Summary

85 – Taking a Stance

Taking a Stance

Fall 2015

Few critics have yet dared to challenge the intellectual power assumed by certain institutions and forums that shape artistic trends and condition the discourses. esse opens the debate on the forms and conditions at play when taking a critical stance in the world of contemporary art today. What does art criticism imply in today’s context?

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Current Issue

Water

We now face a global water crisis. Warning signs are flashing everywhere about the increased desertification of the Earth, the industrial pollution of water resources, and the over-exploitation of aquifers. Faced with such a bleak portrait and the fact that environmental and humanitarian challenges are dependent on economic issues and interlinked policies, which are framed by complex laws, the influence of art is relatively modest. Nevertheless, alongside civic actions that we should actively do, artists can give back to water its symbolic and sacred value. Taking a poetical approach to water, the artists and theorists in this issue navigate between aesthetic forms, activist actions, and metaphor-rich analytical thinking. Adopting a resolutely critical perspective, the articles refer to artworks that try to raise awareness about water pollution and climate issues, envisage a restorative justice, and offer new horizons of hope.

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