Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and ComplicityJohanna Drucker's "sweet dream" is for a new and more positive approach to contemporary art. Calling for a revamping of the academic critical vocabulary used to discuss art into one more befitting current creative practices, Drucker argues that contemporary art is fully engaged with material culture—yet still struggling to escape the oppositional legacy of the early twentieth-century avant-garde. Drucker shows that artists today are aware of working within the ideologies of mainstream culture and have replaced avant-garde defiance with eager complicity. Finding their materials at flea markets or exploring celebrity culture, contemporary artists have created a vibrantly participatory movement that exudes enthusiasm and affirmation—all while critics continue to cling to an outmoded vocabulary of opposition and radical negativity that defined modernism's avant-garde. At the cutting edge of new media research, Drucker surveys a wide range of exciting contemporary artists, demonstrating their clear departure from the past and petitioning viewers and critics to shift their terms and sensibilities as well. Sweet Dreams is a testament to the creative processes and self-conscious heterogeneity of art today as well as a revolutionary effort to solicit collaboration that will encourage the production of imaginative thought and contribute to contemporary life. |
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abstract activity aesthetic aligned Andreas Gursky Anna Gaskell art world art's Artforum artifacts artists attitude autonomy avant-garde Beecroft body capacity claims Clement Greenberg commercial complicit concept conceptual art condition consumable contemporary art context contrast create Crewdson critical critique culture industry dialogue discourse display distinction effect embodied engagement expression figure formal frame function gallery gesture Hal Foster hybrid ical icon idea identity ideological imagery imagine individual Jason Rhoades Jeff Wall Kilimnik kitsch legacy machine mainstream mass culture mass media material culture means media culture ment modern art modes Morimura Museum mythic Neidich objects opposition painterly painting photographic piece play political pop art popular postmodern practice Press production realm reference relation representation rhetoric Rhoades sculpture seductive self-conscious sensibility serve social space specific Stelarc suggests symbolic thematic tion tradition transformation ture twentieth-century Vanessa Beecroft viewer visual art visual culture Yasumasa Morimura