'Beauty is among the most hotly contested subjects in current discussions on art and culture. After decades of disavowal, beauty's resurgence in recent art has engaged some of the most influential artists and writers. Spanning diverse positions, this anthology assembles the key texts on the cultural politics of this recent phenomenon, as well as contextualising these debates — both for and against — in artistic practice and the broader history of aesthetics.

Artists surveyed include: Vito Acconci, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gustave Courbet, John Currin, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Gary Hume, Asger Jorn, Alex Katz, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Édouard Manet, Robert Mapplethorpe, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero, Frank Stella, Clyfford Still and Andy Warhol.

'Writers include: Theodor Adorno, Alexander Alberro, Rasheed Araeen, Art & Language, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, T. J. Clark, Mark Cousins, Arthur C. Danto, Jacques Derrida, Thierry de Duve, Fredric Jameson, Christoph Grunenberg, Dave Hickey, Suzanne Perling Hudson, Caroline A. Jones, John Roberts, Elaine Scarry, Wendy Steiner and Paul Wood.' (Back cover)

Beauty is one of the Documents of Contemporary Art series, co-published by Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press which document major themes and ideas in contemporary art. Other sourcebooks of the same series are also available in the Archive. For more details, please go to this page.