The Postconceptual Condition: Critical Essays

Synopsis

Tracking The Postconceptual Dimensions Of Contemporary Art If, As Walter Benjamin Claimed, It Is The Function Of Artistic Form. If, As Walter Benjamin Claimed, It Is The Function Of Artistic Form ... To Make Historical Content Into A Philosophical Truth, Then It Is The Function Of Criticism To Recover And To Complete That Truth. Never Has This Been More Necessary Or More Difficult Than With Respect To Contemporary Art. Contemporary Art Is A Point Of Condensation Of A Vast Array Of Social And Historical Forces, Economic And Political Forms And Technologies Of Image Production. Contemporary Art Expresses This Condition, Osborne Maintains, Through Its Distinctively Postconceptual Form. These Essays--extending The Scope And Arguments Of Osborne's Anywhere Or Not At All: Philosophy Of Contemporary Art--move From Philosophical Consideration Of The Changing Temporal Conditions Of Capitalist Modernity, Via Problems Of Formalism, The Politics Of Art And The Changing Shape Of Art Institutions, To Interpretation And Analysis Of Particular Works By Akram Zataari, Xavier Le Roy And Ilya Kabakov, And The Postconceptual Situation Of A Crisis-ridden New Music-- Preface -- Part I. Time Of The Present. The Postconceptual Condition: Or, The Cultural Logic Of High Capitalism Today -- Global Modernity And The Contemporary: Two Categories Of The Philosophy Of Historical Time -- Temporalization As Transcendental Aesthetics: Avant-garde, Modern, Contemporary -- Part Ii. Art And Politics. Theorem 4. Autonomy: Can It Be True Of Art And Politics At The Same Time? -- Disguised As A Dog: Cynical Occupy? -- Part Iii. Institutions. October And The Problem Of Formalism -- Existential Urgency: Contemporaneity, Biennials And Social Form -- Archive As Afterlife And Life Of Art -- Part Iv. Art And Image. The Distributed Image -- Information, Story, Image: Akram Zaatari's Historical Constructivism -- Dialectical Ontology Of Art: Xavier Le Roy's Retrospective In/as Contemporary Art -- The Kabakov Effect: 'moscow Conceptualism' In The History Of Contemporary Art -- The Terminology Is In Crisis: Postconceptual Art And New Music -- The Image Is The Subject: Once More On The Temporalities Of Image And Act. Peter Osborne. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.