The first transnational history of photography’s accommodation in the art museum Photography was long regarded as a “middle-brow” art by the art institution. Yet, at the turn of the millennium, it became the hot, global art of our time. In this book—part institutional history, part account of shifting photographic theories and practices—Alexandra Moschovi tells the story of photography’s accommodation in and as contemporary art in the art museum. Archival research of key exhibitions and the contrasting collecting policies of MoMA, Tate, the Guggenheim, the V&A, and the Centre Pompidou offer new insights into how art as photography and photography as art have been collected and exhibited since the 1930s. Moschovi argues that this accommodation not only changed photography’s status in art, culture, and society, but also played a significant role in the rebranding of the art museum as a cultural and social site.

Reports from America's political crisis, exposing a new “iconopolitics,” in which words and images lose their connection to reality. The political crisis that sneaked up on America—the rise of Trump and Trumpism—has revealed the rot at the core of American exceptionalism. Recent changes in the way words and images are produced and received have made the current surreality possible; communication through social media, by design, maximizes attention and minimizes scrutiny. In Co-Illusion, the noted writer on art, photography, and politics David Levi Strauss bears witness to the new “iconopolitics” in which words and images lose their connection to reality. The collusion that fueled Trump's rise was the secret agreement of voters and media consumers—their “co-illusion”—to set aside the social contract. Strauss offers dispatches from the epicenter of our constitutional earthquake, writing first from the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions and then from the campaign. After the election, he switches gears, writing in the voices of the regime and of those complicit in its actions—from the thoughts of the President himself (“I am not a mistake. I am not a fluke, or a bug in the system. I am the System”) to the reflections of a nameless billionaire tech CEO whose initials may or may not be M. Z. Finally, Strauss shows us how we might repair the damage to the public imaginary after Trump exits the scene. Photographs by celebrated documentary photographers Susan Meiselas and Peter van Agtmael accompany the texts.

Some things have nothing in common until you put them together, says artist and collector Patrick Pound about his series of found photographs in our latest issue. The writers in HEAT Series 3 Number 8 seem similarly drawn to overlooked meaning. In ‘Shopping’, a short story by Katerina Gibson, a young arts worker in Melbourne overcomes an obsession with designer clothing. The late Hong Kong writer Xi Xi, in a work of autobiographical fiction, processes a cancer diagnosis. Essayist Cameron Hurst finds herself attending a meeting of the Victorian Spiritualists’ Union after reading Henry Handel Richardson. And poets Judith Beveridge and Paul Muldoon transform unassuming animals, people and places into singular moments. Recent praise for HEAT: ‘So slender and elegant, nothing wasted, nothing grandiose — and beautiful work.’ — Helen Garner ‘Elegantly designed and thoughtfully curated, and including work from canonical Australian writers to emerging voices to authors in translation, [HEAT] reminds us how crucial such organs are to the vigour and health of our literary ecosystem.’ — The Saturday Paper ‘A very beautiful and stylish object…long may this new series of HEAT continue!’ — Sarah Holland-Batt ‘I welcome the return of HEAT. Readers and writers alike will revel in its daring audacity, bold exploration and innovative celebration of literature.’ — Alexis Wright

In recent years phenomenology has become a resource for reflecting on political questions. While much of this discussion has primarily focused on the ways in which phenomenology can help reformulate central concepts in political theory, the chapters in this volume ask in a methodological and systematic way how phenomenology can connect first-person experience with normative principles in political philosophy. The chapters are divided into three thematic sections. Part I covers the phenomenology of political experience. The chapters in this section focus on a variety of experiences that we come across in political practice. The chapters in Part II address the phenomenology of political ontology by examining the constitution of the realm of the political. Finally, Part III analyzes the phenomenology of political episteme in which our political world is grounded. Political Phenomenology will be of interest to researchers working on phenomenology, Continental philosophy, and political theory.

Culture and power have been bedfellows since ancient times. But now, more than ever, exhibits and the organisations responsible for them have become part of our troubled politics. Protests force out problematic patrons and curators, and pressure museums to abandon fossil fuel sponsorship. Campaigners demand equality and diversity, and condemn exploitation of artists and staff alike. Those confronting racism and imperial legacies call for restitution of cultural objects. Arts journalist Rachel Spence has watched these institutions become a flashpoint for today's social divisions. She interviews those on the frontlines, from artists and activists to directors and donors, revealing stories of elitism, inequality and injustice. Business and finance launder their reputations through art fair and museum patronage, while governments bolster their authority by weaponising or attacking the arts--and ordinary museumgoers mobilise to demand better. How did we get here, and what lies ahead for these institutions? From China and Russia to Helsinki and New York, from the British Museum and the Louvre to the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, Battle for the Museum uncovers a dark nexus of capital, culture and power--and a radical shift in attitudes, driven by resistance movements fighting fiercely for exhibition spaces that serve today's public.

FloodZone is Miami-based Russian photographer Samoylova's account of life on the knife-edge of the Southern U.S.: in Florida, where sea levels are rising and hurricanes threaten. These beautifully subtle and often unsettling images capture the mood of waiting, of knowing the climate is changing, and of living with it.