Art Power

Art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the power play ofglobal politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics. Art, argues thedistinguished theoretician Boris Groys, is hardly a powerless commodity subject to the art market'sfiats of inclusion and exclusion. In Art Power, Groys examines modern andcontemporary art according to its ideological function. Art, Groys writes, is produced and broughtbefore the public in two ways -- as a commodity and as a tool of political propaganda. In thecontemporary art scene, very little attention is paid to the latter function. Arguing for theinclusion of politically motivated art in contemporary art discourse, Groys considers art producedunder totalitarianism, Socialism, and post-Communism. He also considers today's mainstream Westernart -- which he finds behaving more and more according the norms of ideological propaganda: producedand exhibited for the masses at international exhibitions, biennials, and festivals. Contemporaryart, Groys argues, demonstrates its power by appropriating the iconoclastic gestures directedagainst itself -- by positioning itself simultaneously as an image and as a critique of the image.In Art Power, Groys examines this fundamental appropriation that produces theparadoxical object of the modern artwork.

Boris Groys is an art critic, media theorist, and philosopher. He is Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. He is the author of Art Power, History Becomes Form: Moscow Conceptualism (both published by the MIT Press), and other books.