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Crisis as Form
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How does contemporary art best respond to social crisis? Through reflection on its own crisis of form
Criticism of contemporary art is split by an opposition between activism and the critical function of form. Yet the deeper, more subterranean terms of art-judgment are largely neglected on both sides. These essays combine a re-examination of the terms of judgement of contemporary art with critical interpretations of individual works and exhibitions by Luis Camnitzer, Marcel Duchamp, Matias Faldbakken, Anne Imhof and Cady Noland. The book moves from philosophical issues, via the lingering shadows of medium-specificity (in photography and art music), and the changing states of museums, to analyses of the peculiar ways that works of art relate to time.To give artistic form to crisis, it is suggested, one needs to understand contemporary art’s own constitutive crisis of form.
Reviews
Spritely
Praise for Anywhere or Not At All
An important achievement. This is the first book known to me that brings contemporary art as a whole to philosophical consideration. One of the orienting points for future work.
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A brilliant book
, Philosophy of Photography -
Osborne’s capacity to synthesise the impact of new geopolitical realities on art practices make this book an important one not just for philosophers, art historians and critics, but new media theorists as well.
, Critical Enquiry -
An inestimably significant intervention into a range of debates in the history, theory, criticism, and philosophy of contemporary art and its various genealogies and lineages. For the range of thought-provoking and suggestive insights offered, it has few competitors in the field.
, Goodreads -
Praise for The Postconceptual Condition
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Compelling
, Afterimage -
Peter Osborne offers a fundamental reflection on the critical potential of art today, but also on its lacunas, an element that gives more value to the work.
Critique d’art -
Very little philosophical writing is inspiring enough to catalyse art and bring it into being. Peter Osborne’s writing is consistently in this category.
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It is essential reading for anyone serious about contemporary art – or its philosophy.