* Features a grand survey of the historical, social, and aesthetic issues relevant to the development of contemporary art since 1945. * Collects 27 original essays by expert scholars describing the current state of scholarship in art history and visual studies, and pointing to future directions in the field.

List of Figures ix Notes on Contributors xiv Series Editor’s Preface xviii Acknowledgments xix Part I: Introduction 1 1 Writing Contemporary Art into History, a Paradox? 3Amelia Jones Part II: Decades 171945–60 2 “America” and its Discontents: Art and Politics 1945–60 19Gavin Butt1960–70 3 The 1960s: A Decade Out-of-Bounds 38Anna Dezeuze1970–80 4 “I’m sort of sliding around in place . . . ummm . . .”: Art in the 1970s 60Sam Gathercole1980–90 5 Pictures and Positions in the 1980s 83Howard Singerman1990–2005 6 1990–2005: In the Clutches of Time 107Henry M. Sayre Part III: Aesthetics 125Formalism7 Form and Formless 127Caroline A. JonesArt as Idea8 Re-Thinking the “Duchamp Effect” 145David HopkinsBeauty9 Regarding Beauty 164Margaret Morgan Part IV: Politics 189Avant-Garde 10 Avant-Garde: A Historiography of a Critical Concept 191Johanne LamoureuxActivism11 Facture for Change: US Activist Art since 1950 212Jennifer González and Adrienne PosnerCulture Wars12 “The Senators Were Revolted”: Homophobia and the Culture Wars 231Jonathan D. KatzArt and Its Public(s)13 Crowds and Connoisseurs: Art and the Public Sphere in America 249Grant Kester Part V: Identity/Subjectivity 269The Artist14 The Writerly Artist: Beautiful, Boring, and Blue 271Carol MavorDiaspora15 Diaspora: Multiple Practices, Multiple Worldviews 296Steven NelsonFeminism16 Power and Pleasure: Feminist Art Practice and Theory in the United States and Britain 317Laura MeyerQueer17 Queer Wallpaper 343Jennifer DoyleRace/Ethnicity18 Implications of Blackness in Contemporary Art 356Pauline de SouzaEmbodiment19 The Paradoxical Bodies of Contemporary Art 378Christine Ross Part VI: Methods/Theories 401Marxism20 A Shadow of Marx 403Neil Cummings and Marysia LewandowskaPoststructuralism21 Poststructuralism and Contemporary Art, Past, Present, Future . . . 424Sarah WilsonPostcolonial Theory22 “Fragments of Collapsing Space”: Postcolonial Theory and Contemporary Art 450Mark CrinsonVisual Culture23 Visual Culture Studies: Questions of History, Theory, and Practice 470Marquard Smith Part VII: Technology 491Mass Culture, High/Low24 “That’s All Folks”: Contemporary Art and Popular Culture 493Nick MirzoeffPhotography/Index25 Image + Text: Reconsidering Photography in Contemporary Art 512Liz KotzSpectacle/Appropriation26 Imagine There’s No Image (It’s Easy If You Try): Appropriation in the Age of Digital Reproduction 534Dore BowenDigital Media27 “Life-like”: Historicizing Process and Responsiveness in Digital Art 557María Fernández Index 582

This ambitious reference work charts the major works and movements, the most important theoretical developments, and the historical, social, political, and aesthetic issues in contemporary art since 1945, primarily in the Euro-American context. Dual chronological and thematic coverage of the major issues enables the reader to engage with multiple perspectives on current art movements and conceptual issues, and to consider future directions in the field. Topics covered include culture wars, public space, diaspora, new technologies, the artist, identity politics, the body, poststructuralism, and visual culture. The Companion also covers debates central to contemporary art practice and theory such as those addressing formalism, the avant-garde, and the society of the spectacle. Bringing together leading cultural critics and scholars from art history and allied fields to comment on the crucial historical and theoretical issues and debates that have conditioned our understanding of the contemporary visual arts, this volume offers new approaches toward the analysis of the visual arts in general. A stellar reference work, it is written for students and scholars of contemporary visual culture, art history, and visual theory, as well as the general reader interested in the development of this interdisciplinary field.

"This Companion represents a move away from the more traditionally conceived broad surveys of contemporary art available to date, and is refreshing in its innovative approach to this complex subject ... essential reading for students and scholars of contemporary art history, visual culture, and visual theory, and general readers just wishing to develop their understanding of this complex subject." Reference Reviews “Provocative, wide-ranging, and impressively inclusive…a welcome and important addition for the understanding of the art of our historical present and a boon companion for the general reader, the artist, the student, the art historian and the critic alike.” Abigail Solomon-Godeau, University of California, Santa Barbara “By keeping its finger on the pulse of the present, while commenting on the recent past, this book reminds us why contemporary art, and contemporary art history, matters." Geoffrey Batchen, City University of New York