoutthe
Its achievements and example did spread throughout much of my hypothesis' proposed in the
the world conflicted inheritances of odernity' Thus
through the processes ofcolonization. It was adopted in varying manifest themselves
degrees in introduction, that the conditions of contemporaneity
,,::...:. CHApTER THTRTEEN WHAT IS CONTEIVPORARY ART?
 lr' olltt t:' l, w(rll( wll""'
rtl.tlllotl.tyiltlltttt l,ro.ttltur(nl:iwrllrirrwlritlr..;orrr,.:;rrr.rllt,r :;tltlt. lclrtlr,rr llr.tl t tttt tllr':;, l'tl't:"t ';lr't1" llr'rl 'rllt'tt ll..'
, i.'s rn.ty lrt'rlisr t r rrt.rl. ,l,l{ot'lltlrol.rlt'lltt'ttt'1rtt'v:ril:;lot:tlitltt";l(ls('('lslttlrt'tottttttl''l():l
o'rrcolillcrlrl
, ,tl. ()rrc lsPcct is tl,".,i,1.)r...
o tltc rcwarclc rrutl clowrrsirlcs
politics' purrsucd dur-
globalizing capital' and ne oconservative
(
' ()rolics, avant- '

World Curents or""r1ier-twentieth-century

, ,rr thc re8os and theoretic
A history of contemporaty arlworthy of the name should draw on efLrt:; r'cle strategies, yet inti' potltit"l utopianism and their
"tt;;;;';;tft"*
f"tig and many
yu"' fot also by schnabel' I(oons'
1'
to date, yet be built on a framework that is distinct from that which undt,r r rolicalism, above all;;: and his fol'
by Takashi Murakami
lay Modern Art, the art of modernity. It would recognize the inheritanct,r;, r in the United sates' as well as
'!hers "Retro-
This tendency-which I have labeled
both positive and problematic, from earlier art-modernist, premoderrr, rwers in Japan,fo' efforts of
i,
"*"-plt' alongside-another: the constant
early modern, other than modern. It would treat art that originates fronr 'nsationalisrn'-has burgeoned
all over the world, in its local setting and in ir.s international circulatiorr , rr: institution, or-oa1"i""-
*lly designated "contemporary Art")
on art' torevive earlier initia-
acknowledging that it is, perhaps for the first time, theworld's d/ (not, thrr teign in the impacts of contemporaneity
,r
imperatives' to
is, a universal art with local instances, nor local arts organized by coloniz. to cleave new to tttt old modernist impulses and
lves, "" and Jeff Wall
tion or globaLization, but particula arts generated by the world's diversity). r:novate them. The works of
Richard Serra' Geard Richter'
of the
It would scrutinize current and recent art for what it shows of the ontol powerfutty
tendenry Reluctantly' in abhorrence
this
aost
"*t-ptity designate it "Re-
the inevitable' one might
ogy of the present. If it addresses these qualities, contemporary art histo'y lirnits of labels, but;;t to and cai
artists' such as Matthew Barney
might become worthy of its object: contemporary art-art in, and of, cor.r nodernism." In the work oicertain consummation'
come together in a conspicuous
temporaneity. I have been attempting to lay the groundwork for such a his Guo-Qlang, both currents the "Art of the Spec-
oi excess tiat might be tagged
tory throughout this book. It is my answer to Foster's question: 'Are therc senerating an aestf'etlc similar impulses
In contemporary architecture'
plausible ways to naate the now myriad practices of contemporay art over Lacle," or "spectacularism'"
the past twentyyears?" This answer is also a response to Buchloht question the U,-tildi"g', ti"tty ttto'" culture industry' designed by
shape ibt tib e skind t
g;;; "' I T:::-,"^':"t
""ti " Li"d appear""dl
about howwe might understand current social and institutional formations, r ank Gehry, s ""iel is
whenwe pose to it the question:What
iF

after their modern, bourgeois historyhas reached its completion, as global, How does of tii'
"tt half-aware that
as a late modern art that'
