Description

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An original and provocative exploration of the relationship between contemporary art, politics, and activism
 
Artists Remake the World introduces readers to the political ambitions of contemporary art in the early twenty-first century and puts forward a new, wide-ranging account of art’s political potential. Surveying such innovations as evidence-driven art, socially engaged art, and ecological art, the book explores how artists have attempted to offer bold solutions to the world’s problems.
 
Vid Simoniti offers original perspectives on contemporary art and its capacity as a force for political and social change. At its best, he argues, contemporary art allows us to imagine utopias and presents us with hard truths, which mainstream political discourse cannot yet articulate. Covering subjects such as climate change, social justice, and global inequality, Simoniti introduces the reader to a host of visionary contemporary artists from across the globe, including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, Wangechi Mutu, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, and Hito Steyerl. Offering a philosophy of contemporary art as an experimental branch of politics, the book equips the reader with a new critical apparatus for thinking about political art today.

About the Author

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Vid Simoniti is a philosophy lecturer at the University of Liverpool, previously a junior research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He is a BBC New Generation Thinker 2021 and a co-chair of a fully-funded four-year conference programme at the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park Foundation.

Praise For…

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“Simoniti is one of the most exciting writers on art today. This book is a masterpiece: moving effortlessly between history, criticism and philosophy, it’s a gripping account of art’s ongoing ability to shake up the world.”—James Fox, author of The World According to Colour

“Vid Simoniti elegantly, skilfully unpicks the interfaces where art meets politics. A process that stirs up substantive new material for contemplation.”—Cornelia Parker, artist

“An original thinker and masterful prose stylist with a huge, generous mind, Simoniti has written a subtle, courageous meditation on contemporary political art. This book offers us a profound critical reconsideration of the aesthetic resources we bring to the urgent human issues it addresses.”—Adrian Piper, artist and philosopher