Culture | Cultural history » Terry Smith - The State of Art History, Contemporary Art

Source: http://www.doksinet The State of Art History: Contemporary Art Author(s): Terry Smith Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 92, No 4 (December 2010), pp 366-383 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstororg/stable/29546137 Accessed: 09/10/2014 16:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstororg/page/info/about/policies/termsjsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstororg . College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Art Bulletin. http://www.jstororg This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use

subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet The State of Art History: Art Contemporary TerrySmith are we What art has to make of the become?to recent the that signs of many, surprise contemporary of many including those most directly involved?a field within the discipline of art history?An initial reaction is that thishas been a long time coming. centrated the Throughout arts visual twentieth production century, across the appeared?intermittently the names frequency?in "contemporary" creasing organizations, private culmination in galleries, globe, but then art of art spaces, until during the 1990s it reached names the of museums the word with in? artists' societies, art centers, public of con? in places alternative its institutional and auction house this period, the departments. Throughout interpreta? public art remained, tion of current for the most the part, province art has of art critics, art

theorists, and curators. Contemporary long been the primary focus in art schools, as the end point of practical but course, instruction and has it been rarely the hot of informal dis? topic terms. in historical In framed university departments of art history until the 1990s, contem? at all?during the closing days of porary art appeared?if courses as such Art," covering trajectories, longer "Modern "Art of the Twentieth Art," Art," or "Art since of a country or or as 1945," region. With "Postwar Century," on in courses examples few textbook exceptions, age reflected this situation. The Library of Congress a I claim do topic seems one to have of idea any its overall and shape direction? What do I do when my artist changes her work before I finish my dissertation?1 Meanwhile, the journal October circulated a " on 'The that asked for re? "Questionnaire Contemporary' on flection the

strange between the fact that conjunction " an institutional in its art' has become object 'contemporary . sense" own and the "new that "in its very right" heteroge? seems to float free of historical present neity, much practice determination, and definition, conceptual critical judg? ment."2 Four years earlier, in the buzz of Art publication art porary since that followed a nascent 1900, "contem? somewhat shame? concept and surfaced, history" haltingly mood in Pamela M. Lee's apt caught as "a useful the phrase catachresis."3 faced?a tion cover? awkwardness system and of was a sure its potential?in of sign its timeliness, characteriza? To its its contemporaneity. short, the 2005 of this me, challenge, The ques? tions filling the air in Los Angeles were precipitous and, contemporary art scholars, the contemporary on all of these have in in midcareer, art, wide-scale

however, at occurred rates, accelerating Recent art, the work arrangements. in contemporary issues in museum, and market, shifts theory, gallery practice to schools graduate art their temporary major professional specialization. ments to serve this need. tique and They to make intend and their now work expect art shaken by decades Already con? teaching history culture" that would discipline, place the modern depart? of cri? cut? debate departments as an earlier, separate at all. Despite these academic concerns, tunities are increasingly opening up. While has temporary appeared in the Art History' title of chairs remains rare?the for oppor? "Contemporary some time, "Con? first, perhaps, dat? ing from 2001. At the College Art Association Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 2009, the recently formed Society of Contempo? raryArt Historians held its firstpublic panel before a huge crowd. Excited speculation

abounded: on its own one just Because just would coming be historical, in their art and, Pre rush. terms. is, for Compliant parroting art in traps contemporary taking art however is, contemporary history a on into being, the state of report the Nevertheless, premature.4 In what I set out follows, is in progress. to contemporary ical, of word. answers premature as a field conceived above all, of art historical considerable a prolegomenon theoret? critical, inquiry.5 or period and worry if the contemporary, too, will demand a if it favors historical different kind of art history?indeed, consciousness its own belatedly, research the option of subsuming art history within the "visual emerging off dates of art history field research at out flushed inevitably, and lists of dissertation topics. A clear majority of appli? pepper Art" How archive? of there transformations cants an the world art" temporary impacting of

artists as counts What before all the others? What if "my artist" suddenly refuses to cooperate? How do I relate my topic to "the field" when no the art garded as a subject field. toward ment? sentism is only themost obvious danger that lies in taking the the when 2000, Out to self: itmay already be out of fashion) ?Whatever happened to critical distance, scholarly objectivity, disinterested judg? "Modern Art?20th category subject century" it added "Con? "Modern Art?21st century." not re? in searches but is appears keyword maintained until to "Introduction contemporary art? Should we do history that is like the art it studies? Are we reallydoing criticism, or perhaps theory (note Can we do history of Contemporary Artists Do Art History as Art Direct participation by artists in art historical debate is not a new thing. In the early and mid-1970s some members of the Art & group of conceptual artists took part,

Language their through published writings and their exhibited work, in the intense rethinking about the conflicted nature of the origins ofmodernism, then a hot topic within the discipline.6 These debates motivated Jeff Wall's firstmajor works, and the issues writings, Michael Wall's raised and then his to continue actual works, resonate: count as indeed, key his own contributions. Fried correctly calls attention to the presence?in history painting-size, digitally manipulated, but seem? his interpretations of inglyeveryday, backlit photographs?of the absorption/theatricality dialectic in modern French van derRohe Foundation, painting.7 InMorning Cleaning, Mies Barcelona, 1999, this appears in, among This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions many other elements, Source: http://www.doksinet THE 1 Jeff Wall, Morning van Mies Cleaning, der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona, 1999,

STATE OF ART HISTORY: photograph, transparency shopwindow-style commodities. At display the same cinematographic ART CONTEMPORARY in lightbox, 73% X 138V4 in. (187 X 35i cm) (artwork?Jeff Wall; photograph provided by theMarian Goodman Gallery, NY) the posing of the cleaner as concentrating on adjusting his equipment, oblivious to the shaft of sunlight raking across the foreground of the picture (Fig. 1) Yet this emphasis on a workingman displaced within a building that was, and re? mains, (one a to the most and refined temple expensive a of entitled he which, Dazon, symbol sculpture aesthetic obscures with his sudsy fluid) is equally important to thiswork's affect. T. J Clark, then, might reasonably feel that his narrative of embedded modernism's sociality has scholars (and, also an had impact. And, in fact, the initiallydistinctive but increasingly conver? gent approaches This kind of both of others) have been ans' of engagement

struggles modernist with with that pastiche, a number of course, thematized inWall's work since 1978. history, quotation, art's has with and history, to do histori? with post? or historicism. nothing appropriation, It takes art historical definition of what is, and has been, at stake in modernist what is most Other work kinds art at stake to be an in making of art historical of a number of younger important art now. component rumination are woven contemporary artists, within into and the they go just as deep. How are we to interpret a work, made in 2005 by an artist who lives between Berlin and New York and exhibited at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, entitled The Complete History ofPostcontemporaryArt (Fig. 2)? Josephine Meckseper creates installations similar to those pioneered by artists waste, then gathered contradictions into awkward, flashy allegories of the of contemporary room, Meckseper's life. Presented

nizable, in a darkened Art The CompleteHistory ofPostcontemporary everyday to see them invited as common increasingly ifwe are experience of recog? we are easily time, from the future, looking these days. Specifically, display recalls those shops in East Germany exposed, as 1989, of modernity's system repositories that had become, suddenly, Pockets from exist more various pasts as frequently inequalities an this after a of symbols cul-de-sac. temporal wastes, a and everywhere, of income will do so in all increase societies. Meckseper symbolizes the confusion over the 2005 vote against the European Union constitution by including a toy rabbit that holds a flagwith "Oui" and "Non" on either and face, played her which wittily spins on is that implication its base. a famous references the Each work of the objects of contemporary and reputations the dis? art; of relevance artists such as Joseph Beuys and

JeffKoons will fade just as quickly: late modern inscribed in gold contestatory art and the art of high capitalism triumphant are alike subject to entropy. Thus, the ironic title of her installation appears inside the display, on the cover of a leather-bound volume: the book itself is clearly over a century old. It sitsbehind glass, in a shop that is closed, making it impossible to read. Nonethe? its title taunts less, us with art is, already, Meckseper's larger porary rang? ing from Mike Kelley to Isa Genzken and now ubiquitous among her generation: objects selected from the delirious output of commercial culture and the detritus of urban first, a at suggests, 357 the that even thought postcontem ancient history. is even argument stronger than what this array of failed allegories implies. She always shows her vitrines alongside sets of her photographs of antiglobalization demonstrations 3). She clearly in Berlin, favors the Washington,

and elsewhere protestors' perspective (Fig. but recog? nizes (as Beuys arguably foresaw) that its current imagery? and art that simply serves it?is also losing its power, its This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 358 DECEMBER 20 10 VOLUME XCII 4 NUMBER 2 Josephine Meckseper, The Complete Art, 2005, History ofPostcontemporary mixed media in display window, 63 X 9SV2 X 235/8in. (160 X 2502 X 60 cm) (artwork? 2010 Artist Rights Society [ARS], NY/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; photograph provided by Saatchi London) Gallery, on purchase a critical contemporaneity. Both that projects are past their are peaks?indeed, in decline. A different politics, a different ethics, and a different imagery are needed. future Meckseper's to draw in order work our projects attention an archaeology to the urgent of the need to develop an ontology

of the present.8 It comes as no surprise thatmany artists today are deeply interested in the nature of time, in temporalities of all kinds?social, entific, personal, eternal?and world bodily, geologic, in intersections the historical, between to deal efforts locked Leftism, into dialectical historicism, and globalizing capitalism, dis? tracted by its own delusory paradise of commodities, are sci? them. Many artists are fascinated by how temporalitywas treated by their predecessors, from which theydraw inspiration in their a way of with art's approaching textured concerns. present internal between interplay For history, artists, some, this becomes that is, the densely those who knew each other as well as those connected by imaginative sympathy. Its raw materials for one's between core error, successors objects, subject of and example trial and orientation, laid are ideas, the art . influence, ideas incompletely In other

words, people, and historian's of artists as different as Tacita Dean this interplay becomes a primary trails realized, the connectivity that is the institutions attention. and suggestion In the hands and Josiah McElheny, material for their art (Figs. 4, 5)9 Despite their differing perspectives, many artists today use art historical reflection to tackle pressing issues about what it This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet THF. 4 Tacita Dean, still from Section Cinema, Homage toMarcel Broodthaers, sound, 13 min., continuous loop, OF ART HISTORY: STATE ART CONTEMPORARY 359 2002, 16mm film, color with optical edition of 4 (artwork? Tacita Dean; photograph provided by the Frith Street London) Gallery, is to live in the present. Art historians might be emboldened to follow suit, beginning with the reality that many have for decades,

avoided assiduously seem to no longer until so obvious it became move?nascent the worldwide remarkable: as during the 1950s, emergent in the 1960s, contested during the 1970s, but unmistakable since the 1980s?from modern to contemporary ceptualized? of art art. How con? Is it a question of style, of change within the taken history a (contestatory, be this phenomenon might as a autonomous relatively and unpredictable, incomplete) entity? Or confluence is it of what took shape initially as distinct developments in the visual arts in the various regions of the world, taking place at the separate nodes of artistic production, but then filling the connections yet multidirectional transnational In either them? this has case, inde? or is it pendently of all other transformations in the world, part of a more complex, I suspect to another? conditions some by to be made within indicated came the world's lines might help us to approach tives that

are, at once, rate, and open toward How might the emergence modern be traced in one latter answer the set of to each of how contemporary art shift from modernity taken together, inquiry, to acute, historically accu? use language in general, and art dis? course in particular? Confining ourselves to English, we may note that theword "modern" isgiven a long listof meanings in the OxfordEnglish Dictionary Online. First, the root, adjecti? val definition (2.a): "Of or pertaining to the present or recent times, as distinguished from the remote past; pertain? ing to or originating in the current age or period."10 The second meaning is an applied one (2.h): "Of a movement in art and architecture, or the works modo, produced by such a move? ment: characterized by a departure from or a repudiation of and now," "just becomes and Latin is itself a usage derives from on anal? "modern,"

