鑑賞者にショックを与え、タブーを覆し、既成概念を希薄化させる現代美術家は、その作品を通じ私たちの感情の奥深くを揺さぶります。それまで西洋美術の文脈を基点としてきた現代美術が1990年代以降急速に新興国へ広がり、アーティストが自身の作品のマーケターとして成功し、ファッションや高級消費財市場へ近づいた経緯を詳らかにします。新版は金融危機後、国や自治体に代わり豊富な資金を持つ起業家や大富豪がアートシーンの活性化に関与している状況にも言及しています。
   

• Introduces the world of contemporary art, and explores how it is changing dramatically
• Considers the effects of the decline in US dominance of the art world
• New edition considers the consequences of the financial crisis and prolonged recession on the collection and sale of contemporary art
• New edition explores the increasing influence of private collectors and private museums over the art world

  
Contemporary art has never been so popular - but the art world is changing. In a landscape of increasing globalization there is growing interest in questions over the nature of contemporary art today, and the identity of who is controlling its future. In the midst of this, contemporary art continues to be a realm of freedom where artists shock, break taboos, flout generally received ideas, and switch between confronting viewers with works of great emotional profundity and jaw-dropping triviality.
  
In this Very Short Introduction Julian Stallabrass gives a clear view on the diverse and rapidly moving scene of contemporary art. Exploring art's striking globalisation from the 1990s onwards, he analyses how new regions and nations, such as China, have leapt into astonishing prominence, over-turning the old Euro-American dominance on aesthetics. Showing how contemporary art has drawn closer to fashion and the luxury goods market as artists have become accomplished marketers of their work, Stallabrass discusses the reinvention of artists as brands. This new edition also considers how once powerful art criticism has mutated into a critical and performative writing at which many artists excel. Above all, behind the insistent rhetoric of freedom and ambiguity in art, Stallabrass explores how big business and the super-rich have replaced the state as the primary movers of the contemporary art scene, especially since the financial crisis, and become a powerful new influence over the art world.