Anywhere or Not at All. The Philosophy of Contemporary Art

A new reading of the philosophy of contemporary art by the author of The Politics of Time
Contemporary art is the object of inflated and widely divergent claims. What kind of discourse can help us give it a critical sense?
Anywhere or Not At All is a major philosophical intervention in art theory that challenges the terms of established positions through a new approach at once philosophical, historical, social and art-critical. Setting out the claim that ‘contemporary art is postconceptual art’, the book elaborates a series of conceptual constructions and interpretations of works by Navjot Altaf, the Atlas Group, Amar Kanwar, Sol LeWitt, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gerhard Richter and Robert Smithson, among others. It concludes with new accounts of the institutional and existential complexities of ‘art space’ and ‘art time’.
Anywhere or Not At All maps out the conceptual coordinates for an art that is both critical and contemporary in the era of global capitalism.
“This long overdue philosophy of contemporary art provides us with the conceptual tools to rethink both the history of contemporary art and the philosophy of art criticism. Impassioned yet analytical, Osborne delivers a politically astute discourse in a prose highly pleasurable for its clarity. It is essential reading for anyone serious about contemporary art – or its philosophy.” — Ruth Noack, curator of documenta 12