modernus, no foremost, that is past. This CE the sixth-century modernization: ogy to hodiernus, "of today." The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes thismovement ofmeaning by listing "Being at this time; now ing it to be The as existing," word its first definition, while acknowledg? rare. obsolete, is "contemporary" in most used commonly lan? guages to refer to the passing present. Its etymology is as rich as that which Robert Hans Jauss, It is capable for "modern."11 being, at once, in and apart from shown to a number of has others, among distinct but related ways of being of calibrating in or with time, even of time. Current of the editions OxfordEnglish Dictionary give four major meanings. They are on turning or "at," "from," "during" to the same "Belonging relational, but coincidental, also lived from the same adventitious mostly on "to," being

placed sense of is the strong prepositions, time. There time, sense entangled date, at the (l.a); period" of in age, equal "Occurring or age, "Having coeval" same the existed or and the of time, (2); moment or during the same period; occupying the same definite pe? riod, of the contemporary within the is, first is modern that which longer of a time, age, or period all contemporary art from perspec? theoretically art to come. Contemporary Becoming of aspects Certain contemporaneity. that from is closer to the truth of the situa? of these pairs of questions tion, shift multifaceted values." Contrastive peri styles and to the core, modern of essential meaning traditional is, clearly, "modern": exist between in art occurred change or accepted odization simultaneous" contemporaneous, three meanings of being ness, comprehends in the present, sense of beings that in no other. each other

and to the time that they happen also being aware that they can be of Each (3). a distinctive are these of present to present to be inwhile The Oxford English Dictionary's fourth definition of "con? temporary" brings these radically diverse conjunctions of persons, things, ideas, and time together and heads them in one direction: "Modern; of or characteristic of the present period; especially up-to-date, ultra-modern; specifically desig? nating art building, does Why of a markedly etc. decoration, this strike us now or furniture, quality, characteristics." modern avant-garde having as odd, even anachronistic, as a definition of theword "contemporary"? After all, it lists those This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet 370 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2010 VOLUME XCII NUMBER 4 5 Josiah McElheny, An End

toModern? aluminum, ity, 2005, chrome-plated electric glass, and lighting, hand-blown steel cable and rigging, diameter 16 ft. Wexner State Center University, for the Arts of Ohio Columbus, Ohio (art? work ? Josiah McElheny; photograph by Tom Powel, provided by theAn? drea of contemporary elements life and that are most art within modern, that exceed modernity as we know it,and are thusmost likely to lead, define, and eventually constitute the modernity to come. When another we pair the two sets insinuates interpretation of the has not only reached parity with themodern, it. The two concepts have finally exchanged ing: the contemporary has overtaken fundamental condition of this "time, however, definitions, itself: age, ithas eclipsed their core or period." mean? as the As not we shall see, both of these usages have been prevalent in recent decades, in art worlds as in wider spheres, with the weight overwhelmingly on the side

of the modern being a strand New Gallery, not vice the contemporary, a been transfer, or simple versa. But York) this changeover state from one translation, (modernity) to another, similar one (contemporaneity). The state of what it is to be a state, the conditions as to what counts contemporary the modern has Rosen as a are condition changed. We might anticipate, then, thatwhatever we might identifyas characteristic of the contemporary, itwill not be singular but rather multiple in nature. There are art historians who have made and when, how, neous elements work under writers why in their examination on art have it a point to track noted of art: descriptions of any occurrence This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions contempora? traces that within coincides the Source: http://www.doksinet THE its moment with or of attention of creation, or to events at that

happen qualities art historians to tend regard in a work of art as distractions Some ments in importance?even measured historical recede more the work's same the contemporaneous ele? that, will they believe, from sight?once disappear gaze This achievement. an artist paid by time as others. recognizes of away clearing of the afterbirth has been applied even to themost innovativemoments in the history of modern art. Of a key 1911-12 painting by Pablo Lawrence Picasso, comments: Rainey . ". the yes, title Ma not an indication the painting's of where 'contemporaneity,' is being real work done."12 ismore interest in the incidence of the term There tracing in institutional art discourse. If one tracks its "contemporary" as a current art in of usage contempora? general descriptor neous textswritten in themajor European languages in their home countries and their colonies from the 1870s until now, along ums, its

galleries, a clear houses, arts muse? in the naming of visual deployment museums and of and auction departments picture emerges. quickly "Contemporary" pears rarely and randomly for much a being gent plethora art terms of alternative is usually ("modern" of the period, for new, current, of and one just these, emer? "modern? ism" did not become prominent until the 1960s). Usage increases noticeably during the 1920s and 1930s, followed by a substantial upsurge in the 1960s, and from then on, it almost in each doubles decade. the By 1990s, "contemporary" had come to be the predominant descriptor of both current and recent tation, art, and of all and distribution, of of presen? modes its associated almost interpretation, entirely ban? ishing all other labels, including those associated with "mod ern. Quantity, of course, has its own kinds of weight. But the main for art history interest the

critical purchase tions in the actual lies of these usages meanings in their specific situa? 1850s the during and historical timeless, and 1860s in favor themes long been regarded art. modern truly Among Linda Nochlin has most of a historians, to the centrality of painters and rejected of depictions as foundational life has temporary creation imaginary, of con? to the English-language drawn effectively art atten? to this moment. "contemporaneity" In her now classic studyRealism she showed that the Realist artists imagined possible, to chose ones, as of artists, paint and distinct as concrete, to do from so objects, opposed tangible manner in the most direct academic illusionism; to moreover, they selected subjects from the everyday life around them rather than from the allegorical, symbolic, or historical themes favored in theAcademie Royale des Beaux-Arts. This is to use the term in its ordinary "of today" meaning, the

sense that it had at the beginning of themodern period in freshly made seventeenth a part played in and other profes? a small albeit already cen? one, their given circumstances specific could the contempo? surprise rary into prominence. In Prague in 1796 the Society of Patri? otic Friends of theArts set up their Picture Gallery of living to the public. open These were Friends Patriotic Bo? hemian noblemen whose high cultural aspirations had been suddenly isolated by Emperor Joseph IFs centralization of imperial administration inVienna.10 Under the aegis of Louis XVIII, the Musee des Artistes Vivants was established in the In contrast in 1818. Palace, Paris, Luxembourg collections in Paris, public each to the other to old devoted masters?at (open since 1784), other rooms of the Lux? itself (since 1750), and, above all, the Louvre (since embourg the Palais Royal was 1793)?it as a musee conceived that would pass death, those Lesser permanent

protection. museums or vincial enough but also to in cultural not deemed were attics. only serve to soon influence, to of worthy for pro? destined This multimuseum, in all spheres of itself proving flexible of artists between negotiate national display ten years the Louvre, artworks works storage a site of de passage, on system subsequently appears cooperative European generations and international patrimony ex? change.16 On a less loftybut equally pragmatic level, pioneer Social Darwinist Andrew Carnegie, in Pittsburgh in 1896, "the conceived Exhibition"?the Chronological best paint? ings produced in the world each year, from which the best would be awarded a prize, purchased for the Carnegie Mu? seum and in annual hung In each ishing display.17 kind of distinction and that anticipated the chosen these drawn being works of coexist a to create sequence of manifestations, time-boundedness, The Prehistory of the

Contemporary That increasing numbers of French Realist tion and of utterance. sculptors Yet past. judgment the artist's after ap? the 371 guiding aspirations to join the ranks of the great artists of the and there deceased?or of guilds by academies organizations artists, Jolie echoes one of the period's popular songs, but that is a case of period brie a brae, a dapper wink intended to signal with sional their During it was ART CONTEMPORARY to opposed institutionalized?predecessors. to art as tury, openness the replacement a true nature the as artists practicing OF ART HISTORY: STATE we cases, art's between but art would, productively note all with self-replen? a different past, a present, sense strong their necessary despite for overlapping peri? ods, thus contributing to the historical continuity of art itself. Explicit institutional naming occurred mostly during the twentieth In 1910, century. patrons, with the

Bloomsbury group associated writers, and set up the collectors Contempo? to in London in order works "not rary Art Society acquire more than In old" for national collections.18 twenty years so? art colonies the British 1930s, contemporary throughout were as artists' cieties formed, mostly exhibiting organiza? to local in The charter of the academies. tions, opposition Contemporary Art Society founded inMelbourne in 1938 is typical: By the expression art" "contemporary ismeant all contem? porary painting, sculpture, drawing and other visual art formswhich is or are original and creative or which strive to give expression to contemporary thought and life as to work which is reactionary and retrogressive work which has no other aim than representa including opposed art.14 Intimations begun to appear of the contemporary earlier. Indeed, as they a distinct are present value had whenever art institutions are inclined to favor the work

of currently Most French "contemporary institutions had, by the 1930s, come art" as the latest phase This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in the development to see of Source: http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 372 a painting of modern tradition self-enriching 2010 VOLUME DECEMBER moderne]," [peinture art, back dating XCII NUMBER especially at least to Paul 4 death "modern Ce? zanne, ifnot all theway to Edouard Manet.20 Now, in official Tart usage, encompasses contemporain" the Revolution. since the of art entirety and "contemporary" in the is evident "modern" conception Art, New York. With regard to H. Barr Jr noted in a 1931 director Alfred collecting policy, of the Museum of Modern to the address The trustees: historical as such the Metropolitan, acquires art of modern as such the Gal? Luxembourg

lery in Paris, the T?te Gallery in London, or the Stedelijk in Amsterdam. It is the proper part of their Museum to take chances on the acquisition of contemporary program and painting sculpture,a policy which would be unwise on of their National Gallery Angelica Rudenstine conception ern with that of solution But conservative or the Barr document, "To comments, two years earlier, to sought the the notion equated and of an it offered the term in the United for audiences it as regarded its parent pressionist, it renamed the narrow, foundational at values core the of Art quickly in itspreferred terms, at States?so Francophile to and give organization and American Scene, itself Institute the so much in that, other focus on space to German Ex? kinds of art, of Contemporary abstraction figurative Art.24 It should not surprise us that around this time?a period of extraordinary historians began economic and to notice art

turmoil?certain political "the uncontemporary nature of the contemporary" (Wilhelm Pinder) and "the contemporary existence and younger" ,25Nor that, (Arnold Hauser) a to this chaos, "Contemporary Style" appeared, of older in reaction especially in Britain during its efforts at economic and social reconstruction followingWorld War II, largely in household design ware (where it remains as a category to this day) ,26 The important point about all of these examples is that each represents a quite different, utterly specific conjunction of artistic porary"?for however, the took the name in that circumstance. Taken one tendencies, that time, examples of which hint at the richness, and "contem? suggest, too, tivemodernities" the interest project?in that may done together, lie?for the pave? spirit in Buenos written Lucio Aires, as well to "create what determination before" concrete through

