Artists increasingly refer to 'post-object-based' work, while theorists have returned to the study of material artefacts in culture. In higher education and museums a focus on 'object-based' learning integrates objects as vectors for dialogue across disciplines. Underlying these trends are the 'dematerialization' of conceptual art in the 1960s and the 'immaterialization' of our everyday world identified by Jean-Francois Lyotard and others in the 1980s. Today, nanotechnology and virtual imaging enable the object to be abstracted or circumvented, while immaterial forms of labour challenge materialist theories. This anthology surveys the current reappraisal of what constitutes the 'objectness' of production, with art as its focus.It examines the relationship of objects to subjectivity; the transition of objects from inert masses to tools and artefacts; the experience of the everyday, from the readymades of Marcel Duchamp to the 'things' of contemporary artists; the significance of the multiple and the replica; the desire to collect and display; obsolescence, loss and the exhaustion of use value; artistic positions that are 'anti-object'; concepts of the experimental, the liminal and the mental object; the abjection of the formless, decomposed or degraded; and the role of objects in performance. The object becomes a prism through which to re-read contemporary art and better understand its recent past.

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Other authors

Serres Michel (Article author), Samb Issa (Article author), Broodthaers Marcel (Article author), Kristeva Julia (Article author), Miller Kristie (Article author), Roelstraete Dieter (Article author), Toop David (Article author), Hore Richard (Article author), Harrison Charles (Article author), Metzger Gustav (Article author), Fisher Jean (Article author), Piper Adrian (Article author), Appadurai Arjun (Article author), Agamben Giorgio (Article author), Thomasson Amie L. (Article author), Oiticica Hélio (Article author), Steinweg Marcus (Article author), Dorfles Gillo (Article author), Derrida Jacques (Article author), Durham Jimmie (Article author), Eagleton Terry (Article author), Landy Michael (Article author), Burnham Jack (Article author), Lacan Jacques (Article author), Perec Georges (Article author), Žižek Slavoj (Article author), Chin Mel (Article author), Singerman Howard (Article author), Calle Sophie (Article author), Chaimowicz Marc Camille (Article author), Groys Boris (Article author), Hebdige Dick (Article author), Palmer Katrina (Article author), Manovich Lev (Article author), Cooke Lynne (Article author), Kreuger Anders (Article author), Alloway Lawrence (Article author), Lyotard Jean‑François (Article author), Ray Man (Article author), Bennett Jane (Article author), Steyerl Hito (Article author), McCollum Allan (Article author), Strau Josef (Article author), Latour Bruno (Article author), Konate Yacouba (Article author), Meyer Ursula (Article author), Spector Nancy (Article author), Kelley Mike (Article author), Marx Karl (Article author), Vanrobaeys Piet (Article author), Munari Bruno (Article author), Gell Alfred (Article author), Gullar Ferreira (Article author), Bourgeois Louise (Article author), Serra Richard (Article author), Baudrillard Jean (Article author), Buchloh Benjamin H. D. (Article author), Adorno Theodor (Article author), Closky Claude (Article author), Satz Aura (Article author), Krauss Rosalind (Article author)

Type

Book

Place of publication

London

Year

2014

Number of pages

240 pages

Language

English

ISBN

9780854882182

Open stacks or available on request

Available on request

Illustrations

No

Bibliography

Yes

UDC code and author sign

701.1 Hud

Volumes

1

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