Art vs. TV

What is and does a work of art? Art can only work framed in a context where it can be seen. Traditionally, that is the museum, gallery, sometimes public space. The space, the curator, then the viewer, become co-makers. With the advent of television, art is set to work in the private sphere. This changes the work of art profoundly. This pioneering study of the relationship between art and television includes reflections on resistance, political tensions, and other ways in which art descends from its isolating pedestal and participates fully in the lives of people. Francesco Spampinato lucidly and patiently lays out what that cultural change entails for what we consider art to be and do. * Mieke Bal, Professor Emerita in Literary Theory, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands * In this exhaustive, scholarly yet entertaining book, Francesco Spampinato traces several decades of relations between art and television. Contemporary artworks dealing with the TV function as a space in which to break down the barriers between high and low culture, explore identity or question power structures. In our current times of on-demand platforms, remembering that age in which television was the center of any home appears, not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a way to reflect on where we come from and where we are now. Contemporary art here becomes the guiding thread from which to look at ourselves in the mirror of that black screen that will give rise to many others. * Julia Ramrez-Blanco, Lecturer in Art History, University of Barcelona, Spain *

Francesco Spampinato is Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy. His research in contemporary art history and visual studies focuses on the relationships between contemporary art, media, and technology, with particular attention to topics such as postmodernism, collective practices and electronic culture. He is the author of Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design (2015), Can You Hear Me? Music Labels by Visual Artists (2015), Art Record Covers (2017), and Art Vs. TV: A Brief History of Contemporary Artists Responses to Television (Bloomsbury 2022). He has edited the monographs GMM Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici: Computer Comics 19841987 (2021) and Ran Slavin: Shapeshifter (2022) and co-edited the anthology, The Pandemic Visual Regime: Visuality and Performativity in the COVID-19 Crisis (2023). His articles have been published in academic journals such as NECSUS, PAJ, Senses of Cinema, the Stedelijk Studies, and Visual Culture Studies, as well as magazines such as Abitare, Blueprint, DIS, Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, and Mousse.

Introduction 1. Historical and Theoretical Frameworks 2. TV as a Mirror: Manipulations, Interruptions, and Re-presentations 3. Breaking News: Television Between Art and Activism 4. Artists as Media Stars 5. Disentertainment: Music Videos, Kid Shows, Humor, and Soap Operas 6. Art in the Age of Prosumers: Reality TV and the Internet Acknowledgements Works Cited Bibliography Index