Fontana's as has embodiment varying quotation of blank, black lengths covered surfaces, berg's and of mediated with or black comment voice-over screen. Robert Rauschen? house white paint during 1951 and 1952, served as mere receivers of light, shadows, and the passage of time. In the latter year, John used Cage these in his works "concerted action" re? (later named TheatrePiece No. 1) at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. Cage's famous 4' 33", firstperformed by David Tudor on August 29, 1952, in a concert of contemporary is less a stretch music, more a staged as of "silence," of interruption the it is often there and then. Andy Warhol's and described, flow of measured so time, as taking place, in his contemporaneity, series, derived not simply from the use of inAmerica in fact, were (many, images to a decade up old, and he constantly recycled his imagery), but rather from his

evocation of the rising tide of the spectacle society's image flow while at the same time his ability to arrest each im? stamping itout, pinning itdown, through singular? age?by and ity, repetition, variation. Warhol his applied entire stra? tegic ensemble to the depiction of themost pressing issues of the day, not least the assassinations endless seemingly of leading political figures, including those offering hope. Com? mon to all from of socially adventitious these is a works managed retreat timekeeping, to the occurrence, from historical and an common time, to openness of incipience things, to the coming into being of a subjectivity that displays itself to other becoming-subjects. These qualities appeared in art throughout in the shift from the world: for example, to Neoconcretism Concretism in the work of Lygia Clark, Helio Oiticica, and many others in Brazil during the 1960s. If artists took the lead in facing the demands of

the con? temporary in the 1950s and 1960s, can we say that critics were most prominent in both obstructing (the formalists) and facilitating (everyone else) openness to these values during the latter decade, to be followed by theorists in the 1970s; that the market returned to reclaim the agenda during the 1980s, whereas curators art-world dominated self-definition during the 1990s; while since the turn of the century collec? tors, followed quickly by auction houses and art fairs,have led in highlighting what counts as current art?Generalizations of this typeare themselves evidence of the "branding" priorities the complex? that prevailed within communications media during the later twentieth century and early years of the twenty-first. They the were, ity,of the prehistory of the contemporary within themodern. They a mix up-to-date 1948, when itsBoston branch wished to break away fromwhat of 1954 into informs (gutai) using everyday objects and simple

actions. Meanwhile, the cinematic Yves Klein sought the void and Guy Debord his antifilm limits of mechanical Hurle with reproduction ments enfaveur de Sade of June 1952, disrupting white screen Death interesting of Modern Museum The in defining themodern succeeded least "23 'contemporary.' Blanco," artists' been right original the mod? the modern."22 institutionalizing in the museum's isolate the this extent, art itself, he insisted on "the progressive, original and challenging rather than the safe and academic which would naturally be included in the supine neutrality of the modern the Gutai burned silhouette flash. This that temporality itself can be experienced Rijksmuseum.21 'contemporary,' to the dilemma of when, the Louvre, counterparts, the museum of 1946 with what is believed to be certainly and permanently valuable. It cannot affordtorun theriskoferror.But the opposite is true the part by

"Manifesto and museum, of museums the atomic never A similar switching between rhetorical uses of the words the human camps, ment "alterna? tracking these largely forgotten pathways.27 Setting the Contemporary Agenda In the long aftermath ofWorld War II, visual memory was haunted by specters of recent trauma: photographs from the however, often heard in "art talk," so let us take indicators and ask how ideas of contemporaneity within and between riences as surfaced them. as and entire presentness, amounting, to the of itself, that one creation expe? perpetual as a kind of insiantaneousness, as one if though only It is this continuous it were, them This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet THE were infinitelymore acute, a single infinitelybrief instant to see would be work in all long enough its depth and to everything, to

be experience forever convinced fullness, These words, the culmination of Michael "Art and as seem would the Fried's to define Objecthood," to transcendence. portal But contemporane? concert goal?in his with that of his mentor, Clement Greenberg term no "contemporary" had modernity, modernite, special 1967 essay the (forwhom to iden? meaning)?was what was essentially modernist inmodernist art, and to do tify so by denying its contemporaneity as incidental to it.To him, this art did not in any important way participate inmodern times, or the much however like; it might be a product of these times, it did not figure them, material even of all, register, that the viewer achieved became, in effect, itself that, in could any viewer the of degree its own time its messianic cludes with Edwards: Jonathan berg on trembling was more concerned saw themselves one of the work so style."29 More of member

same Nor above "public" at those moments happens con? preacher work art to throw of of art that had out and for an to The arrived. of direct and then it may be experience, because significance in the immersion taneity?total an unknowable art's contemporary the experience contemporaneity in a more seen examples where the artwork itself, or of general it is assumed aspects of art the of idea in 1956 internationalization above meant, all, international challenge and in spaces; artists American North pean 1962 to Euro? attracting Argentine competi? tions; in 1964 itbrought the "new Argentine art" to inter? national centers; in 1965 it brandished the "worldwide" success with synonymous before the internationalism "imperialism" . ^9 positivity/ its previous ting art of Argentine after 1966, local public; became and and, increasingly upset "dependence," were in

terms of similar articulated relationships as a bind seen not for ambi? of provincialism, only in the settler colonies but also as pervad? produced art system, in New York.33 Reiko then centered ing the entire a concept tious art Tomii has explored the emergence inJapan in the 1960s and 1970s of a sense that truly contemporary art (gendai bijutsu) tekidojisei). Local critics had Euro-American art inmind as their model of the latter, as well as a set of distinctions between earlier kinds ofmodern and avant-garde art inJapan that It is this double one a member of as the We key have or part international and forth between art centers in Africa and those in Europe, as countries actively struggling for their independence on already nation building, while certain (kokusai contemporaneity and theWest.34 Olu Oguibe, Sidney Kasfir, and Simon Njami, among others, have drawn attention to the traffickingback to art's that certain qualities of its

dissemination, be of an instan a demand sense. understood It combines present?with a work officials should public.30 of cultural In Australia, The broader relevance of these examples is that theypoint to the widespread tendency to isolate one quality of, in this case, distri? further that makes suggests, the greater claims that epochal. and to responding is first of all a matter it is one and Argentina, breaking out of isolation, in 1958 it implied joining an international artistic front; in 1960 itmeant elevating Ar? gentine art to a level of quality that would enable it to finally, accept?without future be instantlyaccepted. Steinberg experience, then, contemporary, travel international and . whereas the temporality and insists that the time for just this new kind of art has of curators, to be a to it. This is what is "con? response art: it invites the viewer into a new adequate about such temporary" for and hitherto,

in many practice "internationalization": unfamiliar through ease notably critics, the new world of seeing that thiswork fully knowing why?the requires framework the served art Brazil, contemporary art. Such finely tuned relationships could change very quickly, as Andrea Giunta has demonstrated by tracking how Argentine artists, initial shock to recognize that he or she is being asked by this works national?contemporaneous kinds of value distinctions avant-garde countries, of publicity about Stein? Leo marked since long American increasing Membership passes These bution understand? art. contemporary a viewer when or provincial, difference. Uruguay.31 They accelerated during the 1960s, following the still means) for local, avowed local in Art a useful offered were other contrast, South the an In ("contemporaneously"). had individual art with time it viewer. election, confronted (and, perhaps, the of the

example contemporaneity in that Fried "Contemporary he into centers, that so absorbed wonder of aesthetic important, itmeant ing of what tied way culture of art, great is grace." feel, when sometimes in some had the quite specificmeaning of identifying the inequitable, conflicted state inwhich artists felt themselves to be working. They sought acknowledgment that at least some local artists were producing art of the same kind and quality as that issuing from the center, and that theywere doing so at the Plight of Its Public." In this 1962 essay he defined "plight" as "simply the shock of discomfort, or the bewilderment or the anger or the boredom which some people always feel, and all people new as metropolitan in their as eighteenth-century with In many parts of the world, especially in local art worlds that orities the highly attuned, the cusp and a crude, autonomy zone. It was Small of "Presentness in mind

If Fried had critic presence. the words to the future. them? in the present of variety encompassing of actual, kind saw its quotation makes clear, one might glimpse the possibility of doing so. This is apprehension of art as a kind of supplication before open more artistsmight consciously reject such an ambition. Their pri? sense, to rise and regard to the intentional outlook of those holding it, in no it required its occasion. At most, strictest more Minimal truly modernist a contrast, place, not that these "defini? only study is suggesting to time and in fact emphases that are quite specific become?at least with but also that they gradually this are was Nor specific Fried the work apprehend literalism. The theatrical a takes to time 373 to its viewer. them. picture contemporary profound insistence art's least them, represent most ART CONTEMPORARY ideas or attitudes held by the artist are similarlydefinitive. In

contrast, tions" it.28 by ity the OF ART HISTORY: STATE called their artists to participate enticements ternational and in freedom fights and then the artists were also discovering the challenges audiences.35 Since of presenting 1989, much This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions their work curatorial, to in? critical, Source: http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 374 and historical DECEMBER attention peripheries of toward its center, has the Soviet 2010 VOLUME as Empire, a precipitating that Maoist argued dominant the framework 4 NUMBER to at the paid developments as that structure contracted been to cul? attention renewed as they hesitatingly tural change at the borders of Europe, expanded.36 It can be XCII idealism revolutionary for late modern art served in China interest in models and current imentation. and Western mid-twentieth-century led

to exper? postmodernism avant-garde term for the up contemporary Japanese early- Taking art (gendai bijutsu), thiswas labeled xiandai yishu and trans? as lated "modern reacted against same time term resent what was yishu rary art." External and markets. the of pursuit aware dangdai yishu ("today's a contemporary clearly is now the Dangdai state of in such interest as a Subsequently, "four modernizations," regime, art in the middle and movement. of up opened result of China's of late nineteenth century relentless art in European been expe? rienced in Beijing, Shanghai, and elsewhere. Could they be turning art practice in a modernizing direction? While some sharp contrasts in medium, subject matter, and style still traditional, separate and modern, aesthetic contemporary tendencies, all of which persist, it is evident that China's determined commitment tomodern nation building within a context is

globalized encouraging nances these between tendencies.37 conso? to seek artists many Discerning what isdistinct and what is shared in these shifts to the contemporary the modern from (or, in some the cases, in different parts of the world is, I submit, the greatest challenge facing those who would write histories of reverse) recent and current art. The of diversity these guar? changes antees that there will be no single story (and thus no style change in art as such) but rather but identifiably specific histories. The Postmodern many parallel, achieved even a such to the dominant style of the period. Much effortwent into promoting the "return to painting," while installation, video, large-scale photography, digital media, and cinematic become modes succeeded have been in recent ubiquitous Minimalism and years. But Conceptualism as nothing art has styles. "What is postmodernism?" was a key question of the 1970s that

persisted into the 1980s, but it lostmuch of its punch when itbecame a taste throughout the culture. While itwas a style in architecture for a time (signifying littlemore than pastiche historicism, despite?and perhaps partly because of?Charles Jencks's manic efforts tomake it a catchall), it did not add up to a period style in any other of the visual arts. Indeed, these were rapidly diversifying beyond the limits of each medium and delighting in the unpredictable potential? ities of exchanges between mediums (intermediality, dium specificity,was the new direction). These important culture The label the purport of the Gener? "Pictures such ation" in New York and Los Angeles, and of the continuing work of artists such as JennyHolzer, Cindy Sherman, Marlene and Candice In the short the Breitz. postmodernism no was that progress premises: was debate it seems to us, available retrospect a obvious of one symptom that no inevitable, longer

that its own of one big storywas going to dominate any sphere of human activity, including the arts and the history of thought, in the foresee? able future. Sometime in the late 1980s itbegan to dawn on opinion makers in the art world that, perhaps, we might always live in the aftermath of this "crisis," that thatwill be our "history"?to be suspended in a shifting thatwill never bring another into paradigm like "modern," of what it had periodlessness, of predominant style In place. circumstances these in art, another of the a state it becomes out perpetually being "con? to mean seemed suddenly set out to mean: or time, at of least there ever be another coherent in social period cultures or epoch in human thought? In this sense, theword comes "contemporary" "out it," but of to mean time," to be not suspended in a secular "master "in" state or time, or after

