Kristen Cheser
Delve into the complicated world of contemporary art at the Art History Talk with Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel as they discuss their book Themes of Contemporary Art which has analyzed art’s themes since the 1980’s.
“Anyone who appreciates contemporary art is welcome to attend. I also think it would be useful for anyone who wants an introduction to this fascinating world,” said Rachel Sailor, an associate professor of art history.
“Themes of Contemporary Art is a wonderful book that attempts to make some sense of the diverse and complex world of contemporary art,” said Sailor. “It approaches global art through a number of themes such as identity, the body, time, memory, place, language, science and spirituality.”
Robertson said the book is organized by the themes which have been present in art since the 1980’s. The book is not organized chronologically because there are many of the artists who are still creating art in present day.
“The first edition of the book was published in 2005. It [is] now in its fourth edition, published in 2017…and we’re working on a fifth edition, scheduled for publication in 2021,” said Robertson.
“We need to keep rewriting and updating because there are always new artists and artists keep making more art. The first edition covered about 20 years; the fifth edition will cover about 40.”
Robertson said the chapter about identity includes common traits such as age, race and ethnicity, but the chapter also includes how identity is presented on social media and identitiy’s relation to bioengineering.
“Each chapter has a range of artists of different ages, from different parts of the world, working in different mediums,” Robertson said. “But everyone in a given chapter shares an interest in the broad topic, although a given artist might just address one aspect. . . For the latter, an artist might be making a memorial or a public monument, or a painting about a historical event, etc.”
She said the chapter on memory looks at personal memory, how memory operates and shared historical memories.
“We recommend our book to anyone who is interested in knowing more about the ideas that artists have been interested in over the past several decades,” Robertson said. “We hope the thematic approach makes the work accessible since everyone knows something about the large themes.”
Sailor also said students from her course on late 20th Century Art History have read the book and they will also be attending the lecture.
“My students are reading and presenting on the book and [they] are looking forward to having fruitful discussions with the authors on the challenges of analyzing contemporary history and the various methodologies that they considered,” she said.
The event is free and open to the public and will be Dec. 5 from 7 to 8 p.m. Anyone can attend the event in the Visual Arts Building in room 111.
