Summary

81

Being Thirty

Spring / Summer 2014

For this 30th anniversary issue, we have departed from our usual thematic section to give carte blanche to a number of authors to examine twenty-first-century works or practices that have particularly caught their eye. Rather than merely ranking the best works of the past decade, the essays reveal the plurality of voices and forms of writing on art today—just like the practices that they describe. This issue paints a diverse portrait of art and art criticism as practised in 2014—an adventure in images and words, a brief but exciting voyage into the world of a dozen curators.

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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.

Cover: Hannah Rowan
Vessels of Touch, 2021.
Photo: courtesy of the artist & C+N Gallery CANEPANERI, Milan

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