"with beyond history, a condition of being always and only in the present, and of being alienated from itwhile being trapped within it. This sense of the plurality of the present reached itsapogee during the 1970s and 1980s. While the attack on universaliz? theories?whether ing presumptions about human progress sion, ones about predestination, religious narratives" and or succes? dis? specialist courses such as the unfolding history of art?launched among others, Jean-Francois the interpretation art world, state of Harvey been "late and longer was Lyotard, influential as of postmodernity offered theorists by capitalism," was more Fredric Jameson, latter maintained lasting. The as such historical by, in the the current as David such and has powerful that the work of an Art-world discourse varied between "anything capitalism."38 as art, or what? was inclusiveness of whatever goes" presented accounts of and grounded

ever, and efforts to give responsible prom? candidate to capture as that of moments their media. artists such as Andy Warhol displayed "the cultural logic of late contingent Moment the years after 1970, no art tendency as as to thrust inence itself forward In but and in mass not subject to historical unfolding. Will the conditions have increasingly is too narrow "postmodern" opposite patronage themselves immersed becoming brief saw artists temporary," "contempo? art that led to realism and then high modernism the contempo? came to rep? art") some at and international translation standard artists Chinese when 1990s, more became the rary art, art." During the censorious newly a while Dumas, from 1949 until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1978. During the 1980s a resurgence of critical consciousness allied with curred not me? changes oc the "de-definition" as itself (of course,

paradoxically) definitive of curator Australian contemporaneity. Bernice Murphy, realiz? ing in 1993 that "Contemporary art, although ithas for a long time belonged within the sphere of modernity, is increasingly adopting other frameworks of value and meaning that break beyond the classical period ofmodern art's development," was led to the following: "Defining 'contemporary' art: a moving framework of Cameron, sensing time and in concerns."39 1989 that American current art was curator increasing Dan in quantity and diversifyingin scope so rapidly that itwas ceasing to be subject to the (generally benign and enabling) control of art-world institutions and noted personnel, that on code art's of values has contemporary grip in recent years, and much ened of the more interesting this being produced cant change, loos? art today seems to be a result of this signifi? wherein values are This content downloaded from

131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions both more up in the air Source: http://www.doksinet THE and more point recent he qualities, specifically, art historians Few totally, ing and going to these responded on artists among and ogy, historicism had digm if it were between century, on Kulturgeschichte on the other, was into view to be confined now out. played replacement, to the traditional, exceptions. and in broad struggle, No new nor was one studio, and In a in architecture, styles. as "modern" just not and period, just moment. In my than what period in some recent art, something more designate present come has master "contemporary" even and style has less a March the gulf between and less a periods style of making art contemporary had opened up because the great historical role given art within modernity (above all by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

had been fulfilled in late modern art. Art had Hegel) achieved Brillo its "end," boxes, its historical served Conceptualism, Warhol's purpose. other and ten? "philosophical" dencies signified that themost advanced human thought had changed itsnature. Art had, in effect, become philosophy It could not, story was over. that surprise transmute therefore, In the aftermath of art would subsequent a new art: that style of it is no this achievement, into seem The "posthistorical." sense of aftermath becomes a rich vein in the works byWall and Meckseper discussed above. In the later 1980s and early 1990s, the the institutionalization of "Contem? of the transnational turn, and impact global art of of the emergence diversifying contemporaneity? to a rather comfortable amounted plural? "posthistorical" porary the however?before Art," the ism.Others identifya discomforting pluralism For example, Amelia

Jones: Perhaps most profoundly, art since 1945 has insistently, in ways varying as widely as the kinds of people making it, of the visual arts (like any form of explored the contingency in which works of art (including way expression)?the performances, within personal than we circuits live events, of meaning, and collective can ever etc.) economic desire and come and social exist that fully understand.43 are far more to mean value, art Contemporary "modernista," an de? consistently the "modern art," entry other among on "modernism," art in general and confusion. ongoing in Accessed led with: can be defined as variously art pro? duced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary the first view, but museums support their collections define rary art commonly of would art produced sinceWorld War as II.46 contempo? of consisting A similar picture of

neglecting the obvious emerges from a textbooks published survey of the major English-language or so accounts of the the include that years past thirty during art of those years. Many have appeared inmultiple editions, are some modern and include the register 2009, Wikipedia and complex two every updated continued Danto, Some have to are no more there after of art, and "modern English companions, on in entries avant-garde Although organi? particular.44 in their zations that include titles appear, "Contemporary" an the term art" is rarely granted entry of its "contemporary as to its comment if so, it receives either derogatory own, and, a come terms as 1960s, the definitions likely craft it designates however, art than a style of using styles.42 To of impossibility as a concept or is blandly sketched.45 Online para? than simply the art of the view, happens narrative a to denote design of art such local Danto vein,

parallel terms although it is often conflated with modern art of collections to entries movement" its "end," fulfilled its reached purpose.41 "de succinctly summarized the effect of changes in art since the 1980s: So 375 this sense this challenge, of the spectrum. Since the art dictionaries, encyclopedias, and glossaries, voted Belt? profession as a academic self-designated with dealt end visual language iconol iconography, and modernist hand, one the arts. Art history had based of Hans crisis: the dramatic twentieth come the pushed history into its second major the were Danto in art practice, that changes Belting recognized scale social had formations, during discussions curators. and critic Arthur philosopher-art ART CONTEMPORARY Challenged art historians have conventional certain implies, contem? and only porary. definition" OF ART HISTORY: the impossibility of the contemporary? Let us begin at

themost these possessing art has become The Textbooks How past.40 in Precisely current than at practically any single hotly debated in the STATE in massive use, to five years in response in school, quantities, to their college, and university art and art history courses. As of 2008, only one book meant ism and art" as a chapter "contemporary heading, since from Abstract War World II, by Expression? to and the 1980s."47 "Neo-Expressionism, photography used had it art The phrase "contemporary art" is used in passing in the 1999 edition ofMarilyn Stokstad's ArtHistory, the only occasion on which it is indexed as a category in all the volumes surveyed.48 Alert to the languages of theirmoment, and to the need to tomes their mammoth keep all up-to-date, of the canonical survey texts plumped, during the 1980s and 1990s, for "post? as modern" their preferred term. Overall, academics and publishers have lagged a

long way behind the rest of the art world in adopting "contemporary" as the name surveys its current for field subspecialist by of books authors?mainly art and the contemporary and recent on the art in the activity. Even of recent decades, to British?alert convolutions the variety of are its discourse, of undertaken beneath such headings as Art since 1960 or the more combative AfterModern Art.49Open-ended compilation books favor titles such as Art Now or Art in theTwenty-first some of the flavorof the art Century.50Others carry into print they favor; Mathew thus, Collings?in savvymove?labeled ists)-promoting, artist-critic-television English a typical against-the-grain presenter yet market his irreverent, yBa (Young British Art? all-over-the-shop, celebration paintball-style of post-1960s art This IsModern Art.51 Recent books on contemporary art are divided by minimal pictorial compilations accompanied brief artists' statements (the

Taschen model), This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions between text and anthologies of Source: http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 376 DECEMBER 2010 VOLUME essays interpretative by theorists, or Blackwell model), provisional are artists certain XCII and critics, tackling curators (the showing how at attempts as themes?such time, current One concern.52 uses the rubric and, in turn, to art chapters abstraction, object, quotidian nature and technology, popular narrative, few been time, identity, and politics, with attempted, the culture, representation, the body, architecture, globalism, have textbooks . ," then "Art and deformation, ituality, to be of spir? A audience.53 more to come. sure as such authors, have who Stallabrass, Julian experienced firsthand the excesses of the yBas, Taylor begins critical "Willful premise: a

massive bined with obscurity in expansion the from a then, com? infrastructure for in the artwork, as contra? the defining may contemporary cases to gen? in some diction that has animated and helped erate much true since of the art of our time."55 This has been art?this be the later 1960s but reached a series Through of acute, taken engaged rates the unfolding of a variety of tendencies in international art, a wider including artists that prominent outside place contexts cultural the scant receive Also surveys. formative whose expe? of Euro-America. More from artists emerged typifies the these which is typical wait-and-see open-endedness omnibus textbooks. of most chapters cent exception of modernist art, especially October. Instead contemporary the journal re? interesting isArt since 1900, produced by four authors, all historians outstanding An clos? art and active their association through of presenting an

critics short each chapters, or tion, rence. publication, The paradoxical contemporaneity This history. according is a result fascinating of modern than art, rather an is, in itself, effect as the process in making of two of For Bois) jamin replaced only do informal, D. Buchloh, continues a in Cubism sourced of into revolutionary the present. avant-gardism, and Russian faktura, has echoed but Yve-Alain ultimately futile struggle and Surre? For Ben? sourced since the 1960s as a by certain neo-avant garde artists against the seductions and the degradations the "Culture Industry." The fourth author, Hal Foster, the other, having neoavant-garde"?as is candid, equally noting of a historical become "dys? that "the bour? to be we not modus of us."08 The only left to contemporary option it artists, here be may that of criticism, not art. Peter has recently put a sharp edge to this

possibility. the Citing deeply reflexive work of Art 8c Language during the 1980s and 1990s, he argues: Osborne It is the historical movement of conceptual art from the idea of an absolute antiaesthetic to the recognition of its own inevitable pictorialism thatmakes it a privileged me? diating form; thatmakes it, in fact, the art in relation to which of em? phasizes the psychoanalytic aspects of artmaking within these trajectories.56 Taken together (itself a breathtaking historical hypothesis), these views amount to the closest thing to ortho over contestation art contemporary "post-conceptual of art, so much pri? perspectives and the model twenty seems, is to bear exacting witness to the present (and future) impossibility of the cold optimism that drove the modernist their collective Krauss (Rosalind on past operandi remains profoundly opaque and incomprehensible to most of the display of its unfolding to what we might call double modern? respectively?that

H. inDada heroic authors vis-?-vis ism?formal alism the this amounts contemporary the of each author (engagingly set out in long introductory essays), a set of parallel histories is implied, although never spelled out. over has critically, "irretrievably disappeared," "social and formations for which institutional by not have any terms but and whose concepts yet, the production It is "post-conceptual differing in? the now to narrate ways plausible albeit he the a Buchloh they acted first as critics, and only by implication as histori? of there art and, . and ans. because "Are asks, practices related, the authors the book, organize applied as editors had evolved of October, that is, they Nevertheless, that art has acknowledge geois public sphere" towhich both previous avant-gardes were orga? contemporaneity's Foster postmodernism, to to how that of the authors years?" He describes the two

"primarymodels" that theyhave used during this period?"on the one hand, the model of a modernism medium-specific challenged by an interdisciplinary its occur? of active not, concludes, myriad exhibi? work, to the year oritizing of the contemporary: decision one treats of which event it has book. nized around styles,mediums, or themes, the book is divided into to artists devoted deed changed inways that exceed the frameworksused in the with account entries many ism, or, more avant-garde.59 The impasse attention. Pragmatic, ing in biennials recently took riences in such is usual than range is that he includes, in the later chapters, work by unusual includes among a late modern? art remains that contemporary an after-modernism, in condemned accurately, as as to mourn, conscience and trenchantly elegantiy possible, In the roundtable its own anachronism. with which discussion is that functional."57 nar? Taylor descriptions,

