Ways of Looking : How to Experience Contemporary Art

Ossian Ward
Ways of Looking : How to Experience Contemporary Art
Shop all Art

Ways of Looking : How to Experience Contemporary Art
ISBN: 9781780671932
Publication Date: 4 August 2014

Art has changed. Those reassuringly familiar styles and movements that characterised art production prior to the twenty-first century have all vanished. Traditional artistic media no longer do what we expect of them. This book provides a straightforward, six-step programme for understanding contemporary art based on the concept of the tabula rasa - a clean slate and a fresh mind. Since artists increasingly work across traditional media and genres, the author has also developed an alternative classification system - 'Art as Entertainment', 'Art as Confrontation', 'Art as Joke' - designed to help make sense of otherwise obscure-seeming works. Ways of Looking transforms a potentially intimidating encounter with cuttingedge contemporary art into a dramatic, sensually rewarding and thoughtprovoking experience.

About the Author

Ossian Ward is Head of Content at the Lisson Gallery. He was previously chief art critic and visual arts editor at Time Out London and served as editor at Art Review and V&A Magazine.