izationgoes into slow motion, and eventual meltdown. contemporary ""? ;;;;; "';"" the key drivers of '
the times' ccntinues to pursue
we return to the hypothetical description of the conditions of contem- it is too easily in tune with In this sense' it is
avant-garde experimentality'
poraneity and of the cunents of contemporary art that have emerged within modernist art: reflexivity and is that art emer-
history of art as such' lts bet
them that I proposed, in schematic fashion, in the introduction. I hope that the latest pha" i" ti" t'i"ersal into oblivion' and
I have identified will fade
it is clear that this proposal grew out ofthe experiences described in the pre- gent within ttt" ottt"' tt"rents hopes are
ceding chaptes, as a way of understanding what I take to be the fundamental it will persist ;;;;" remembered by the future' T"t'tht'tt
that being held against
that' today' such values are
forces shaping contempoay art whatever its manifestations: as artworks, tempered by the realization
exhibition sites, markets, studios, networks, actions, conversations . . . thegrainofth"n'"'""-'*tthlittlehopethatthetimeswillchangefavorabiy'
This contrasts greatly to
effect desiiable change'
I repeat it, for the sake of recollection, will add some final comments, and or that at can ao -otf"o of the abuses
predecessoLs' whose critiques
then point to works by just two of the many contemporary artists who also their early-twentieth-century
i'o" g" todernity were based on what seemed
of capitalism o' or'it
or
reflect on these same questions.
this failed project
The first major current in contemp otary arl,I have argued, amounts to then to be possible' pt""Jibl"' utopias' Nostalgia for
interest in moments when
it seemed still
the aesthetic of globalization, serving it through both a relentless remod, is widespread,
recurrent
'pu"i"g
ernizing and a sporadic contempozing of art It has two discernable as, viable,includingthelaestones'thetransitionstowardsthecontempoary:
imagery of thc
pects, each of which is perhaps a style in the traditional sense of being a .*"-ptt' tf" recycling of Warholt critical
heartfelt
thus, for Christian Marclily'
many curent artists' notably
marked change in the continuing practice of art in some significant place early rg6os in the work of
ART'i
WHA IS CONTEMPORARY
;,:::..J:. CHAPTER TH IRTEEN
 tlisr;t'ttttt'tlt"r ( ()rr.(.('rrl)t)1"',U.;"
rl,ir ,rrr',( r() rt',tlt"ttttl
(
wcrc t lrc.sct',rrtr, t rr irrr, rrrrrr .rrrtlr w.r.rtrs,
wlrrr t 1 111.'1.:.',:']l:]"''"''t'
was thc rst world. It lr;rs rrol c,lrrt.st't'tl
irrcrr rtrirrli it., i,,,1,,,,.t0 i,r
l,rllr,, i'( i('r(('sttl rosltoltrttillilv'wrtrltl"'l']'l:l]t"*t':':: l:::]l:i::i.',i,']:'
irrr.lrr rvt.r-lril rr.l ,r)\/,,rr,,rr ,, :;,1:':, ]i,,,, ",,,i,lir,,trgt,,,,rrrlrcc'rircworlt[.'l'hcposrcol.rriulrur'drrr
or three broad ones. Rather, the posrcolo"t", lcd [o the art
;.;';::'ri,ll-"i]li;.,,1 o['tl.rc twcnty-frst ccntury has
ofart shaped by local' national, anticolonial, il1, tl' r,r'vos ;trrtl lrrst tltttttlt circuits'
independc. r va rrcs (,r i u,,r ur prcdominant on international art
ti llr, ., , ,,tttl t'(lrrctlt llccorning
is a paradigm shift
r
identitv, rr has enormo,r, i.,t.r,'lil;n.::"il:ii;'.il:
"itiq.'.). sl1i lr rr
mode'etropolitan centes' lt
lrrili I lrosc rtl tl'tt
ers, expatriates, new markets but
especiarly biennaes. tcar a,r.r irrerld,, changing world geopolitical and-economic
tionalist values are in constant dialog tr ,: l, rr,r, ri roI it ttt that rnatches the artof the global-
in this current-somctirncs trrry .11,g ,,rrlr r lir,,rrt lltis pcrspective' contempoaryarttodayisthe
enabling, at others disabling, but theyare