1900 since avant-garde in the 1990s. its peak, perhaps, Art that exists since the 1960s, but it leaves ambiguous the question of whether anything fundamental has changed. The implication the book The first of this crop was Brandon Taylor's The Art ofToday (1995), revised and retitled ContemporaryArt (2004) and Con? Art: Art since 1970 (2005).?4 Like other English temporary art the development of modern the United States, especially. doxy about scholars?in iden? place, tity, the body, language, or spirituality?deemed devotes 4 NUMBER art and temporary art" as the historical-ontological condition art in of contemporary general. art" that contemporaneity of art criticism sense, con? of all the requires for in this broader understood that determines on, goes and of meanings possibilities . out. In this respect, fought is not the name for a particular type the is to be art and history that they articulate "the qualitative historical

novelty of the present," from which the past may be "made legible."60 This strikes me force of as an acute postconceptualism late modern art, in perception as the most that especially its recognition trenchant created recognizes must be historical in contemporary in its orientation, albeit the of critique Euro-Ameri? within can frameworks and spheres of influence. And that art criticism, of it correctly circumstances, paradoxically so.61 But his prescription remains, as he acknowledges, essentially as art, modernist art criticism, and art history. It does not, I believe, fullymeet what contemporaneity now requires of art and scope, its articulators: more lateral that are demands in their broader experiential This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions in geopolitical character, and Source: http://www.doksinet THE deeper in their theoretical

challenge whatever allow. can stamp than modernism have in circulation been and as The Curators that since the 1990s, other, most their arguments "mega-exhibitions." to a head certain advanced ideas, wide-ranging tors, who made through quite effectively what became came them between contention of known in the years around 2000, and they resonate still. the exhibition landscape of the from "the Global South" entered themental art world. Euro-American The art la terre, contemporary de Magiciens of this work, power rather than the relatively simplistic curatorial program, signaled the pos? sibilityof a genuine internationalism. This global movement culminated inDocumenta Ilm 2002, an exhibition in which artists whose origins by in character stood out. tional and work curators, artists, and critics inspirations In between these a undertook were transna? major mission: a series of historically oriented exhibitions

drawing worldwide attention to the importance of the visual arts during the decolonization struggles inAfrica, in particular.62 Okwui a leader Enwezor, of this effort, in art of the world having all outcome as the manifestation at a arrived state best as a described the over? summarized constella? "postcolonial tion." role also and art today is refracted, not just from the but specific site of culture and history critical sense?from the standpoint in a more also?and of a complex geopo? represent idea that modernist its owrn within relations tion after of exchange constellated imperialism. around on discontinuous, based as a consequence . The current the norms of aleatory of artistic globaliza? context art porary us to refer modern its roots one requires art history7: and, on hand, encompassing tional aesthetics" rator the other, on nial discourse exerts on its narratives the museum's

ty'sunstoppable collections of the "instead of base of on the into moderni? is an argument to be made that the revolutions that originally produced modern art, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have not been concluded or There founding innovations and debates. The art today revision can In art of one museum, they version developed of the of renewing itself from contrast, from speaks but complex primary in and engagement with Enwezor in emerges, immersion much been have in their intended and are active recently outside and of "alternative" at a kind aiming of "rela? cu? by proposed em? his updated art to include centers the (alter means others less scale, example, art," "Altermodernism" States. the in smaller reach?for its of Europe the incorporates in Latin and "other" in English): "transform" altermodernism summation, Bourriaud

offers this definition: Altermodernism can be defined as thatmoment when it became possible for us to produce something thatmade starting from an assumed that heterochrony, is, from disdaining poralities, indeed for any era?a for nostalgia positive the tem? vision of avant-garde and chaos com? and plexity. It is neither a petrified kind of time advancing in loops (postmodernism) nor a linear vision of history (modernism), an through present, but a art-form tracing lines of disorientation experience all exploring positive in all directions dimensions of time and of the space.66 to a core aspect art?its of contemporary geopo? points It does and temporal not, however, contemporaneity.67 amount to a of the others in the sense idea just dis? large at? has Enwezor cussed: it is constrained by its disavowals. This litical project: thus that contemporary superseded?and as the extension and understood ongoing most sees itselfas a constellation of ideas

linked by the emerging and ultimately irresistiblewill to create a form ofmodernism for the twenty-first century." Conceiving this spirit as "a leap to a synthesis between modernism and rise that would give is that postcolo? art level quite specific to the interests art is capable artist's ideas evokes sense today.63 of recent cen? twentieth a vision of human history as constituted by multiple In sharp contrast to such views, many believe that the signif? icant art of today remains modernist at its core. In 2000, Museum of Modern Art chief curator Kirk Varnedoe firmly locked the this kind of participatory modernism . critical Any or contem? of Modern the pressure of dawn "postproduction has He Bourriaud.6? Nicolas phasis accent. discourse, the currently that Most perspectives. those postcolonial, on creolization, forms, to the foundational and within, belonging Few other ideas have had the potential to rival this clash of

the in imperial that argu? at this realities. the world's hybridization, and so forth, all of these tendencies oper? a specific ating with cosmopolitan interest in the exhibition systems art?as since resources. the presumption ways, out of each litical configuration that defines all systems of production and presented immediate the post-colonialism," Contemporary sense, and these remarks are on one While practitioners and the United educational real is collected tury.64 who certain dates, art progressive historical in Contention at Contemporary as part of modern is, in a very 377 responding to, and expanding upon the framework of initiatives and challenges established by the earlier history cura? by Art art Museum substantial From 1984, the curatorial team at the Centro Wifredo Lam in Havana dedicated itself to building networks between artists in the "nonaligned" countries constituting the Third World and to showcasing the

results in the Bienal de la Habana, most successfully in the 1989 exhibition. In the same year in Paris, of Modern Museum ment. To grasp this,we need to acknowledge there of ART CONTEMPORARY OF ART HISTORY: STATE be of those collection of the tempted to absorb it into his "postcolonial constellation" by framing itwithin four categories he identifies "as emblematic of the conditions of modernity today: Supermodemity,andro and aftermodernity"m modernity,speciousmodernity Revising theNew Art History Whatever one's that a viable proaching specific reservations, these examples indicate theoretical and historical framework for ap? contemporary art?one that captures its actual diversity, but neither prohibitively reduces nor randomly multiplies it?is coming into view. Crucial to thispossibility is This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source:

http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 378 DECEMBER 2010 VOLUME of art historians begun of the generation to undertake close studies of artists, small groups, certain shared during what I am porary art. the work and the calling draw on They the to track teenth- and their work. The already individual (or the past half during the continuing and modernism crisis of nine? to revisit and retrofashion. merely The in? interpretative stitutions need to take stock of work by artists either long dead (Warhol, by more than twenty years) or nearing the natural of end and long of mature generation in ways distinct 1970s the time and survivors from view of pendent to see them and What ing.69 movements productive art historians, from the the the great in ways are see to would and advanced at promoted at an by inde? then, and think? practice art integrated an eye to their examined with minutely and Minimal? complexities multiple

productivities: a break is in some understood less of as, aspects, being being in a present state art historians?those emerging art as part past of as respects being States and the United more in Europe within global Conceptualism, was "an more ernism," and structions, quent or a for mod? indirect experimentation such groupings innovations of artists in smaller-scale working are still largely what considered the major graded scenes outside centers art in Europe and the United States; and feminism is being shown to have been art than more much various, pervasive, previously acknowledged.70 this revisionist remains, activity But artistswho were active in the United trails real the presumption transformation in art as from an that been quick A more re-creations constructive the era and culture, nal the confluence hegemonic in actual the world, in and them, the nodes productive art centers. cities

transnational and taken. Some is where This resources the Nevertheless, as changes in some the areas they hap? associated and with studies to be needs for settings?Africa, of achievements to be recorded are being done, as example?remain Are the histories that contemporary art re? quires best written by continuing to apply the methods, val? ues, and world pictures forged bymodern art history, includ? ing the revisions that have animated the discipline as a whole since the 1970s? If so, we would expect the characteristics of contemporary art to become clear He as these researchers a toward come have " contemporary,' This proposition Does last) question: and of surprising concludes: "These spectatorship exhibitions global cooperation and reemergence new forms of an in such as such and technological imaginary from shift in strategy avant collaboration, of art aesthetics of this new and to be a match

between world period?on structural historical the face volatile The 11, 2001, the subsequent and the "war on and abroad?and in their home territories terror" is a fragile attacks launched incursions into the conducted various and in con? viable pairing?remain circumstances. epoch it, a quint of temporary conditions? After all, periodization on September inte? global as 'the constructed discursively in the of art.73 period history a second raises for the moment, (and, modern essentially sig? a identifies a new art historical universal inside other by abroad?led many the govern? to see 1989 and 2001 as bracketing a post-Cold War moment which the United States as a acted in neoliberal "hyperpower," in all economies, while prevailed spectacle-led dominated however, consumption public spheres. By 2008, with the administration of United States President W. George economics at home Bush discredited system in a

state some optimism, ever Periodizing Contemporary Art? We might focus the position that has been reached by posing questions. affect. electronic of have and abroad, and collapse, the world financial Barack Obama elected States in a spirit of all-embracing been prompted a further to discern sea change inworld affairs.74 "The contemporary" isbeing sliced fragile.71 two by Alex in 1989, the subject of many becoming forms, president of the United under? urgently, art gardist and the somewhat ments efforts comparative hybrid way South are beginning real work high-tech States between these trafficking them and the major modern between artists from the Global assessed. in and biennials, East, artistic presenta? neoliberalism He period. as factors such between the proliferation the rise of a new United some they have integrated historical works, Middle still tra readily advanced of economic of a new the emergence

as are made been of spread the dominance and counts has approach of globalization, States and Europe is what have Alberro, who argues that the end of the Cold War practice largely, terri? recon? tions of the performance group Our Literal Speed.72 on they did a whole. We tracks persistent the art with one is a frustrating that situation, to as in the ironic and protest parody, focused that what accounting in in their specific ways in each of the cultural regions of pened and and the advanc? present temporal recent virtual exhibitions, cinematic confrontation "mourning and subse? political critique at first felt; than down? previously as Fluxus as are are the elevated, to vital current less subject to the charge that it of administration" aesthetic art open-ended; Conceptual now as a appears into to deal wish (a vividly "history" of survey tory that decades artists' other art back who ism in and judgment

of their time on the terms that it is forging, and those who see gration and antiglobalization than it seemed at the time, while suspended of contemporary slide internal with high modernism invited to is that of being of ingmaw of a (diluted, false modest) modernism. This would also leave us less able to approach the art of the past through the forms in which that art is available to the present. For versable)?this 1960s that occurred coherent, powerfully current the the to arrive be in art changes to present useful to be seemed For interpretations redefinitions incessant that moment from careers. danger here only then to take up the task of tracingwhat would amount to a slow-motion to contem? of revisionist the register active itsmodernist history. Their interest in the 1960s is not 1970s 4 have of tendencies methodologies twentieth-century recomplicate and who shift from modern and the birth NUMBER the work "new") art

history, those developed century XCII do finer. of course, is natural on the urge to divide Immediacy, puts pressure ural to historians. Or, markers necessary to be more within the to it. And into accurate, narratives of history.75 Do they remain in periods?itself periods of collective agency that constitute themodern writing this, necessary have turn, nat? been individual and approach to the in contempo? rary conditions? If conditions have changed fundamentally, which other kinds of historical markers are called for?Given that art is always subject to largermovements of this kind yet This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet THE is also, in certain we most autonomous ways, map accurately are These within how them, their the neling a one-to-one us from chan? that prevent questions of current into self-evident practice

heterogeneity era and con? match between the contemporary temporary art. stances? the and Art History Contemporaneity In in much usage?and word "contemporary" ordinary language world discourse?the ever is up-to-date, happening, But the neous. concept or as have we con of meaning: depths extraordinary simultaneous, itself, art unreflective to: what? defaults came tempus has into use, and remains in use, because it points to a multiplicity of relations between being and time. It originated in precisely thismultiplicity and has served human thought about it ever since. The also contemporary contention recent centuries, bly, in the modern?that have those sought with greater to subservience to a new us brought associated for persists, terms?nota? have sketched and the modern. This of has place. Contemporaneity itself has many histories, and histories within the histories of art.While it is, Iwill argue, the ground? ing

condition of art, contemporary and the thus primary object of any history of the art of today, contemporaneous also qualities may venture to suggest, have been in art present the way all goes some To questions. unexpected awareness of the disjunctions and extent, between every? by this idea, I It pushes back. what and always art historical quest unleashed where. The us to ask how, was time being and caves of what became islands of what regis? teredwithin the symbolic languages that adorned the caves of Africa, marked the deserts and the rocky plateaus of what became was Australia, was and Europe, in the painted on the plains created and became Asia and the Pacific? How many ancient bodies did it mark, and what would such a mark look like, compared to those made by the Originary Beings, those given by the those ancestors, ditional, and or to the present, territories invitingly?among current contemporaneity. contemporaneous

