Flows and Counterflows

Book excerpt: Over the past 25 years, artists have vigorously engaged the debate around globalization, examining cross-border exchange from mass migration to the dynamics of translation, and devising new conceptual categories and new formal and metaphorical resources along the way. Noted art critic Marcus Verhagens timely examination of artistic interventions, Flows and Counterflows tells the story of projects that draw out both the dangers and tangible benefits of global exchange. In seven thought-provoking illustrated essays Verhagen maps the global art worlds shifting terrain and offers an incisive and original account of contemporary arts relationship to the processes of globalisation. The softcover survey covers how art addresses global markers such as tourism and border control; how the art system itself has been reshaped; and how artists resist by building informal networks. Packed with clearly explained and illustrated contemporary artworks, it is an indispensable history of art for our current times. Verhagen teaches in the United States and Europe and has published extensively in LeftReview, Art Monthly, Frieze along with many other publications.