Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-380) and index.

Machine generated contents note: -- Preface -- Introduction -- Themes of Contemporary Art: What, Why, and How -- A Brief Orientation -- Chapter One: The Art World Expands -- Overview of History and Art History, 1980-2011 -- Traditions Survive, New Trends Arrive -- A Spectrum of Voices Emerges -- Globalization -- Theory Flexes Its Muscles -- Social Experience as Art -- Art Meets Contemporary Culture -- Chapter Two: Identity -- Identity in Art History -- Identity is Communal or Relational -- Identity Politics --- Essentialism --- Diversity --- Hybridity -- Identity Is Constructed --- Otherness and Representation --- Deconstructing Difference --- The Fluidity of Identity -- Post Identity -- Profile: Nancy Burson -- Profile: Shirin Neshat -- Chapter Three: The Body -- Past Figurative Art -- A New Spin on the Body --- The Body Is a Battleground --- The Body Is a Sign --- Performing Bodies -- They Body Beautiful -- Sexual Bodies --- The Gaze --- Sex and Violence -- Mortal Bodies -- Posthuman Bodies -- Profile: Renée Cox -- Profile: Zhang Huan -- Chapter Four: Time -- Changing Views of Time -- Time and Art History -- Time as a Medium --- Live Art --- Film and Video --- Process Art -- Exploring the Structure of Time --- Counting Time --- Measuring Time --- Reordering Time --- Expressing Endlessness -- Profile: Hiroshi Sugimoto -- Profile: Cornelia Parker -- Chapter Five: Memory -- Memory and Art History -- The Texture of Memory --- Memory is Emotional --- Memory is Unreliable --- Memory is Multisensory -- Strategies for Representing the Past --- Displaying Evidence --- Reenacting the Past --- Fracturing Narratives and Reshuffling Memories -- Storehouses of Memory -- Revisiting the Past --- Recovering History --- Rethinking History --- Reframing the Present -- Commemorating the Past -- Profile: Christian Boltanski -- Profile: Brian Tolle -- Chapter Six: Place -- Places Have Meanings -- Places Have Value -- History's Influence --- (Most) Places Exist in Space --- (Most) Works of Art Exist in a Place -- What's Public? What's Private? -- Dislocation -- Looking at Places -- Looking Out for Places -- Fictionalized Places -- Profile: Unilever Series at Tate Modern -- Profile: Andrea Zittel -- Chapter Seven: Language -- Words with Art: A History -- Art with Words: A History -- Recent Theories of Language -- Reasons for Using Language -- Language Makes Meaning -- Language Takes Form --- Transparency and Translucency --- Spatiality and Physicality --- Books Made by Artists --- Art Made with Books -- Wielding the Power of Language -- Naming -- Confronting the Challenge of Translation -- Using Text in the Information Age -- Profile: Nina Katchadourian -- Profile: Janet Cardiff -- Chapter Eight: Science -- What is Science? -- Artists as Amateur Scientists -- Artists Adopt Scientific Tools and Materials --- Creole Technologies --- BioArt -- The Ideology of Science --- Changing Paradigms of Science --- Is Science Running Amok? Activist Art Responds -- The Visual Culture of Science --- Scientific Imaging and Art --- Deconstructing the Visual Culture of Science --- Scientific Displays and Archives --- Science in Popular Culture -- Classifying Humans in the Genomic Age -- Is Nature Natural? -- Marveling at the Universe -- Profile: Patricia Piccinini -- Profile: Eduardo Kac -- Chapter Nine: Spirituality -- Spirituality and Religion -- A Short History -- A Few Strategies --- Manipulating Forms, Materials, and Processes --- Manipulating Meanings and Minds -- Finding Faith and Harboring Doubt -- Expressing Religious Identities -- Facing Death, Doom, and Destruction -- Mingling the Sacred and the Secular -- Profile: José Bedia -- Profile: Bill Viola -- Timeline -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.

"Offering a unique thematic approach to recent art history, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, Third Edition, focuses on eight central ideas recurring in art over the past few decades: identity, the body, time, memory, place, language, science, and spirituality. Featuring 160 vivid illustrations (23 in color and 137 in black and white), this wide-ranging introduction presents artworks that exemplify a variety of materials, techniques, theoretical viewpoints, and stylistic approaches, by artists from diverse ethnic, cultural, and geographic backgrounds. Concise, engaging, and accessible, this thought-provoking volume challenges readers to think actively and critically about the ideas expressed in contemporary art. New to this Edition Updated throughout with the most recent scholarship, research, and developments in the field A new chapter on memory as a theme in contemporary art and culture An updated timeline that reflects world events and developments in art and pop culture through today 3 new artist profiles 31 additional illustrations"-- Provided by publisher.

"Chapter 1 presents a broad introduction to important developments in art and to ideas and events that influenced art in the period from 1980 through 2011. It introduces ideas that apply to all the themes discussed in subsequent chapters. Chapters 2 through 9 delve into the themes themselves, one theme to each chapter in the following order: identity, the body, time, memory, place, language, science, and spirituality. Chapters 2 through 9 follow a similar format. An introduction situates the theme within a broad social and cultural matrix, a brief historical overview discusses artistic approaches to the theme and related concepts in earlier eras, recent artists' treatments of the theme are evaluated in terms of key theories and strategies of art production, and the theme is examined in terms of subcategories that have received critical attention in contemporary exhibitions and publications. Following an in-depth discussion of the theme, each chapter provides two profiles of individual artists. Each profile presents a concise examination of the ideas and approaches of an artist who has devoted a substantial portion of his or her creative energies to exploring aspects of the theme under discussion"-- Provided by publisher.