indicated to standard is, according above, "a definitions, beginning sense In the expanded all by the defined above is the other relations?not opera? Equally least, struc? tures of religious belief, cultural universalism, systems of evolved to mediate thought, and political ideologies?have these ones. particular the past During encompassing power versalizations, has of the contestation of twenty years, however, expansion of the sense that the there has been a noticeable these weakened structures, considerably, everywhere evident their force not least between them. depth. every within us, every? is Modernity while state elsewhere state after sacrifices toxic mix This of resignation and itself: material of ever-expanding that pursuit for well-being all on the modern model will lead to the extinction of the species. The human compact with the earth is being broken: its repair Renewed in fact, we is urgent; is

fundamentalism even its consciousness Do too late. begun indicator that almost have may just one as uni because It is no to itself. stranger these factors (just some among many others) constitute of a new evident ing?so rable or does era, in the coexistence temporalities and animal being, but their antinomic of mismatch? incommensu? multiple, at every level of human and even unto extending things? pervasive perhaps indicate that we have passed beyond the cusp of the last historical period that could plausibly be identified as such? This question is,at present (and in principle), unanswerable, but that it can be put is significant. The forwardmovement of History, along with themany counterhistories it engendered during the modern period, has been derailed and is in de? cline. Globalization has recently reached the limits of its ambitions hegemonic yet remains in many powerful domains. The decolonized have yet to transform the world in their image (it is,

after all, early days in a long struggle,much of it conducted below the radars of publicity). None of these global formations in itself sets the agenda for our times. It is their con? fundamental in the most distinctive qualities of life, shaping contemporary our structures that contemporaneity dition, that is manifest the interactions between humans and the geosphere, themulteity of cultures, the ideoscape of global politics, and the interiorityof individual being. understanding close expect made of these forces are the the shapes situation for our implications we art? Paradoxically, might and the art between this situation what of contemporary connections it, but within historical that and coming from the planet state fact and surface aspiration is at odds with themessage a cognitive us, far, economies. leading this means the first Nowadays, that is around its citizens in the rush to plug itself in as a resource provider structural from

all created; continually state." consciousness, of multiplicative aging in Europe and ailing in theUnited States; having tried Mao's version, China is building on that of Deng Xiaoping and Milton Friedman; in Southeast Asia globalized hubs are or tions (indeed, it is a condition of their operation). self-evident thing condition play ofmultiple relations between being and time.Obviously, this has been a vital part of human experience since the of near Uto? the modern toward the frictions when our that constitute shape and 379 into spheres signified by of advancement If the contemporaneity are past, periods up everywhere, more many pasts appear?vividly, the multiple Contemporaneity tra? immanent, terms) so on, And it. Nowadays, through (in our that became iconic? pia difference the outlines accord? its emergence emergence stage us all. that awaits ART CONTEMPORARY every kind of past has returned to haunt the present, making often

similar, precision We in the concept with to account overlapping phenomena to dominant values. ing from originated, more powerful often other, against and relative to the contempora? seen, OF ART HISTORY: longer viable to divide the globe might circum? in these its transformations STATE matching one. Atomic amount I believe, not, they will a historical between and period heterogeneity might seem more to a an art likely, but thatmay be the other pole of a false dichotomy inherited from more modern appropriate A mobile, thinking. to circumstances in-between in which is formation the contempo? raneity of differences is the rule. Given the picture of uneven contention between the forces painted above, we might ask whether a similar situation is apparent in art. My own thoughts on thisquestion are drawn from the lines of inquiry that I have pursued since 2001.1 have attempted to discern emergent the lineaments world of contemporaneity an

introduction condition: as a nascent appears and in the paragraphs you have just read.76 I have also traced the emer? gence of conceptions of the contemporary within modern art This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet ART BULLETIN 380 a discourse, historical have to art in turn late modern, art from recognition us obliging style, is of modernity Of most that there has the to contemporary modes shift from modern indeed, much about is and a 1950s, These the in the making, in distinct has and so on, depending occurred history of art, Thus, the in each ways above all on culture, so on, and politics, tioning of that culture in the world importance of continuing generated, embraced, nation, region, city, local the preexisting on and the posi? system, itself dynamic. "alternative the moder? art is being each

or opposed, in tempered, place. The main outcome of the global warring since the 1950s the forces between tion of decolonization is that difference more with neous, different, has of us more increasingly aware of what is shared, what with along become those and relative of (unimaginable) would globaliza? across modern visual most constant their less effective distinct but but of always and, their perhaps, most cele? partial the leading, brated, and most expensive artists of the day. (I have tagged these with efforts, deliberate and "retrosensationalism.") ened and, in many on sequent the geopolitical Euro-American tique. with has been threat? a second: art con? by in world affairs (their overturned places, turn transnational art made contemporaneity), centers and Its concerns "remodernism" provocation, current This the outside mostly to postcolonial and tradition nationality, cri? dedicated

identity, are also shared by artists in exile and in diaspora, as well as by those with critical perspectives working in the centers. Art of this kind fills the main international exhibitions, especially is increasingly being collected by museums biennials, and and cohort of smaller tant current third The others. and ambitions, with more modest, but than those of other in networked collectively, of that the in groups, the ever-growing are working at a artists who (mostly younger) scale is nonetheless impor? currents. Acting or associations, loose individually, these artistsmeditate on the changing nature of time, Among place, them ues?an raise and are and artists, mood architects, in the world and planners around who them. explore relationships with specific environments, both sustainable social media, natural, obvious questions within framework of val? ecological to the in crisis. These artists planet to the nature of these

days, the temporality response as the Whatever in tone they character. noted some hope, form in Yet above. more general histories take, hypothesis in tendency, partial as It is, of course, but the discussion here in conclusion. points art wor? of contemporary thyof the name should draw on the efforts to date, but at the same time should be built on a framework that is distinct that which from modern underlay They should recognize from earlier the art of modernity. art, the legacies, both positive and prob? art?modern, paramodern, premodern, or other. They should show how each underwent, or is still surpasses history but connected its unique yet It is no coincidence undergoing, poraneity. art historical to contem? transition that a worldly art criticism and one that is coming into existence, scholarship in European and American its modern precedents a conflicted, re? because it has?in and criticism irresistible from manner?been

decolonizing, to obliged and postcolonial, indigenous interpretative practices.79 In the names of both embedded locality and critical cosmopolitanism, a worldly approach to art defines itself against parochialism, jingoistic and nationalism, universalizing, art "globalized" discourse. We need a variety of kinds of critical practice, each of them alert to the demands, limits, and potentialities of both local and worlds connected including by I nonetheless driv? to one offered those perspectives aspirations, renovation as assimilate is the continuation visible, and beliefs, renewal, and in three field first, because practices, active less our The also is essentially to others. If we certain the share no They outlook: what effect. and subscribe art, descriptive art critical sistant, ing flows of energy ("currents" might be a useful metaphor) passing clusters. are contempora? I believe, see, thus permits, art were

able to step back and look at these diachronic develop? ments synchronically?as if they were moving through the frame of the present from the (always reimagined) past to the future?we current lematic, nities" project into the present, while at the same time paying attention to the specifics of the ways inwhich contemporary affect it what about and is all. contemporaneity as an art historical in which remarks contentious seismic interpretation, and distribution of art throughout theworld. This between exchanges nor no mode, prefer circumstance under? discussion this since been, about vis-?-vis dislocation, making in mediated interactivity, they share is that theirwork is the art being called out by the our to revise and, of place possibilities is to be immersed fraught follows.78 out early modern, to relevance art. previous are that of standing above.77 provided ideas that may be of summary contemporaneity 4 NUMBER (as we write and read)

deep changes in contem? precipitating porary XCII contemporary approach schematic A of emergence been to certain led seeking perspectives. The has of which summary These explorations to those interest 2010 VOLUME DECEMBER distant connections locality on and and distance. focus on local connections existing ideas elsewhere, while suggested by other, tices that could not, therefore, eralizing artistic between arts, or local subsume distance In and practice, possible trans manifestations, them and art and remaining alert to the possibilities distant have to the actual locality to a amounts actual as as well worlds, between ideas, regional and prac? art-writing We should relevance. these inherent developments in the concept under of "world the gen? nor art," see them as subject to (what I regard as the failing) hegemon of art." "global Place making, most common the substance world concerns

picturing, of artists of contemporary and these being. connectivity days because Increasingly, are the are they over? they ride residual distinctions based on style,mode, medium, and ideology. They are present in all art that is truly contempo? rary.Distinguishing, precisely, this presence in each artwork is themost important challenge to an art criticism thatwould to the demands of contemporaneity. Tracing the currency of each artwork within the larger forces that are shaping this present is the task of contemporary art history. be adequate Mather Award of the TerrySmith, 2009 recipientof theFrank Jewett is Andrew W. Mellon Art Association, Professor ofContem? College at Art and the University ofPittsburgh and a porary History Theory visitingprofessor in theFaculty ofArchitecture,UniversityofSydney (see www.terryesmithnet/web)[Department of theHistory ofArt and Architecture, University ofPittsburgh, Frick Fine Arts 104, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260, tes2@pittedu] This content

downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet THE Notes and the anonymous I thank Richard J. Powell for his editorial guidance readers for The Art Bulletin for their trenchant and improving comments. My colleagues in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Univer? sityof Pittsburgh, helped me during a seminar on this topic. I also thank those their writings are cited I regularly discuss these questions: with whom of the Institut National throughout. I am grateful to Richard Leeman d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, for inviting me to pursue these questions there in on May 2007, and for publishing an earlier version of parts of my thinking these matters. This essay is dedicated to the memory of John Hope Franklin, 1915-2009. questions were among those identified by the Society of Con? Hudson, Alexander temporary Art Historians founders?Suzanne the panelists: Pamela M. Lee, and

Joshua Shannon?and Dumbadze, Miwon Kwon, Richard Meyer, and Grant Kester. " on 'The Contemporary,' 2. "A Questionnaire October, no. 130 (Fall 2009): 3-124. See also the essays collected in "What Is Contemporary Art?" E-flux, nos. 11 (December 2009), 12 (January 2010), at http:// and http://www.e-fluxcom/journal/ www.e-fluxcom/journal/issue/ll issue/12; and "13 Theses on Contemporary Art," Texte zurKunst 19, no. 74 (June 2009): 90-118. 1. These 3. Pamela M Lee, review of Art since 1900, by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D Buchloh, Art Bulletin 88, no 2 (2006): 380. the approximately sixty essays in the Art,Bulletin that, since the as part of the mid-1980s, comment on a subfield of art history?either series "The State of Art History" or "A Range of Critical Perspectives" or as studies of a particular impact on the discipline (the "blockbuster" 4. Among discusses contemporary exhibition,

the independent scholar)?none art as a distinct object of inquiry. In his "Conflicting Logics: Twentieth Century Studies at the Crossroads," Art Bulletin 68, no. 3 (1986): 536 42, Donald Kuspit was concerned above all with the impact of semiot? ics and poststructuralism on art historical methodology. This concern are understood, mostly, to impact is typical: contemporary phenomena on art history from outside itself, and to disturb its "natural" disposi? tion to retrospection. Contemporary art breaks in occasionally, usually as an example mentioned in passing. An instructive exception isJo? seph Kosuth's contribution to the debate in "Writing (and) the History of Art," Art Bulletin 78, no. 3 (1996): 398-416 The most prescient prior treatment in this journal isKaty Siegel's review7of Art since 1940: Strategies ofBeing, by Jonathan Fineberg; Abstraction in theTiuentieth Cen? tury:Total Risk, Freedom, Discipline, by Mark Rosenthal; and Theories and

