The heart of the political-aesthetic debate.
The modern self-conception of art includes questioning giving bodies of knowledge and traditions. Today art is frequently practiced in conformist confirmation of the neoliberal zeitgeist, particularly when it denies its own radicality. What is Contemporary Art? is the attempt to conceptualize the relationship between art and politics for our time. Alexander Garcia Düttmann's essay both theoretically apprehends the radicality of contemporary art and shows how it serves to strengthen today's political ideology: an ideology that frustrates real social change. The book addresses the heart of contemporary political-aesthetic debate.
Alexander García Düttmann (born 1961) is a
philosopher and translator of numerous philosophical works. After growing up in Barcelona, he studied in Frankfurt am Main with Alfred Schmidt and in Paris with
Jacques Derrida. Since 1992, he has lived in San Francisco, New York, Melbourne, and London, and he has taught at Stanford University, The University of Essex, Monash University, New York University, Middlesex University, Goldsmiths College, and the Royal College of Art. He currently teaches at the Institute for Art History and Aesthetics of the University of Arts in Berlin.
