So begins Hans Belting´s brilliant, iconoclastic reconsideration of art and art history at the end of the millennium, which builds upon his earlier and highly successful volume, The End of the History of Art?. "Known for his striking and original theories about the nature of art," according to the Economist, Belting here examines how art is made, viewed, and interpreted today. Arguing that contemporary art has burst out of the frame that art history had built for it, Belting calls for an entirely new approach to thinking and writing about art. He moves effortlessly between contemporary issues--the rise of global and minority art and its consequences for Western art history, installation and video art, and the troubled institution of the art museum--and questions central to art history´s definition of itself, such as the distinction between high and low culture, art criticism versus art history, and the invention of modernism in art history. Forty-eight black and white images illustrate the text, perfectly reflecting the state of contemporary art.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I - Modernism in the Mirror of Contemporary Culture 1. Epilogues for Art or for Art History? 2. The Meaning of Art History in Today´s Culture 3. Art Criticism versus Art History 4. The Unwelcome Heritage of Modernism: Style and History 5. The Late Cult of Modernism: Documenta and Western Art 6. Western Art: The Intervention of the United States in Postwar Modernism 7. Europe: East and West at the Watershed of Art History 8. Global Art and Minorities: A New Geography of Art History 9. The Mirror of Mass Culture: Art´s Revolt against Art History 10. The Temporality of Video Art 11. The Narrative of Art in the New Museum: The Search for a Profile II - The End of Art History? 12. Art and the Crisis of Modernism 13. Art Historiography as Tradition 14. Methods and Games of an Academic Discipline 15. Work of Art or History of Art? 16. Art History versus Media Studies 17. The Myth of Modernism in the Mirror of Art History 18. Postmodernism or Posthistory? 19. "Prospero´s Books" 20. Marco Polo and Other Cultures Bibliography Index