Documents of ContemporaryArt: A Sourcebook ofArtists' Writings, by Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, Art Bulletin 79, no. 1 (March 1997): 164-69 Its a pe? opening paragraph includes the remark, "A discipline without riod, contemporary art history could be defined as the attempt to fill the gap between George Heard Hamilton and Artforum."Hamilton was a Yale professor and author of Painting and Sculpture inEurope 1880 1940 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972). 5. See Terry Smith, "Pour une histoire de l'art contemporain (Prolego menes tardifs et conjecturaux)," 20:21 Siecles, nos. 5-6 (Autumn 2007): 191-215. 6. See, for example, Ian Burn, "Thinking about Tim Clark and Linda Nochlin," Fox 1, no. 1 (1975): 136-37; Terry Smith, "Doing Art His? tory,"Fox 1, no. 2 (1975): 97-104; Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden's thinking had a direct influence on the courses at the Open University established under the direction of Charles Harrison, including

Modern Art ?f Modernism: Manet toPollock (Milton Keynes, U.K: Open Univer? sityPress, 1983). Artists continue to contribute compellingly to this de? bate. See, for example, Mark Lewis, "Is Modernity Our Antiquity?" in Documenta 12Magazine No. 1:Modernity? ed Georg Sch?llhammer, (Cologne: Taschen, 2007), re? Roger M. Buergel, and Ruth Noack ed. Sch?llhammer printed in Documenta Magazine: No. 1-3, 2007 Reader, (Cologne: Taschen, 2007), 40-65. 7. Michael Fried, Why PhotographyMatters as Art as Never Before (New Ha? ven: Yale University Press, 2008), 66. Wall acknowledges this in an in? terview by Peter Osborne, "Art after Photography, after Conceptual Art," Radical Philosophy, no. 150 (July-August 2008): 47 8. These values are posed by Fredric Jameson, A Singular Modernity: Essay on theOntology of thePresent (London: Verso, 2002). On Meckseper's work, see Marion Ackerman, ed., JosephineMeckseper (Ostfildern, Ger? many: Hatje Cantz for the Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart,

2007). 9. See the projects profiled in Jean-Christophe Royoux, Marina Warner, and Germaine Greer, Tacita Dean (London: Phaidon, 2006); and McEl toModernity, 2005, in Scott heny's discussion of his installation An End no. 3 (November 2005): 236-37 Rothkopf, "1000 Words," Artforum 44, 10. I am drawing on the definitions in various versions of the Oxford En? glish Dictionary as given in print form in the 1989 revision and subse? quently found online, at www.oedcom STATE OF ART HISTORY: CONTEMPORARY ART 3g| in Literaturge? 11. Hans Robert Jauss, "Modernity and Literary Tradition," schichteals Provokation (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970). An English transla? tion is in Critical Inquiry 31, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 329-64 An excellent review of the term "modern" bearing on the visual arts may be found in chapter 1 of Peter Osborne, The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant Garde (London: Verso, 1995). 12. Lawrence Rainey, 20, 2000, 15. "In a Dark

Mode," London Review ofBooks, January 13. To arrive at these preliminary observations, two sample surveys were undertaken, the first during 2001-2 using particularly the resources of the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, the second during 2002-3, at the University of Pittsburgh. In both cases, initial searches through WorldCat were supplemented by searches through a range of world? wide specialist catalogs, guides, and bibliographies, followed by those made available by the major art research institutions of the United States, and then by searches through the catalogs of significant Ameri? can and European libraries. Searches were made into the holdings of selected South American and Australian libraries and institutions. The search was for the occurrence of the terms "modern" and "contempo? languages in the titles of books rary" or their cognates in the European and articles, exhibition catalogs, pamphlets, or other publications, in the naming of visual

arts museums, galleries, exhibition spaces, or de? partments of museums and auction houses. Two searches were made through a number of editions of dictionaries of art and glossaries of art terms, noting the incidence of definitions of the words "modern" and "contemporary" and their cognate terms and the content of the entries formodern and contemporary art institutions, movements, asso? ciations, and so on. While the survey does not claim to be complete, the patterns and repetitions in the data suggest a clear general picture. 14. Linda Nochlin, Realism (Harmondsworth, UK; Penguin, 1971), 25-33 15. See Nadezda Blaziekov?-Horov?, ed., 19th-centuryArt: Guide to theCollec? tions of theNational Gallery inPrague (Prague: National Gallery, 2002), 7. 16. The most thorough study of what he shows to be the mutuality of the to the display of contemporary art in its broadest institutions dedicated sense?their competitiveness, emulation, and interdependence?is J. Pedro Lorente,

Cathedrals ofUrban Modernity: The FirstMuseums of Con? Art, 1800-1930 (Aldershot, U.K: Ashgate, 1998) Bruce Al temporary thuser, Collecting theNew: Museums and ContemporaryArt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), has a useful introduction. 17. John R Lane and John Caldwell, introduction to Carnegie International 1985 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art, 1985), 11. For a detailed see Kenneth study of the specifics of the early Carnegie Internationals, Neal, A Wise Extravagance: The Founding of theCarnegie International Exhi? bitions 1895-1901 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996). For another view of this history, and of the subsequent years of the Carne? gie International, see Vicky A. Clark, Carnegie Museum ofArt (Pitts? burgh: Carnegie Museum of Art, 1996). 18. See Judith Bumpus, The ContemporaryArt Society 1910-1985 (London: CAS, 1985); and Alan Bowness et al., CAS: British ContemporaryArt the 1910-1990: Eighty Years of Collecting by ContemporaryArt Society

(Lon? don: Herbert Press, 1991). 19. Charter of the Contemporary Art Society, Melbourne, quoted in Ber? nard Smith with Terry Smith and Christopher Heathcote, Australian (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 218. Painting 1788-2000 20. For example, Rene Huyghe and Germain Bazin's Histoire de Tart contem poraine: La peinture (Paris: Editions Alcan, 1935); and Christian Zervos, Histoire de Tart contemporaine (Paris: Cahiers d'Art, 1938). 21. Alfred H Barr Jr, "An Effort to Secure $3,250,000 for the Museum of Modern Art," Alfred H. Barr Jr Papers, official statement, April 1931, Museum of Modern Art Archives, the Museum of Modern Art, New York. "The Institutionalization of the Modern? 22. Angelica Zander Rudenstine, in "Post-Modern or Contemporary?" Some Historical Observations," International Committee of ICOM for Muse? Conference proceedings, ums and Collections of Modern Art, D?sseldorf, June 25-30, 1981, 48. 23. Cited in John Elderfield,

Modern Painting and Sculpture: 1880 to the Present (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2004), 12. 24. Institute of Contemporary Art, Dissent: The Issue ofModern Art in Boston (Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1985). Its 1948 statement con? cludes: "in order to disassociate the policy and program of this institu? which sur? tion from the widespread and injurious misunderstandings round the term 'modern art,' the Corporation has today changed its name from the Institute of Modern Art to the institute of contempo? rary art" (ibid., 52-53) A reverse situation is just becoming visible: the current media and market notoriety of Contemporary Art has led some of those building institutions to house it, seeking the broadest public for it, to return to "modern" as a safer name: thus, the Gallery of Mod? ern Art, Brisbane, which opened in late 2006. See Daniel Thomas, This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to

JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet 3g2 ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 2010 VOLUME XCII NUMBER 4 Art Gallery and Its Gallery of Modern Art," Art "The Queensland Monthly Australia, no. 197 (March 2007): 23 25. Wilhelm Pinder, Das Problem der Generation in derKunstgeschichte Europas (Berlin: Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, 1926), quoted in and glossed by Arnold Hauser, The Philosophy ofArtHistory (Cleveland: Meridian, 1963), 248. The political circumstances ofWeimer Germany, and its led Ernst Bloch to take challenge toMarxist historical materialism, as critical analytic concepts. contemporaneity and noncontemporaneity See Bloch, Heritage ofOur Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), esp. part 2 This is a direct precedent tomy own usage 26. See Lesley Jackson, (London: Phaidon, "Contemporary":Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s 1994). 27. The best summary of this important art historical task is the introduc? tion by Kobena

Mercer to his book Cosmopolitan Modernisms (London: Institute of International Visual Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005). With regard to the contemporary in Indian art, see Geeta Ka pur, When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in In? dia (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2000). An important precedent to such studies is the pathbreaking work, since the 1950s, of Australian art his? torian Bernard Smith. Among his books, most directly relevant to this discussion isModernism's History (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1998). 28. Michael Fried, "Art and Objecthood," Artforum (June 1967), reprinted in Art and Objecthood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 166. 29. Leo Steinberg, "Contemporary Art and the Plight of Its Public" (lec? ture, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1960), published inHarper's Magazine, March 1962, and reprinted in Steinberg, Other Criteria: Con? frontations with Twentieth Century Art (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1972), 5. 30. Pierre Bourdieu famously argued that itwas this acculturated accep? tance of what is essentially an empty experience as, in fact, a full one that constituted, in bourgeois societies, the "love of art" as such. See Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, The Love ofArt: European ArtMuseums and Their Public (London: Polity Press, 1990). 31. See, for example, Mario Pedrosa, "Environmental Art, Postmodern Art: Helio Oiticica," Correio deManh?, June 26, 1966, trans, and reprinted in Donna de Salvo, Open Systems:Rethinking Art c. 1970 (London: T?te Publishing, 2005). 32. Andrea Giunta, Avant-Garde, Internationalism and Politics: Argentine Art in the 1960s (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2007), 9 33. See Terry Smith, "The Provincialism tember 1974): 54-59. Problem," Artforum 13, no. 1 (Sep? 34. Reiko Tomii, "Historicizing 'Contemporary Art': Some Discursive Prac? tices in Gendai Bijutsu in Japan," Positions 12, no.

3 (2004): 611-41 " 'Create What Has Never Been Done Before!': See also Ming Tiampo, Gutai Discourses of Originality," Third Text 21, no. 6 (No? Historicising vember 2007): 689-706. 35. Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor, Reading theContemporary:African Art from Theory to theMarket Place (London: Institute of International Visual Arts; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999); Sidney Littlefield Kasfir, Con? 1999); Simon temporary African Art (London: Thames and Hudson, in Africa Remix: ContemporaryArt of Njami, "Chaos and Metamorphosis," a Continent (London: Hayward Gallery, 2005); and Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, ContemporaryAfrican Art since 1980 (Bologna: Damiani, 2009). 36. See, for example, Marina Grzinic, Situated ContemporaryArt Practices: Art, Theory and Activism from (theEast of)Europe (Frankfurt: Revolver; Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU, 2004); Group Irwin, East ArtMap: Contemporary Art and Eastern Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006); and Boris Groys, Art and

Power (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2008) of 37. See, for example, Li Xianting, "Major Trends in the Development Contemporary Chinese Art," in Chinese New Art, Post-1989, ed. Chang (Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery, 1993); John Clark, Mod? Tsong-tzung ernAsian Art (Sydney: Craftsman House; Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), esp. his concluding chapter, "Contemporary Art"; Wu Hung, Chinese Art at theCrossroads: Between Past and Future, between East and West (Hong Kong: New Art Media, 2001); chapters by Gao Minglu, Wu Hung, and Jonathan Hay in Antinomies ofArt and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity and Contemporaneity, ed. Terry Smith, Okwui En? wezor, and Nancy Condee (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2008); and Qigu Jiang and James Elkins, eds., First "China Contemporary Art Forum"?2009 Beijing International Conference on Art Theory and Criti? cism (Beijing: China Contemporary Art Forum, 2010). 38. Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism, or,

