In the past, writers and critics such as Goethe, Ruskin, and Clement Greenberg perpetuated particular ideas about art and even dictated these ideas to the artists themselves. Today, artists no longer have to follow one prevailing theory and the art world is less centralized in particular cities: New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Beijing all offer rich environments to artists but none are designated as the exclusive center of the art world. In this book, Alistair Hicks demonstrates his belief that no single curator, critic, or dealer should monopolize our view of what is happening in the art world today, but that by listening to the artists themselves, we can gradually make out an ever-evolving web of patterns, relationships, and themes. Organized by continent and including extracts from interviews with artists from around the world, the book offers a fresh view of the contemporary art world through artists from France, Albania, Slovakia, Russia, Mexico, Brazil, The United States, China, India, and beyond. The range of artists whose work is explored includes Laure Prouvost, Anri Sala, Roman Ondák, Gabriel Orozco, Sandra Gamarra, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Nandan Ghiya, among many others.
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