Art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the power play of
global politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics. Art,
argues the distinguished theoretician Boris Groys, is hardly a powerless
commodity subject to the art market's fiats of inclusion and exclusion. In Art
Power, Groys examines modern and contemporary art according to its ideological
function. Art, Groys writes, is produced and brought before the public in two
ways?as a commodity and as a tool of political propaganda. In the contemporary
art scene, very little attention is paid to the latter function. Arguing for the
inclusion of politically motivated art in contemporary art discourse, Groys
considers art produced under totalitarianism, Socialism, and post-Communism. He
also considers today's mainstream Western art?which he finds behaving more and
more according the norms of ideological propaganda: produced and exhibited for
the masses at international exhibitions, biennials, and festivals. Contemporary
art, Groys argues, demonstrates its power by appropriating the iconoclastic
gestures directed against itself?by positioning itself simultaneously as an
image and as a critique of the image. In Art Power, Groys examines this
fundamental appropriation that produces the paradoxical object of the modern
artwork.