Art Since 1989

A guide to the most groundbreaking and influential art from 1989 to the present.

American art historian, critic and poet Kelly Grovier’s book covers the main trends in the evolution of art in the past thirty years. By analyzing the transformation of traditional mediums, such as painting, graphics, and sculpture, as well as genres, subjects, and materials, the author demonstrates the changes that take place in the world of contemporary art, where we see individual representatives of different countries and peoples, rather than national schools and movements, competing with each other today.

In Grovier’s view, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 posed new questions to art historians—in the first instance, the question of the definition of art and, consequently, the reevaluation of its role in modern society. Grovier traces the dynamic development of contemporary art internationally, focusing on artists whose cutting-edge practices reflect the political and social changes of the electric decades since 1989. The book’s ten chapters, “Body”, “Science and Art”, and “Political Activism” among them, cover some key contemporary art subjects. Artists featured in the book include Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, Damien Hirst, Marlene Dumas, and Ai Weiwei. The chapter “Chronicle” outlines the evolution of art in our time through the analysis of a particular work executed in each of the years from 1989 to 2014.