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It has been argued, most notably in psychoanalytic and modernist art discourse, that the production of works of art is fundamentally driven by sexual desire. It has further been argued, particularly since the early 1970s, that sexual drives and desires also condition the distribution, display and reception of art. This anthology traces how and why this identification of art with sexual expression or repression arose and how the terms have shifted in tandem with artistic and theoretical debates, from the era of the rights movements to the present. Among the subjects it discusses are abjection and the ‘informe’, or formless; pornography and the obscene; the ‘performativity’ of gender and sexuality; and the role of sexuality in forging radical art or curatorial practices, in response to such issues as state-sponsored repression and anti-feminism in the broader social realm. [editor summary]

Artists increasingly refer to “post-object-based” work while theorists engage with material artifacts in culture. A focus on “object-based” learning treats objects as vectors for dialogue across disciplines. Virtual imaging enables the object to be abstracted or circumvented, while immaterial forms of labor challenge materialist theories. This anthology surveys such reappraisals of what constitutes the “objectness” of production, with art as its focus.

Among the topics it examines are the relation of the object to subjectivity; distinctions between objects and things; the significance of the object’s transition from inert mass to tool or artifact; and the meanings of the everyday in the found object, repetition in the replicated or multiple object, loss in the absent object, and abjection in the formless or degraded object. It also explores artistic positions that are anti-object; theories of the experimental, liminal or mental object; and the role of objects in performance. The object becomes a prism through which to reread contemporary art and better understand its recent past. [editor summary]

This anthology investigates the turn in art not only towards archives and histories, the relics of modernities past, but toward the phenomena, in themselves, of 'haunting' and the activation of memory. It looks at a wide array of artistic relationships to memory association, repetition and reappearance, as well as forms of 'active' forgetting. Its discussions encompass artworks from the late 1940s onward, ranging from re-performances such as Marina Abramovic’s Seven Easy Pieces (embodied resurrections of decades-removed performance pieces by her contemporaries) to the inanimate trace of 'memory' Robert Morris assigns to his free-form felt pieces, which “forget” in their present configurations their previous slides and falls.

Contextualizing memory’s role in visual theory and aesthetic politics – from Marcel Proust’s optics to Bernard Stiegler’s analysis of memory’s 'industrialization' – this collection also surveys the diversity of situations and registers in which contemporary artists explore memory. Art that engages with memory embodied in material and spatial conditions is examined beside works that reflect upon memory’s effects through time, and yet others that enlist the agency of remembrance or forgetting to work through aspects of the numerous pasts by which the present is always haunted.[editor summary]

À travers une histoire kaléidoscopique des arts, qui voit l'enquête remonter aux sources de la modernité, Du Théâtre au Cirque du monde interroge la nouvelle situation qui a vu les artistes investir l'action selon des objectifs bien différents. Le spectacle du cirque avec les qualités que ses numéros convoquent en fournit, bien plus justement que le théâtre, la matrice à partir de quoi une échappée aux nihilismes des deux derniers siècles s'avère envisageable. Où l'on verra à l'observation de diverses stratégies artistiques que les conditions d'une démobilisation dans le temps même de l'action sont encore celles qui favorisent l'éclosion d'un acte libre, dans le respect de soi et le respect de l'autre. [résumé de l'éditeur]

In a world where technology, spectacle and excess seem to eclipse former concepts of nature, the individual and society ... the notion that the sublime represents a taking to the limits, to the point at which fixities begin to fragment ... examines how the ideas of the sublime are explored in the work of contemporary artists and theorists, in relation to the unpresentable, transcendence, terror, nature, technology, the uncanny and altered states. [editor summary]

The spontaneous, unexpected or random event is a vital component in numerous works of Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and conceptual photography. And the camera snapshot seems intrinsically implicated in the workings of chance. But why today does chance remain a key stretegy in artists' investigations into the contemporary world? This anthology analyses the meaning of these strategic spaces of uncertainty, poised between intention and outcome, and provides a new critical context for chance procedures in art since 1900. [editor summary]

Utopian projects aspire to a better world but their forms may only ever live in our imaginations. Furthermore, we are as haunted by their failures as we are inspired by the aspiration to repair the failed and build the new. This anthology contextualizes art's current engagement with the utopian in relation to political thought, viewing the utopian as a key term in the artistic lineage of modernity. It illuminates how the exploration of utopian themes in art today contributes to our understanding of contemporary cultures and the possibilities for shaping their futures. [editor summary]

A unique set of conditions produced in both space and time and ranging across material, social, political and economic relations, Situation is now a key concept in 21st-century art. This anthology traces its evolution from the 1960s emergence of site-specific art to its divergent implications in the global era. Among the topics surveyed are the limits of site; the role of the artist as ethnographer or fieldworker; the relation between action and public space; the meaning of place and locality; and the crucial role of the curator in new situation-specific art. [editor summary]

First published in 1979, now extensively updated and expanded, this pioneering book has been supplemented by the definitive account of the current technological, political and aesthetic shifts in performance art that mark its transition to the twenty-first century. Performance art is now at the forefront of current art. An astonishing increase in the number of works and venues around the world testifies to this art form as the chosen medium for articulating 'difference' whether dealing with issues of identity, multiculturalism or globalism. The desire for direct engagement with today's most prominent artists explains the wide appeal of performance art to the ever broader audience for new art in the museums. Mariko Mori, Paul McCarthy, and Matthew Barney, as well as the groups Forced Entertainment and Desperate Optimists, among many others, can now be seen in the historical context of other innovators in the field from the Dadaists to Laurie Anderson. [editor summary]

Ouvrage qui étudie l’utilisation faite par les artistes de leur corps à la fois comme sujet et objet de leur œuvre Les nouvelles formes d’expression comme le body art, le happening et la performance y sont décrites Plus de 250 illustrations retracent pour la première fois l’histoire méconnue d’œuvres souvent controversées Un essai d’Amelia Jones, spécialiste du body art et de la performance, rapporte comment ces œuvres nous informent d’une manière originale sur les bouleversements sociaux et culturels des cinquante dernières années. [Note de l'éditeur]