ubiquitous. with rrris.sirr;rri.rl ;,ltllr
as their raw materiar, artists such cildo Meireres, Jean-Michcr rr.rrytrrF,
as
il',tlrirrlcurrentthatlhavediscernedisdifferentinkindyetagain'be-
s-!ri1i1Neshat, Isaac the sheer quantity
Jurien, Georges Adagbo, william Kentriclge :r rrtr
, rr *'y i,,1, ,,, {trlcore, largely,
of a generational.change and
others are producing work that match.s
tie st.ongest art of the first cr'rerr, participation in the image economy'
r,l y,,rtr1' pcople attracted to "cti"t
Postcolonial critique, along with
a rejection of spectacre capitarisrr,
,rrerr i\i. .u I, rI lrtkcs the form of quite
p""o"al' '-all scale and modest offer--
informs the work of a number of artisis
based in the curtural centcr.s. M;rrlr i,,,,' ir'rr:rrkedcontrasttothtgt""t"lityof statementandmonumentality
Lombardi' Allan sekula , zoeLeonard,
and others have developedprrr.rir.r, rrl ,.r .rll tlrat- has increasingly
-t to characterize remodernizing' retro-
that critically trace and strikingly display
the global movements o.t rrc rrew :,, t',.rtr{)rilist,andspectati'"'t'andtheconflictedwitnessingthatcontin-
world disorder between the advanced turn' Younger
on the postcolonial
.conomi., and those conncctt,tr i' rtr'', ltt' rhe goal of most art consequent
l,
multiple ways with them. other artists of th" frttt two tendencies' but with less
ing sustainable relationships with specific
base their practice arouncr cxlrhrr
.l I r', I " i t'rtainly draw o" "lt-""t' with
environments, both sociil i'rrl for their fading powe structures and styles of stuggle'
.r r l l( :i:; rcgard
natural, within the framework of ecorogical potentialities of various material media'
electronic communicative med.ia,
st'l others worr< wirrr
values. ,rr, ( ()lcern for the i"t"'"titt of tangible con-
.*a-iling its conceptual, social, arrcr rr-r vrr t,t.tl communicative
networks and open-ended modes
terial structures: in the context ofstruggles
between free, constaincd, irrrr
"
commerciar access to this media ,,,l,,,ui,y.workingcollectively,insmallgroups,inlooseassociations,orin- the changing
and its massive colonization by the to arrest the immediate' to #asp
crrrer l r,' i, lr nlly, these artists
tainment industr;4 artists'responses ,
'"tL and mood today' They make visible our sense
have d.everoped from net.art towir'rrrr n.rrr c of time, place, media
immersive environments and exprorations becoming' each
of avatar-viuser interactivi ty. I I r. I I rcse fundamental,
I
familiar constituents of being are
of temporal-
r
what kind of answer dowe getwhenwepose raise questions as to the nature
the question of the co'tt,r' ,l.ry, stcadily stranger' They
porary to the art of this current? To
of piace-making vis--vis dislocation' about
artists participant in the first phasc.s y I lrcse days, the possibilities
decolonization, those being asked for , rt
r., that wourd h"lp forg.'", i,,,r. wlr.rlitistobeimmersedinmediatedinteractivityandaboutthefraught
pendent culture, a necessary step ".'t
was to revive locar traditiorrr i-.g,,,, ..:..lrltngesbetweenaffectandeffect.Withintheworld'sturnings,andlife'.s
and seek to make it contemporary cooperation and growth'
by representing it through formats
rrrrtr I r rr tions, they seek
sustainable flows of survival'
styles that were current in western the modes of practice of this generation
-od-.r.r art. To artists seeking to brc;rrt lr fbllows from the mindset and
answer to the question of what contem-
the binds of culturar provincialism is
or of centrarist ideologies, however, rtists that they share no single
be contemporary means to be able r, , ,l . r
politics' in a word-is'
to make an art as experimentar as
trrrrr 1,.r'rr1l art.
