Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art After 1980 - Paperback

by Jean Robertson (Author), Craig McDaniel (Author), Scott Contreras-Koterbay (Contribution by)

Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, Fifth Edition, offers students and readers an introduction to recent art. The primary focus is an examination of themes that are widespread in contemporary artistic practice. Individual chapters analyze thematic content in eight groupings: Identity, The Body, Time, Memory, Place, Language, Science, and Spirituality. These eight thematic categories provide a significant sample from which readers can grasp influential concepts that stretch across much of the art of our time. Profiles of key artists and works enhance student understanding of these major themes and the individual approaches and key movements in the world of contemporary art.

Author Biography

Jean Robertson is Chancellor's Professor Emerita of Art History at Indiana University, Herron School of Art and Design, IUPUI. Other books coauthored with Craig McDaniel include Spellbound: Rethinking the Alphabet (2016) and Painting as a Language: Material, Technique, Form, Content (2000). She is lead coauthor with Deborah Hutton of The History of Art: A Global View (2022).

Craig McDaniel is Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Indiana University, Herron School of Art and Design, IUPUI. In addition to volumes coauthored with Jean Robertson, McDaniel has published essays on art and culture, most notably a series of articles that reevaluates the practice of painting and the achievements of key painters. In addition to participating in exhibitions of his own art, McDaniel has curated more than fifty exhibitions of contemporary art by others.

Scott Contreras-Koterbay (guest author) is Professor in the Department of Art & Design, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy & Humanities, and Director of the Bert C. Bach Fine & Performing Scholars in the Honors College at East Tennessee State University. He is coauthor with Lukasz Mirocha of The New Aesthetic and Art: Constellations of the Postdigital (2016).