The book Disputas sobre lo contemporáneo. Arte español entre el antifranquismo y la postmodernidad by Juan Albarrán (eds. EXIT) is now available.

It will be presented on Thursday 21 March 2019 at 19.00 at La Central del Museo Reina Sofía. With the author, Juan Albarrán, accompanied by Sergio Rubira and Marta Sesé.

Disputas sobre lo contemporáneo proposes to analyse Spanish contemporary art as a field of tensions in which the participating agents – institutions, critics, historians, curators, artists, etc. – strive for positions from which to compete for legitimacy, prestige and power. In order to establish a site of enunciation in the field, it is necessary to invoke a story. That is to say, any enunciative positioning requires a more or less solid historical narrative that defines a line of action and grants certain functions to art in the society of its time.

Through a series of case studies, the book studies some of the main discourses -only a few, of course there have been other voices and programs- that have consolidated, with more or less fortune, interpretative models from which to value the artistic production of the past, legitimise that of the present and, consequently, orientate that of the future.

Download the introduction (Spanish language only)