Art to Come

Terry Smith is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh and Professor in the Division of Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought at the European Graduate School. He is the author of several books, including One and Five Ideas: On Conceptual Art and Conceptualism, also published by Duke University Press, and What Is Contemporary Art?

"Smith, who sees linearity as an ‘old-fashioned’ way of thinking about time, kicks up the silt of art history to present us with a historiography of contemporaneity. . . . To that end, he takes us through ‘contemporary’ buzzwords and ways of thinking about issues like globalisation, the Anthropocene, decolonisation, indigenisation, revived fundamentalisms and ecoactivism, to ask how we might harmonise our differences in a way that ‘ensures our mutual survival’ on this planet." - Fi Churchman (Art Review) "In bringing this collection of essays together, Smith gives readers the opportunity to chart his progress as he repeatedly surveys the contemporary terrain. These field reports from a highly engaged observer provide compelling reading for anyone concerned with art practices of the past three decades." - Martha Buskirk (Critical Inquiry) "At once retrospective and anticipatory, Smith’s description of his intent with Art to Come suggests that the book is as much for himself and ‘those to come’ as it is for art historians and other observers of contemporary art working today (24). For Smith, contemporary art history is historiography. By writing contemporary art history as personal historiography, Smith models for his readers-present and future-an ethics as much as a methodology for the study of the visual culture today." - Elizabeth Mansfield (Journal of Art Historiography)

• List of Illustrations  ixAcknowledgments  xiiiIntroduction: Anticipation and Historicity  1Part I. Thinking Contemporary Art1. Contemporary Art, Contemporaneity, and Art to Come  272. In a Nutshell: Art within Contemporary Conditions  543. Contemporary Architecture: Spectacle, Crisis, Aftermath  644. Concurrence: Art, Design, Architecture  1015. Background Story, Global Foreground: Chinese Contemporary Art  1266. Country, Indigeneity, Sovereignty: Aboriginal Australian Art  1567. Placemaking, Displacement, Worlds-within-Worlds  1988. Picturing Planetarity: Arts of Multiverse  228Part II. Art Historiography: Conjectures and Refutations9. The State of Art History: Contemporary Art  24510. Theorizing the Contemporary and the Postcontemporary  27911. Writing Histories of Contemporary Art: The Situation Now  311Conclusion: Concurrence in Contemporary World Picturing  353Notes  365Index  417