Essential essays on art in our current era from one of the most important art critics writing today.

It is a peculiar moment for art, as it becomes both increasingly rarefied and associated with elite lifestyle culture, while simultaneously ubiquitous, with the boom of "creative" industries and the proliferation of new technologies for making art. In these important essays, Ben Davis covers everything from Instagram to artificial intelligence, eco-art to cultural appropriation. Critical, insightful, and hopeful even in the face of the apocalyptic, this is a must read for those looking to understand the current art world, as well as the role of the artist in the world today.

A leading activist museum director explains why museums are at the center of a political storm In an age of protest, cultural institutions have come under fire. Protestors have mobilized against sources of museum funding, as happened at the Metropolitan Museum, and against board appointments, forcing tear gas manufacturer Warren Kanders to resign at the Whitney. That is to say nothing of demonstrations against exhibitions and artworks. Protests have roiled institutions across the world, from the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim to the Akron Art Museum. A popular expectation has grown that galleries and museums should work for social change. As Director of the Queens Museum, Laura Raicovich helped turn that New York muni- cipal institution into a public commons for art and activism, organizing high-powered exhibitions that doubled as political protests. Then in January 2018, she resigned, after a dispute with the Queens Museum board and city officials. This public controversy followed the museum’s responses to Donald Trump’s election, including her objections to the Israeli government using the museum for an event featuring Vice President Mike Pence. In this lucid and accessible book, Raicovich examines some of the key museum flashpoints and provides historical context for the current controversies. She shows how art museums arose as colonial institutions bearing an ideology of neutrality that masks their role in upholding conservative, capitalist values. And she suggests ways museums can be reinvented to serve better, public ends.

Art for everyone--the Federal Art Project's drive for middlebrow visual culture and identity

A Christian Perspective on the Joys of Reading Reading has become a lost art. With smartphones offering us endless information with the tap of a finger, it's hard to view reading as anything less than a tedious and outdated endeavor. This is particularly problematic for Christians, as many find it difficult to read even the Bible consistently and attentively. Reading is in desperate need of recovery. Recovering the Lost Art of Reading addresses these issues by exploring the importance of reading in general as well as studying the Bible as literature, offering practical suggestions along the way. Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes inspire a new generation to overcome the notion that reading is a duty and instead discover it as a delight.

Why has identity become so central to judging art today? Why are some groups reluctant to defend free speech within culture? Has state support made artists poorer not richer? How does the movement for social justice influence cultural production? Why is Post-Modernism dominant in the art world? Why are consumers of comic books so bitterly divided? In Culture War: Art, Identity Politics and Cultural Entryism Alexander Adams examines a series of pressing issues in today's culture: censorship, Islamism, Feminism, identity politics, historical reparations and public arts policy. Through a series of linked essays, Culture War exposes connections between seemingly unrelated events and trends in high and popular cultures. From fine art to superhero comics, from political cartoons to museum policy, certain persistent ideas underpin the most contentious issues today. Adams draws on history, philosophy, politics and cultural criticism to explain the reasoning of creators, consumers and critics and to expose some uncomfortable truths.