The Cultural Logic of Late Capi? talism," New LeftReview, no. 146 (July-August 1984): 59-92, reprinted in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic ofLate Capitalism (Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 1991). 39. Bernice Murphy, Museum of ContemporaryArt: Vision and Context (Syd? ney: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993), 136. Cameron and Anna Palmquist, Vad ?r samtida konst?What Is Con? 1989), 7. Quite undistracted by ques? temporaryArt? (Mallm?: Rooseum, this is the most sustained and subtle explora? tions of the postmodern, tion of these questions published at the time. 40. Dan Belting, The End of theHistory ofArt? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Belting's view of the subsequent best direction for art history is given in his Art History afterModernism (Chicago: Uni? versity of Chicago Press, 2003). 41. See Hans After theEnd ofArt: ContemporaryArt and thePale ofHis? tory(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 10. 43. Amelia Jones, ed, A Companion

toContemporaryArt since 1945 (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 15 This is the conclusion to her introductory essay "Writing Contemporary Art into History: A Para? dox?" 42. Arthur C Danto, 44. For example, Edward Lucie-Smith, The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984), 122; and Erika Lang muir and Norbert Lynton, The Yale Dictionary ofArt and Artists (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 464-65. My own entry in the Dic? tionaryofArt attempted to avoid this dilemma, both in itself and by my insistence on pairing itwith an entry on modernity: see Terry Smith, "Modernism" and "Modernity," inDictionary ofArt, ed. Jane Turner 1996), 777-78, and Grove Art Online. (London: Macmillan, 45. Respectively, Reginald G Haggar, A Dictionary ofArt Terms (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1962), 92; and N. E Lathi, The Language ofArt from A toZ: Writ inPlain English (Terrebonne, Ore.: York Books, 1997), 39 46. Wikipedia, sv

"contemporary art," http://enwikipediaorg/wiki/Con temporary art, accessed March 2009. The French entry ismore up to date: fr.wikipediaorg/wiki/Art contemporain and John Fleming, A World History ofArt, 3rd ed. (Lon? 47. Hugh Honour don: Laurence King, 1991), 695. The authors dropped this heading from their next edition in favor of "Towards the Third Millennium." See idem, A World History ofArt, 4th ed. (London: Laurence King, in the 1991 1995), 803. A similarly epochal use of the term appeared and ninth edition of Gardner's Art through theAges, but had evaporated by 2001. See Horst de la Croix et al, Gardner's Art through theAges, 9th ed. (Fort Wrorth: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991; 10 ed, 2001) Stokstad, Art History, rev. ed 1999), vol. 2, 1165 48. Marilyn (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 49. Respectively, Michael Archer, Art since 1960 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997; 2nd ed., 2002); and David Hopkins, AfterModern Art: 1945-2000 (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2000). and Uta Grosenick, Art Now 50. Respectively, Burkhard Reimschneider (Cologne: Taschen, 2001); and Susan Sollins, Art:21, Art in theTwenty first Century (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001) 2000). Collings, This IsModern Art (New York: Watson-Guptill, 52. Compilations: Uta Grosenick and Burkhard Reimschneider, eds., Art at the Turn of theMillennium (Cologne: Taschen, 1999); Grosenick and eds., Art Now: 137 Artists at theRise of theNew Millen? Reimschneider, nium (Cologne: Taschen, 2002); and Grosenick, ed., Art Now Vol 2: The New Directory to 136 International ContemporaryArtists (Cologne: Taschen, 2005). Anthologies: Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung, eds., Theory in Con? Art since 1985 (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2005) Thematics: temporary Edward Lucie-Smith, Art Tomorrow (Paris: Pierre Terrail, 2002); Linda In the Weintraub, (New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2003); Making Gill Perry and Paul Wood, eds., Themes in ContemporaryArt (New Haven: Yale University Press in

association with the Open University, 2004); and Thames and Hudson's excellent series Art Works, including Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, Place (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005). The list of themes in the text comes from the chapter headings in Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, Themes of ContemporaryArt: Visual Art after 1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 51. Mathew 53. Eleanor Heartney, Art & Today (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008). and Nicol 54. By Brandon Taylor: The Art of Today (London: Weidenfeld son, 1995); ContemporaryArt (London: Penguin, 2004); and Contempo? raryArt: Art since 1970 (Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 2005) 55. Taylor, ContemporaryArt, 9 See, by Julian Stallabrass: High Art Lite (Lon? don: Verso, 1999); Art Incorporated: The Story ofContemporaryArt (Ox? ford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and ContemporaryArt: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 56. Hal Foster et al, Art since 1900: Modernism,

Anti-Modernism, Postmodern? ism (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005). Foster's interest in psycho? analysis does not lead to a distinct history of modernism, although it certainly issues in distinctive accounts of the works that he, the author of the majority of the entries, treats. Among a number of astute reviews of the book, see Charles Harrison, "After the Fall," Art Journal 65, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 116-19; and various authors in the "Interventions Re? views," Art Bulletin 88, no. 2 (2006): 373-99 57. Foster et al, Art since 1900, 679 This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Source: http://www.doksinet THE 58. Ibid. 59. I evoke here the argument of T. J Clark, Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History ofModernism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). A stance is that historical modernism may have been less melancholy in art and the world at large, but its sidelined by

recent developments core qualities remain capable of serving as the foundation of convinc? ing art, were the right artists to grasp them afresh. As we have seen, this is precisely what Michael Fried argues is occurring in the work of certain contemporary photographers, notably JeffWall. 60. Peter Osborne, "Art beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Criticism, Art History and Contemporary Art," Art History 27, no. 4 (September 2004): 666-67. 61. One pertinent paradox is that since the 1970s, criticism of contempora? neous art has been most effectively practiced by writers based in the in contrast to the out-there, implicated situation of the academies, most prominent writers of the previous generation. A further paradox is that these academics have held as models (positive and negative) not only their immediate predecessors but also the engaged reviewers of art since Denis Diderot. See, for example, Terry Smith, "Clement Greenberg at 100: Looking Back toModern Art, Conference

Sackler Museum, Harvard University, April 3-4, 2009," CAAReviews, posted July 14, 2009, http://www.caareviewsorg/reviews/1298 62. Notably, the exhibitions curated by Okwui Enwezor, including Trade Routes: History and Geography (The Hague: Prince Claus Fund; Johannes? Council, 1997); and, with burg: Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Chinua Achebe, The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movement in Africa 1945-1994 (Munich: Prestel, 2001); and Documenta 11, Platform 5: Exhibition (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2002). 63. Okwui Enwezor, "The Postcolonial Constellation," tinomies ofArt and Culture, 208-9, 232. 64. Kirk Varnedoe, York: Museum Modern Contemporary:Art atMOMA of Modern Art, 2000), 12. in Smith et al., An? since 1980 (New 65. Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (Dijon: Les Presses du Reel, 2002); and Post-Production (New York: Lucas and Sternberg, 2002). See Claire Bishop, "Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics," October, no.

110 (Fall 2004): 51-79. 66. Nicolas Bourriaud, "Altermodern," in Altermodern: T?te Triennial don: T?te Publishing, 2009), 12-13. 67. (Lon? I have noted this aspect in a number of recent essays. See, for exam? Critical ple, Terry Smith, "Contemporary Art and Contemporaneity," Inquiry 32, no. 4 (Summer 2006): 681-707; and "Creating Dangerously: Then and Now," in The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, ed. Okwui Enwezor (Seville: Bienal Internacional de Arte Contempor?neo de Sevilla, 2006). 68. Okwui Enwezor, "Modernity and Postcolonial aud, Altermodern T?te Triennial, 27-40. Ambivalence," in Bourri? 69. As argued for by James Meyer, "The Return of the Sixties in Contem? porary Art and Criticism," in Smith et al., Antinomies ofArt and Culture, 323-32. exhibitions that have contributed to this direction, see, for ex? ample, Ann Goldstein, ed., Reconstructing theObject ofArt: 1965-1975 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum

of Art, 1995); Paul Schim? mel and Russell Ferguson, eds., Out ofActions: Between Performance Art and theObject: 1949-79 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998) ; Luiz Camnitzer, Jane Farver, and Rachel Weiss, Global Conceptu alism: Points ofOrigin, 1950s-1980s (New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999) ;Richard Flood and Francis Morris, eds., Zero to Infinity:Arte Pove ra 1962-1972 (London: T?te Gallery, 2002); Goldstein, ed., A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Museum of Art, 2004); Helen Molesworth, Work Ethic (Baltimore: Baltimore Mu 70. Among STATE OF ART HISTORY: CONTEMPORARY ART 333 seum of Art, 2003); Carlos Basualdo, ed., Tropic?lia: A Revolution in Bra? zilian Culture 1967-1972 (S?o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2005); and Mari Car? men Ramirez and Hector Olea, eds., Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America (New Haven: Yale University Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2004). Among new scholarship on the protohistory of

contemporary art, see, for example, Pamela M. Lee, Chronophobia: On Time in theArt of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004); Martha Buskirk, The Contingent Object of ContemporaryArt (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003); Anne Reynolds, Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003); Alex Al berro, Conceptual Art and thePolitics ofPublicity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003); the revisions being pursued by the scholars of the art of Asia, South America, Central Europe, and elsewhere noted above; and revisit surveys such as Cornelia Butler et al., WACK! Art and theFeminist Revolution (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007) 71. See, for example, the discussion moderated by Chika Okeke-Agulu, "The Twenty-first Century and the Mega Show: A Curator's Round table," Nka, Journal of ContemporaryAfrican Art, nos. 22-23 (Spring-Sum? mer 2008): 152-88. A recent compact disc, OLSSR: Our Lit? 72.

See wwwourliteralspeedcom eral Speed Soundtrack Recordings, Bitter Stag Records, 2009, includes tracks such as "Reading Rosalind Rrauss" and messages on the packag? ing such as "stuffnear art that is not art which is treated as if itwere art is now the substance of most serious art." "Periodising Contemporary Art," in Crossing Cultures: Con? flict, Migration and Convergence; The Proceedings of the32nd International (Melbourne: Miegun Congress in theHistory ofArt, ed. Jaynie Anderson no. 130 (Fall 2009): yah Press, 2009), 935-39; also published in October, 55-60. 73. Alex Alberro, 74. By, for example, W J T Mitchell, Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9-11 to thePresent (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 75. Jameson, A Singular Modernity, 94-95 76. This interpretation is argued more fully in the introduction to Smith et al., Antinomies ofArt and Culture See also Marc Auge, The Anthropology of Contemporaneous Worlds (Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1999); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and His? toricalDifference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Gior? "What Is an Apparatus?" and Other Essays (Stanford: Stan? gio Agamben, ford University Press, 2009). 77. See also Richard Meyer, What Was ContemporaryArt? (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, forthcoming). summary is drawn from Terry Smith, What Is ContemporaryArt? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). Similar but belated shifts from modern to contemporary architecture are explored in idem, The Architecture ofAftermath (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and "Currents of Contemporaneity: Architecture in the Aftermath," Architectural Theory Review 11, no. 2 (2006): 34-52 The ideas advanced in relation to recent debates on world art history here are positioned in idem, "World Picturing in Contemporary Art: Iconogeographic Turning," Journal of theArt Association ofAustralia and

New Zealand 6-7, nos. 2, 1 (2005-6): 24-46. They were first sketched in idem, What Is ContemporaryArt? ContemporaryArt, Contemporaneity and Art toCome (Syd? ney: Artspace Critical Issues Series, 2001). 78. This 79. A snapshot of these changes within international art history is to be found in Anderson, Crossing Cultures, 2009. See also Rex Butler and Robert Leonard, eds., "21st Century Art History," special issue of Aus? and Hans tralian& New Zealand Journal ofArt 9, nos. 1-2 (2008-9); eds., The Global Art World: Audiences, Belting and Andrea Buddensieg, Markets, and Museums (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2009). This content downloaded from 131.2471123 on Thu, 9 Oct 2014 16:38:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions