Wikipedia:School and university projects/Open Source Culture/The Contingent Object

The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art

by Martha Buskirk

Cambridge, MIT Press, 2003.

Buskirk here examines the status of the work of art as an object. Issues of authorship, materiality and context are presented as ways to intend the work of art not only as an artistic entity to be contemplated but also as an object depending on something else from its own dimension. From this perspective the Art History appear to be as a huge lie. Everything we always believe in disappear under the evidence of art as an object of power, as a way to dominate, to impose obliged way of reading reality. Unfortunately the author doesn’t investigate the issue of works of art as products, which I feel deeply involved in. What about works of art existing only as products in a free market? What about art as advertising of itself, or as youth status symbol, or as souvenir?