Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
It is a peculiar moment for art, as it becomes both increasingly rarefied and associated with elite lifestyle culture, while simultaneously ubiquitous, with the boom of "creative" industries and the proliferation of new technologies for making art. In these important essays, Ben Davis covers everything from Instagram to artificial intelligence, eco-art to cultural appropriation. Critical, insightful, and hopeful even in the face of the apocalyptic, this is a must read for those looking to understand the current art world, as well as the role of the artist in the world today.
Synopsis
"This kaleidoscopic collection will help you see and
comprehend the world anew--which is, in my book, what good art should
do."
--Astra Taylor
It is a scary and disorienting time for art, as it is a scary and
disorienting time in general. Aesthetic experience is both overshadowed
by the spectacle of current events and pressed into new connection with
them. The self-image of art as a social good is collapsing under the
weight of capitalism's dysfunction.
In these incisive essays, art critic Ben Davis makes sense of our
extreme present as an emerging "after-culture"--a culture whose forms and
functions are being radically reshaped by cataclysmic events. In the
face of catastrophe, he holds out hope that reckoning with the new
realities of art, technology, activism, and the media, can help us
weather the super-storms of the future.
Synopsis
Essential essays on art in our current era from one of the most important art critics writing today.