This Is Modern Art

Yes, it's shocking and sensational and makes headlines, but is it art? What happened to beauty and loveliness? Modern works by "Brit Brats" and other explosive artists are explored in this knowing book that combines hard art historical information with refreshingly candid, wonderfully readable reflections on today's dynamic art scene. Each of six chapters becomes a journey, a tour around the world to art galleries, museums, and artists' studios, a trip back and forth in time—from the earliest heroic beginnings of modern art to the circuslike atmosphere of Sensation, the famous/infamous exhibition seen recently by record-breaking museum crowds on both sides of the Atlantic. These gorgeously illustrated rides are by turns smooth, surprising, alarming, but they are always informative and entertaining in answering such essential questions: Will future generations accept today's art as a vivid expression of how life was really lived during the 1990s? Or will they scratch their heads and wonder how we could have put up with such stuff—how we could have valued it as art?