We must not rely on art or art history to answer our political questions.
The Czech Republic is barely thirty years old, its earlier 20th century defined by acts of non-heroism and a glorious imperial past that isn’t entirely its own. How does one come up with a marketing slogan for that?
What links art history, radical pedagogy, and Wagner? Adrian Rifkin’s Bildungsroman sets the Paris of 1968 against the practice of art history.
When everything is allowed and cancel culture has nothing to do with culture, what would it take for art to truly transgress?
Curating Fascism examines the ways in which exhibitions organised after the fall of Mussolini’s regime to the present day have shaped collective memory, historical narratives, and political discourse around the Italian ventennio.
The more we are surrounded by images, the greater claims they make. Photographs are not only routinely used to convey news, they are used to establish what is and isn’t true.
Art has a long history of engaging with violence and contemporary artists often follow this tradition. Kaelan Wilson-Goldie tracks the contradictions inherent in the practice of aesthetics under the conditions of conflict.
The success of the Non-Fungible Token reveals a severe ‘speculative deficit’ haunting our culture. Its passing marks the urgent need for art to break its aesthetic limits.
If a single NGO could take the credit for creating the cultural values of a whole region without once being called to account, what other ideologies is contemporary art producing and on whose orders?
What are the distinctions between art, art activism, and traditional political activism? How can we reconstitute the political culture in a hyper-aestheticised world?
Can the museum serve the public if, as we are told, it abuses its staff? Can the art institution change the world if it’s unable to put its own house in order?
Surrealism produces images and artefacts that are rooted outside the real. For many artists, however, Surrealism took on an explicitly political and practical dimensions. Abigail Susik argues that many artists tried to transform the work of art into a form of unmanageable anti-work.
Since the Vietnam War the way we see conflict – through film, photographs, and pixels – has had a powerful impact on the political fortunes of the campaign, and the way that war has been conducted.
What does artistic resistance look like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinforce dominant systems?
Sociopolitical Aesthetics argues for a new interpretation of the relationship between socially-engaged art and neoliberalism. Kim Charnley explores the possibility that neoliberalism has destabilized the art system so that it is no longer able to absorb and neutralize dissent. As a result, the relationship between aesthetics and politics is experienced with fresh urgency and militancy.
Artists from Kurt Cobain to Amy Winehouse command fascination not only for their work but also foe their drug addictions and the manner of their death. Communions is an attempt to understand the role that opiates play in the artistic lives of those who are gripped by addiction.
Crisis? What Crisis? The lack of a single dominant voice in criticism is not a weakness, but a strength.
It is now just over a decade since protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square started Egypt’s chapter in the events of the Arab Spring. How have artists responded personally and artistically to the political transformation?
Labour used to be regarded as an unattractive subject for art, the proximity of work to everyday life has subsequently narrowed the gap between work and art. The artist is no longer considered apart from the economic but is heralded as an example of how to work in neoliberal management textbooks.
How to understand propaganda art in the post-truth era — and how to create a new kind of emancipatory propaganda art. Propaganda art—whether a depiction of joyous workers in the style of socialist realism or a film directed by Steve Bannon — delivers a message.
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