MJ - Manifesta Journal Vol. 9

Contemporary art deserves its name if it manifests its own contemporaneity – and not simply if it is currently made or displayed. Thus, the question ’What is contemporary art?’ implicates the questions, ‘What is the Contemporary?’ and ‘How can the Contemporary as such be shown?’

Contemporary art according to modernity’s picture of the world could be understood as something that is immediately present, capturing and expressing the presence of the present in a way that is radically uncorrupted by traditions or by strategies aimed at the future succes. This concept forms the basis for such an institution as a traditional art museum.

The critique of modernity and its infrastructure, however, revised this idea of linear time. All that doesn’t mean that the linear history has been totally rejected; rather, it has simply become one of the possible views and logics with which to read reality.

The many essays in this volume investigate every aspect related to this concept, showing the results in the world today.