Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

169 Pages·2006·3.22 MB·English

by  Julian Stallabrass

Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction
Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating
and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have
been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.
The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics
in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next
few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short
Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to
conceptual art and cosmology.
Very Short Introductions available now:
ANARCHISM Colin Ward CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson
ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY CLASSICS Mary Beard and
Julia Annas John Henderson
ANCIENT WARFARE CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard
Harry Sidebottom THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon
THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore
John Blair CONTEMPORARY ART
ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia Julian Stallabrass
ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn Continental Philosophy
ARCHITECTURE Simon Critchley
Andrew Ballantyne COSMOLOGY Peter Coles
ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes THE CRUSADES
ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Christopher Tyerman
ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland CRYPTOGRAPHY
THE HISTORY OF Fred Piper and Sean Murphy
ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin DADA AND SURREALISM
Atheism Julian Baggini David Hopkins
Augustine Henry Chadwick Darwin Jonathan Howard
BARTHES Jonathan Culler THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
THE BIBLE John Riches Timothy Lim
THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea Democracy Bernard Crick
BRITISH POLITICS DESCARTES Tom Sorell
Anthony Wright DESIGN John Heskett
Buddha Michael Carrithers DINOSAURS David Norman
BUDDHISM Damien Keown DREAMING J. Allan Hobson
BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown DRUGS Leslie Iversen
CAPITALISM James Fulcher THE EARTH Martin Redfern
THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch
CHOICE THEORY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
Michael Allingham BRITAIN Paul Langford
THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball Jung Anthony Stevens
EMOTION Dylan Evans KAFKA Ritchie Robertson
EMPIRE Stephen Howe KANT Roger Scruton
ENGELS Terrell Carver KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner
Ethics Simon Blackburn THE KORAN Michael Cook
The European Union LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews
John Pinder LITERARY THEORY
EVOLUTION Jonathan Culler
Brian and Deborah Charlesworth LOCKE John Dunn
FASCISM Kevin Passmore LOGIC Graham Priest
FEMINISM Margaret Walters MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner
FOSSILS Keith Thomson THE MARQUIS DE SADE
FOUCAULT Gary Gutting John Phillips
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION MARX Peter Singer
William Doyle MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers
FREE WILL Thomas Pink MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope
Freud Anthony Storr MEDIEVAL BRITAIN
Galileo Stillman Drake John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths
Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh MODERN ART David Cottington
GLOBAL CATASTROPHES MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇeta
Bill McGuire MOLECULES Philip Ball
GLOBALIZATION MUSIC Nicholas Cook
Manfred Steger Myth Robert A. Segal
GLOBAL WARMING NATIONALISM Steven Grosby
Mark Maslin NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
HABERMAS NINETEENTH-CENTURY
James Gordon Finlayson BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and
HEGEL Peter Singer H. C. G. Matthew
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood NORTHERN IRELAND
HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson Marc Mulholland
HINDUISM Kim Knott PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close
HISTORY John H. Arnold paul E. P. Sanders
HOBBES Richard Tuck Philosophy Edward Craig
HUMAN EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Bernard Wood Samir Okasha
HUME A. J. Ayer PLATO Julia Annas
IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
Indian Philosophy POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Sue Hamilton David Miller
Intelligence Ian J. Deary POSTCOLONIALISM
ISLAM Malise Ruthven Robert Young
JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves POSTMODERNISM
JUDAISM Norman Solomon Christopher Butler
POSTSTRUCTURALISM SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
Catherine Belsey ANTHROPOLOGY
PREHISTORY Chris Gosden John Monaghan and Peter Just
PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY SOCIALISM Michael Newman
Catherine Osborne SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce
Psychology Gillian Butler and Socrates C. C. W. Taylor
Freda McManus THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
QUANTUM THEORY Helen Graham
John Polkinghorne SPINOZA Roger Scruton
RENAISSANCE ART STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
Geraldine A. Johnson TERRORISM Charles Townshend
ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway THEOLOGY David F. Ford
ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler THE HISTORY OF TIME
RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Leofranc Holford-Strevens
RUSSIAN LITERATURE TRAGEDY Adrian Poole
Catriona Kelly THE TUDORS John Guy
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION TWENTIETH-CENTURY
S. A. Smith BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
SCHIZOPHRENIA THE VIKINGS Julian D. Richards
Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling
SCHOPENHAUER WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman
Christopher Janaway THE WORLD TRADE
SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer ORGANIZATION
SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt Amrita Narlikar
Available soon:
AFRICAN HISTORY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
John Parker and Richard Rathbone Paul Wilkinson
ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman JAZZ Brian Morton
CHAOS Leonard Smith MANDELA Tom Lodge
CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy NEWTON Robert Iliffe
Derrida Simon Glendinning PHILOSOPHY OF LAW
EXISTENTIALISM Raymond Wacks
Thomas Flynn PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards
THE FIRST WORLD WAR PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns
Michael Howard RACISM Ali Rattansi
FUNDAMENTALISM THE RAJ Denis Judd
Malise Ruthven THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton
HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside ROMAN EMPIRE
HUMAN MIGRATION Christopher Kelly
Khalid Koser ROMANTICISM Duncan Wu
For more information visit our web site
www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/
Julian Stallabrass
CONTEMPORARY
ART
A Very Short Introduction
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
AucklandCape Town Dar es SalaamHong Kong Karachi
Kuala LumpurMadridMelbourneMexico CityNairobi
New DelhiShanghaiTaipeiToronto
With offices in
ArgentinaAustriaBrazilChileCzech RepublicFranceGreece
GuatemalaHungary ItalyJapanPoland PortugalSingapore
South KoreaSwitzerland ThailandTurkeyUkraineVietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Julian Stallabrass 2004
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published in hardback as Art Incorporated 2004
First published as a Very Short Introduction 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
ISBN 0–19–280646–7 978–0–19–280646–8
1357910864 2
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain by
Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hampshire
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of illustrations x
1
A zone of freedom? 1
2
New world order 19
3
Consuming culture 50
4
Uses and prices of art 70
5
The rules of art now 101
6
Contradictions 119
References 136
Index 145
To Peter and Audrey
Acknowledgements
While this book takes a position against much of the literature
written on contemporary art, that writing has nonetheless formed
it, and I would like to express my appreciation to all those who
appear in the references section. I would urge readers to use this
account as a staging post to go on to find more detailed analyses of
subjects that can only be dealt with summarily here.
I have benefited greatly from conversations with many artists,
academics, critics, and curators, and particularly from colleagues
and students at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Many thanks also to
Sarah James and Hyla Robiscek, who helped my research. Thanks
also to all those at Oxford University Press, and particularly to
Katharine Reeve who nurtured this project.
Parts of this book have been previously published in the following
places, though all these passages have been substantially altered for
their appearance here:
‘Shop until You Stop’, in Schirn Kunstalle Frankfurt/Tate Liverpool,
Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture, ed. Christoph
Grunenberg and Max Hollein (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz
Publishers, 2002).
‘Free Trade/Free Art’, in Neil Cummings/Marysia Lewandowska,
Free Trade (Manchester: Manchester Art Gallery, 2003).
‘Literally No Place by Liam Gillick’, Bookworks website, June 2003:
http://www.bookworks.org.uk/sharptalk/04/index.htm