graphic concept and prepress: strx / Meteor
font: minion; font of titles: Fira Sans
printing: Simolini-94
Meteor, Sofia, 2021
ISBN: 978-619-7291-26-1
Is the end of contemporary art in the near future? If what we define as "contemporary art" is a historical category, it has limited historical validity. Are we witnessing the exhaustion of that validity? What is the historical horizon of contemporary art - and therefore its limit?
The book "The End of Contemporary Art?" attempts to confront these ultimate questions. It introduces both a historical perspective (i.e., it would also be useful as an introduction to the problematics of contemporary art) and a critical, original analytical vision; it foregrounds processes that can also be seen as symptomatic of contemporary social and political dynamics. In this perspective, the thesis of a radical transformation, if not a gradual but irreversible exhaustion, of the driving forces and forms of aesthetic practice defined as "contemporary art" in the last half-century is presented and argued.
The critical analysis is based on a number of representative examples from the field of contemporary art, as well as influential theories and attitudes in contemporary philosophy, political and economic theory and art history. The book is thus aimed at both a specialist audience of those involved in contemporary art and a wider public with an interest in contemporary culture.
Boyan Manchev is a philosopher and art theorist, lecturer at the NBU (Sofia) and the University of the Arts (Berlin), author of twenty books published in seven languages. Manchev has participated in numerous artistic projects and forums in the field of contemporary art - both in alternative contexts and in some of the leading institutions in Europe, Asia and America.
The book is published with the financial support of the National Culture Fund.