The end of art and beyond

the long version

Is there a future for art? The contributors to this volume discuss whether art has an essential kind of history, derived from its own internal dynamic; whether that history has, or is, drawing to an end; what the future of art, whether historical or ahistorical, might be; and the extent to which we can anticipate and prepare for that future. The first half of this collection addresses these themes as given voice by the philosopher and critic Arthur Danto, while the second part contains essays of a more independent cast which assume a variety of stating points aimed at illuminating the theoreticity, temporality, computability, and abstract possibilities of present and future arts. Here is a discussion not only of where art has been, and whether it has an inherently finite run, but of what art in the future might be, what modes it might exhibit, and how criticism and appreciation might react to it.