Indeed, their radar f operations-their
being made in the metropoitan centers.
Geopolitical changes in the ycrr'ri part, 1o-"' t"d rnot"1"t"t"l
ytt also more networked than the
l,
'r lhe most
around 1989 opened out a degree ofaccess
between societies closed for orrc postcolonial artists and indifferent to the
1',rbalperspectives that
exercise
and sometimes two generations.
The work of unknown contemporaries
[rt, l,, neralizationsaboutartitselfthtremainimportantfortheremodernists'
came visible, and the vanquished
art of an earlier avant_garde b".r_. or th" superficialities of
the spectacle, however much they
,u.t N/r()st of them
denly pertinent to curent practice.
Frenzied knowledge"e".h"rrg" .rrr.,.,r, "bt
r,rrow rhat it has perme",ia
il of our rives. They begin from their experi-
and hybrids of all kinds appeared. becomes less :t
As we saw in rhe case of cuba, the so that the question for them
desi.r, , nces of living in the present'
WHAT IS CONTEMPORARY ART?
].11.I]. CHAPTER TH I RTEEN
 lll,lll('l () wll.l lr ( ()ltl( rrrl)()t.lry.u l, nr(r1'rlr('o wlrit lrliirrtl:;1 ;rrI ttril,lrt lrt
tttrttlt'ttow, ltttcl ltow rrriglrt tlrcy lrc rrrrrrlc witlr otlrcrs t:lo.sc lo lrirprl.
We have seen that each o1r thc three clrrrcllts disscminates itscl (not
entirely, but predominantly) through appropriate-indeed, matchi'g
institutional formats. Remodernism, retro-sensationalist, and spectacu
larist art are usually found in major public or dedicated private museums,
prominent commercial galleries, the auction rooms of the "great houses,"
and the new celebrity collections, largely in the centers of economic power
that drove modernity. Biennales, along with traveling exhibitions promor-
ing the art ofa country or region, have been an ideal venue for postcolonial
critique' These have led to the emergence of a string of neq area-specific
' markets. The widespread art of contemporaneity appeas rarely in such
venues-although some of it doubtless will, as the institutions adapt for
survival and certain artists make their accommodations-preferring al-
ternative spaces, public temporay displays, the net, zines and other do,it-
yourself-with-friends networks. There is, of course, no exclusive matching
of tendency and disseminative format. Just as crossovers between what I
am discerning here as currents are frequent at the level of art practice, con-
!i.2.JosiahMcElh erry,AnEndtoModerntty'zoo5'Chrome-platedaluminum'electriclight-
the Wexner Center for
nections between the formats abound, and artists have come to use them as cable' and rigging' Commissionedby
ing, hand-blown glass, steel Gallery' chicago' and
gateways, more or less according to their potential and convenience. The
rhe Arts of the ohio sttt"
u"lt"ttity' 1cLtt'y of Donald Young
museum' many artists will say today, is just one event site among the many Andrea Rosen galery, New
York' lhotograph by l(evin Fitzsimmons')
that are now possible. But this mobility is recent, and has been hard won.
