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Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy - Notes - e-flux

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Hito Steyerl situates contemporary art within post-Fordist speculation and “post-democracy.”

First published in e-flux journal in 2010, Hito Steyerl’s “Politics of Art” begins with a reversal: Instead of asking how art represents politics, look at the politics of art as a field of work. She situates contemporary art within post-Fordist speculation and “post-democracy”: sponsored by banks, arms traders, and oligarchs; deployed in city branding and gentrification; sustained by precarious workers, unpaid interns, and self-exploitation. Political art may represent injustice elsewhere while leaving these conditions unexamined. Steyerl does not offer innocence as an escape. Art is…

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