Begriffslexikon zur zeitgenössischen Kunst

Indispensable!

The 376-page "Begriffslexikon zur zeitgenössischen Kunst" still offers a compact overview of the most important phenomena in contemporary art, backed up to the mid/end of the 2010s. Leading theorists of our time describe, analyse and evaluate the development of art from 1960 to the present day in 90 essays. At the same time, the influential discourses for art are presented and their cultural power of definition illuminated and scrutinised. The intellectualisation of art history and art theory that has been observable for several decades is characterised, among other things, by its interdisciplinary approach: In addition to traditional questions and methods, discourse-analytical, social-historical, gender-theoretical, media-analytical, post-colonial and image-scientific perspectives have long since become established. This also applies to contemporary art in particular, the sophisticated reception of which requires an ever broader knowledge and a heightened awareness of theory. This lexicon of terms is intended to provide orientation: Readers can gain an overview of both contemporary art and the theoretical debates that cannot be separated from it. The texts are not intended to convey a settled, canonising view, but are themselves to be seen as part of the current debates, especially as many of the themes and discourses are still developing. The contributions therefore take a form that is somewhere between a classic encyclopaedia entry and a critical essay. At the end of the texts, which contain numerous illustrations, there is also a selection of relevant literature for more in-depth thematic study.