This edited volume offers an in-depth exploration of Dutch media art from 1985 onwards from many different perspectives. Through early access to the Internet, state subsidies and dedicated institutions and festivals, a vivid counter-cultural environment and a cosmopolitan artistic and intellectual scene the Netherlands hold a unique position in regards to the development of media art.

Introduced by four chapters that retrace the main events and actors (governmental institutions, festivals an...

In The Future of the New: Artistic Innovation in Times of Social Acceleration artists, theorists, and professionals working in the art field reflect on the role of the arts in a world that is speeding up and changing through joint forces of globalization, digitization, commodification, and financialization. Can artistic innovation still function as a source of critique? How do artists, theorists, and art organizations deal with the changing role of and discourse on innovation? Should we look ...

Mix & Stir, this book’s aim is an endeavour to understand art as being a panhuman phenomenon of all times and cultures; to steer away from the persistent Eurocentric/Western-centric viewpoint towards a transcultural and transnational interconnected model of exchange and processes of interculturalization. Mix & Stir wants to expand this landscape by bringing to the fore new, recalcitrant, queer, idiosyncratic practices and discourses, theories and topics, methods and concerns that open up wa...

This invaluable guide enables students to get the most from their art history course

In 'The emancipated museum' the art historian and researcher Steven ten Thije engages in a personal inquiry into the importance of art museums in a society that is becoming ever more fragmented. In spite of the unprecedented success of museums in attracting masses of visitors, the future of the museum is uncertain. Museums may appear calm and self-assured to outsiders, but not even this noble showcase of art is immune to the cracks in society. The tensions between high and low, newcomer and n...

In de meeste landen ontsnapt het kunstonderwijs niet aan een grootschalige reorganisatie. Onderwijsinstellingen moeten zich steeds meer als ondernemingen opstellen, die om de beste of meeste leerlingen concurreren en hun doel en resultaten in management- en financiële termen uitdrukken. Het onderwijsveld is kortom een markt geworden. Of er daarbinnen nog ruimte voor kunst is, is een belangrijke vraag.

In Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm wordt onderzocht wat de effecten van deze opstelli...

What happens between a spectator and an art work? How do we experience 'meaning' in a work of art? How can the process of interpretation be understood and articulated? To address these questions, the author explores the field of reception aesthetics, with its central premise that the contemplation of art is a matter of interaction between the art work and the observer.

The fourth instalment of the ‘Teaching Objects’ series revolves around “Creation”. In this art novella the reader is guided by Lisa, a young artist who is facing death. A dialogue with four works by the American painter Cy Twombly emerges from the question of life’s duration, and Lisa discovers the secret of creative speech. The protagonist’s thoughts bring her to Gaeta, a seaside town near Velia, the ancient Greek town in Italy, now named Elea – the place where the school of Pa...

In The Aesthetics of Ambiguity: Understanding and Addressing Monoculture betogen Pascal Gielen en Nav Haq dat multiculturalisme paradoxaal genoeg gebaseerd is op monocultureel denken. De publicatie verkent deze paradox door monocultuur in verschillende hedendaagse contexten te onderzoeken. Het boek wil monocultuur analyseren met behulp van een veelzijdige benadering, door historische, sociale, culturele en ideologische perspectieven samen te brengen. Kunst kan daarbij zowel dienen als middel ...