Книги за изкуство: Painting, Documents of Contemporary Art → Обява 44925062

Whitechapel Gallery.

It’s a very eclectic collection of essays, journal articles and

catalogue entries which starts and ends with a quote from Delacroix

(whose

:

‘What moves men of genius or rather what inspires their work is not new

ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been

said is still not enough.’

This book is full of examples of

painters and artists literally in dialogue with one another. There are

some great conversations,

in conversation with the art historian Buchloh, one of the co-authors of Art Since 1900,

to name a few incredibly rich dialogues. Dumas in particular is someone

who really proclaims this empowerment of the artist in the debates on

contemporary art. She writes her own catalogue texts for exhibitions,

something I admire and hope to do as well over the years. Many artists

can be a bit distant when it comes to talking about their own work and

art in general, as if it’s not something they should talk about, or a

task to be left to others. It’s exactly something artists should talk

about and Contemporary Art Issue wishes to do the same, to re-empower the artist in these debates about the art of our time. Therefore books like Documents on Contemporary Art are extremely valuable; I think vital. These texts are canonical, but

might otherwise have been lost as magazine clippings from the likes of

or

show catalogues. Here again, we see the importance of their

reproduction in book form, documenting art and accumulating into a

collective art history.