Read online book The Contemporaries : Travels in the 21st-Century Art World FB2, PDF, MOBI
9781620400944 English 1620400944 It's been nearly a century since Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and called it art. Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America.But why - and how and by whom - does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries , Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world.White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists - and who walk the fine line between assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity.From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.", Painter and critic Roger White, co-editor of the hipster art bible Paper Monument , takes us behind the paint-splattered scenes of today's diffuse and dazzling art world -- revealing contemporary art through an artist's eyes. It's been nearly a century since Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and called it art. Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America. But why--and how and by whom--does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries, Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world. White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists--and who walk the fine line between "assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity. From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance., These are exciting times in contemporary art: the market is resurgent; audiences are multiplying. But it's also harder than ever to get a handle on the art world, which is becoming more of an art multiverse: not just Soho or Chelsea (with excursions to Venice or Basel); it's Gowanus, it's Milwaukee, it's YouTube. The institutions at the top may look the same, but there are a multiplicity of forms that an art work, an art career, or an art scene can take. And so The Contemporaries gives readers multiple viewsin six major stops of a full-throttle studio tour of sorts. Painter and critic Roger White carries us along; he's both exuberant and skeptical, warm and wry. He takes us through the halls of RISD, where art drives discourse and vice versa; to New York, to pull back the curtain on the strange economy of art assistantship; to Milwaukee, to see a group of young artists trying to envision the possibilities of a local scene. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three select artists, whose careers reveal parallel traditions within art today: the emerging, Columbia-trained star who's reinvigorating painting; the former conceptual wunderkind who has either drastically limited or expanded his ambitions, depending on who you ask; the roving artist of "social practice" whose work sits somehow outside both the establishment and the market. In this careful and colorful anthropology of a fascinating world, White escorts the art-curious reader beyond the museums, auction houses, and fairs; he shows us what artists are thinking and making this minute, and the multiple meanings and possibilities of the "contemporary" in contemporary art.
9781620400944 English 1620400944 It's been nearly a century since Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and called it art. Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America.But why - and how and by whom - does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries , Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world.White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists - and who walk the fine line between assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity.From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.", Painter and critic Roger White, co-editor of the hipster art bible Paper Monument , takes us behind the paint-splattered scenes of today's diffuse and dazzling art world -- revealing contemporary art through an artist's eyes. It's been nearly a century since Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal and called it art. Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America. But why--and how and by whom--does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries, Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world. White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists--and who walk the fine line between "assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity. From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance., These are exciting times in contemporary art: the market is resurgent; audiences are multiplying. But it's also harder than ever to get a handle on the art world, which is becoming more of an art multiverse: not just Soho or Chelsea (with excursions to Venice or Basel); it's Gowanus, it's Milwaukee, it's YouTube. The institutions at the top may look the same, but there are a multiplicity of forms that an art work, an art career, or an art scene can take. And so The Contemporaries gives readers multiple viewsin six major stops of a full-throttle studio tour of sorts. Painter and critic Roger White carries us along; he's both exuberant and skeptical, warm and wry. He takes us through the halls of RISD, where art drives discourse and vice versa; to New York, to pull back the curtain on the strange economy of art assistantship; to Milwaukee, to see a group of young artists trying to envision the possibilities of a local scene. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three select artists, whose careers reveal parallel traditions within art today: the emerging, Columbia-trained star who's reinvigorating painting; the former conceptual wunderkind who has either drastically limited or expanded his ambitions, depending on who you ask; the roving artist of "social practice" whose work sits somehow outside both the establishment and the market. In this careful and colorful anthropology of a fascinating world, White escorts the art-curious reader beyond the museums, auction houses, and fairs; he shows us what artists are thinking and making this minute, and the multiple meanings and possibilities of the "contemporary" in contemporary art.