Published by: Oktagon Verlag, Köln Year of publication: 2003 Language: Deutsch/Englisch Pages: 204 ISBN: 3896111043
Contributions by: Curtis Anderson, Richard Artschwager, Olafur Eliasson, Luciano Fabro, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli/David Weiss, Ellen Gallagher, Isa Genzken, Tue Greenfort, Charline von Heyl, On Kawara, Job Koelewijn, Isa Melsheimer, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Hanno Otten, Jorge Pardo, Gerhard Richter, Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij, Bojan Sarcevic, Andreas Schulze, Thomas Schütte, Tino Sehgal, Lily van der Stokker, Wolfgang Tillmanns, Diana Thater, Inga Svala Thorsdottir, Rosemarie Trockel, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Richard Wright
„Beauty“ is a precarious term in contemporary art discourse. It rarely occurs in lectures and essays. Instead of „in my view this work of art is beautiful“ other, less subjective formulations – suchs as „the work functions well“ or „I hold his/her position in high regard“ – are used to express a positive opinion of a work of art. However, this restraint is not confined to the notion of Beauty. Aesthetic issues of any sort are scarcely addressed in contemporary art and, as a rule, critics today do not have a suitable range of vocabulary at their command. Sensuality, aesthetic pleasure and the potential of art to move the viewer by ist visual impact and to open up new realms of imagination seem to have been ousted by unmediated exposition and presentation of data from our visible world.
[…]
As the fiftieth Jahresring this is a special anniversary volume in a series with a long tradition and, after the many volumes dealing with various aspects of art criticism, now art itself should take the limelight.
For this special edition, contributions were invited from thirty-one artists of different generations. In particular, they were asked to respond to the current interest in the potential of art and the ensuing importance of aesthetics, which in turn raises issues such as the conditions needed for Beauty today and whether the presence of Beauty and Sensuality are still (or once again) relevant in this context. This neither implies a return to the assumed immanence of Beauty in the work of art nor the resuscitation of a normative aesthetic. On the contrary, the artists‘ contributions in this volume demonstrate the indeterminate and largely incalculable nature of Beauty as a concept which is by definiton intrinsically mercurial.
We would like to thank the artists who have made this book possible.