while convergence certainly occurs, temporary alliance-the confluence of
differences-is more common.., Rathel my contention is that the three
rhe conditions of contemporaneity' conditions
are he actualkinds of art that these
The form of this description, its identification of three contending currents that I have outliried
t

are tiedto each other' uncomfortablybut ofne-

currents, might suggest that the classic logic of the dialectic is in opera- have generated. fhe currents
tion. From this perspective, institutionalizing remodernism and retro, cessity.Theyare.t""gt"Uf"contraries.that,areonlypartiallysynthesizable
are highly generative but
only as supple-
sensationalism would be the thesis, postcolonial multiplicity the anti- into each oth.r, .orrtr"'di.tions that
thesis, and remix, relational survivalismthe synthesis. Afurther implication mism;;;; tike mu etsein contemporary conditions'
so
ments of their
and indissociable'no Their
friction in relation
would be that the last will soon turn into a thesis, then attract an as yet un- they are, at once, i""to"tiUte all
They are' in a word' antinomies-like
imaginable antithesis, and so on . . . the process will continue to unfold, the to each other is of tit"i' essece' art today is
of iht" times' This is how
structure remain in place, the history of art will go forward in essentially the other relationships ti"'"ttt'i'tit
contempoanelty'
same way. My contention, in contrast, is that while these processes do seem answering the question of its a glass
AnEndto Modernity (zoo5) is
to be identifiable to a degree, the overall shift into the conditions of contem- American artist Josiah McElheny's a virtuoso
poraneity is leaving behind the world in which they had their purchase. The and metal ha,tgi"g
tt ft"t high and 16 feet in diameter'
""""t' developed skills as a glassblower'n'
Based
s;mthesis will not occur. It is, instead, just one supplement among a number demonstration of the "rtrrtt higty with prece-
opera, Newyork (themselves
of others, a number that is potentially infinite. The three narratives that now on chandeliers at the Metropolitan
design-those of J' L' Lobmeyr
&
compete in art world discourse are indeed signs of deeper changes in the dents in early-w"tti"tft-tt"t"'y arr'ttian It enjoins
glass making'
practice of art. But they are not merely symptoms of what it is to make art in of Vienna), it pays *-"rt to Listorical -odt"'
CHAPTER THIRTFN WHAT IS CONTEN4PORARY ART?
 rts lo crrjoy t lrl:;oltl l:r.slrittrrt'tl ttttltlt't-tti.stlr, ;ttttl lo tlo so ilt lt Vt'l'y lrt't'sotrltl'
ilttlct'tl r.orrlrnlit, way::tt ils corc is lr clisco lil<c nrirror blt[], in whiclr t:lclr
.spcctator cut scc a reflection of him or her self. Yet its speciic forms are
l direct illustration of the big bang theory of the origins of the universe,
based on consultation with physicists. Thus it parodies its own title: visu-
ally, it makes the paradoxical, impossible claim that modernity was there
at ihe beginning and will keep on expanding to the end. In a light-hearted
yet quite spectacula way, McElheny's sculpture expresses the hope for the
perpetuation of modern culture that still animates remodernizing contem-
porary art.
Wrking in both Berlin and New York, Josephine Meckseper showed
her installat ion The Comtlete History of Postconternporaty Att (zoo5) at the
zoo6 Whitney Biennial; it is now in the saatchi collection, London.n'
This is a shop window display ofeasily recognizable, everyday objects-
contemporary but ordinary commodities. Yet we are also invited to see
them as if we are looking from the future, from a time after the triumph
r3'3' Josephine Meckseper, The completeHistora of postcontempordrll
Art,zoo5. Mixed me of capitalism, so that this display looks like those shops in East Germany,
dia. (Glzoo8 ARS, Ny/VG Bild-I(unst, Bonn.)
when theywere suddenly exposed, after r989, as instantly anachronistic' She
symbolizes the confusion ove the zoo5 vote against the European union
constitution by including a rabbit that holds a flag with "Oui" and "Non" on
either face, and which spins. Famous works of contemporary artare wittily
referenced by each ofthe objects; her implication is that the reputations and
just
the relevance of artists such as Joseph Beuys and Jeff I(oons will fade
is
as quickly: even capitalist art is subject to entropy' Her larger argument
stronge even than this. Meckseper always shows her vitrines alongside sets
of her photographs of antiglobalization demonstrations in Berlin, washing-
ton, and elsewhere. She clearly favors this contestatory perspective' but rec-
ognizes that its imagery-and art that simply seves it-is also losing its
powe, its purchase on a critical contemporaneity. A different imagery is
needed. It is just becoming visible to us.

13.4. Josephine Meckseper,,,Untitled (Demonstration, Berlin),,, zoor Coor photograph.

(c) zoo8 ARS, Ny/VG Bitd-I(unst, Bonn.)

WHAT IS CONTE'4PORARY ART?