A Companion to Contemporary Art is a major survey coveringthe major works and movements, the most important theoreticaldevelopments, and the historical, social, political, and aestheticissues in contemporary art since 1945, primarily in theEuro-American context. Collects 27 original essays by expert scholars describing thecurrent state of scholarship in art history and visual studies, andpointing to future directions in the field. Contains dual chronological and thematic coverage of the majorthemes in the art of our time: politics, culture wars, publicspace, diaspora, the artist, identity politics, the body, andvisual culture. Offers synthetic analysis, as well as new approaches to,debates central to the visual arts since 1945 such as thoseaddressing formalism, the avant-garde, the role of the artist,technology and art, and the society of the spectacle.