Jan Bryant looks at the strategies visual artists and filmmakers are using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our historical moment. She then assesses how the world is being positively re-imagined through their work today. Located at the intersection of practice and theory, Bryant argues that an effective contemporary political aesthetics encompasses more than just analysis of a work's conceptual or aesthetic reality. It should also consider the impact the artwork has at the point of reception, the methods adopted by the artists and the relationships they engender with communities.

Jan Bryant looks at the strategies visual artists and filmmakers are using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our historical moment. She then assesses how the world is being positively re-imagined through their work today.

The Evolution of Contemporary Arts Markets looks at the historical evolution of the art market from the 15th century to the present day. Art is both an expression of human creativity and an object of economic value and financial refuge at times of economic turbulence. Historically, the art market evolved with the development of capitalism, finance and technical change, and art schools responded to social events such as wars, revolutions and waves of democratization. The author discusses the main features of modern art markets such as complexity in art valuation, globalism, segmentation, financialization, indivisibility, liquidity and provenance issues. The book studies the impact of wealth inequality and economic cycles and crises on the art market and features a chapter focusing specifically on the art market in China. This accessible publication is ideal for a broad, interdisciplinary audience including those involved in the economic and financial fields as well as art lovers, art market participants and social and cultural scholars.

The independent voice of the visual arts.

Transnational Perspecives on Feminism and Art, 1960–1985 is a collection of essential essays that bring transnational feminist praxis into conversation with histories of feminist art in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. The artistic practices and processes examined within these pages all centre on gender and sexual politics as they variously intersect with race, class, sovereignty, Indigeneity, citizenship, and migration at particular historical moments and within specific geopolitical contexts. The book’s central premise is that reconsidering this period from transnational feminist perspectives will enable new thinking about the critical commonalities and differences across heterogeneous and geographically dispersed practices that have contributed to the complex and multifaceted relationship between feminism and art today. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural studies, visual culture, material culture, and gender studies.

What is the function of art in the era of digital globalization? How can one think of art institutions in an age defined by planetary civil war, growing inequality, and proprietary digital technology? The boundaries of such institutions have grown fuzzy. They extend from a region where the audience is pumped for tweets to a future of “neurocurating,” in which paintings surveil their audience via facial recognition and eye tracking to assess their popularity and to scan for suspicious activity. In Duty Free Art, filmmaker and writer Hito Steyerl wonders how we can appreciate, or even make art, in the present age. What can we do when arms manufacturers sponsor museums, and some of the world’s most valuable artworks are used as currency in a global futures market detached from productive work? Can we distinguish between information, fake news, and the digital white noise that bombards our everyday lives? Exploring subjects as diverse as video games, WikiLeaks files, the proliferation of freeports, and political actions, she exposes the paradoxes within globalization, political economies, visual culture, and the status of art production.

This book explores the relationship between social justice practices and the Arts in Education. It argues that social justice practices, at their best, should awaken our senses and the ability to imagine alternatives that can sustain the collective work necessary to challenge entrenched patterns and practices. Chapters display a range of arts-based pedagogies for challenging oppressive practices in schools, community centers and other public sites. The examples provided illustrate both the promise and on-going challenge of enacting arts based social justice practices that can transform consciousness and organize action toward justice and social change. They show the power of arts-based pedagogies to engage the imagination, reveal invisible operations of power and privilege, provoke critical reflection, and spark alternative images and possibilities. They also show the importance of on-going critical reflection for this work with attention to both the specificities of place and the obstacles (internal and external) to maintaining a social justice stance in the face of contemporary neoliberal discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of Equity & Excellence in Education.

Georg Kargl founded the respected Galerie Metropol in Vienna in 1978, and in 1998 he opened Kargl Fine Arts, now called BOX. This history of Kargl's visionary take on contemporary art over the years includes John Baldessari, Dan Flavin, Christopher Williams, Collier Schorr, Raymond Pettibon and John Waters to name just a few.

Innovative and diverse artworks by artists from across the country and beyond are featured in this fourth edition of the Canadian Biennial. Richly illustrated with dozens of colour plates, the publication provides individual presentations on each artist as well as a comprehensive scholarly text. The author looks at the dynamic ways in which artists engage with the increasingly globalized world of contemporary art through a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, printmaking, video and installation-based practices. Migration, the impact and interpretation of history and belief systems on contemporary art and culture, stereotypes of identity and nationhood, and the emancipatory potential of the imagination and creativity, are some of the themes and subjects addressed in a Biennial that reflects the Gallery¿s pursuits in building an outstanding and pertinent collection of art today. Jonathan Shaughnessy is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada. In English and French. Participating artists: Barry Ace, John Akomfrah, Benoit Aquin, Shuvinai Ashoona, BGL, Valérie Blass, Shannon Bool, Shary Boyle, Mark Bradford, Anthony Burnham, Nick Cave, Patrick Coutu, Chris Curreri, Beau Dick, Stan Douglas, Jessica Eaton, Latifa Echakhch, Tracey Emin, Cynthia Girard-Renard, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Houseago, Christian Jankowski, Brian Jungen, Shelagh Keeley, Ruben Komangapik, Jonathan Lasker, lessLIE, Maya Lin, Elaine Ling, Angela Marston, Kent Monkman, Wangechi Mutu, Nadia Myre, Chris Ofili, Jamasee Padluq Pitseolak, Susan Point, Mika Rottenberg, Collier Schorr, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Wael Shawky, Steven Shearer, Taryn Simon, Kiki Smith, Monika Sosnowska, Zin Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jutai Toonoo, Renée Van Halm, Waheed, Daniel Young and Christian Groulx.

Publication accompanies the exhibition, Mark Bradford, at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, May 8-August 15, 2010, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, November 19, 2010-March 13, 2011, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Summer 2011, Dallas Museum of Art, October 16, 2011-January 15, 2012, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, February 18, 2012-May 20, 2012.