Keywords for Marxist Art History Today

Book excerpt: The mood of systemic crisis that has marked the early 21st century has been accompanied by an upsurge in Marxist thought in a whole range of domains and extends to art history. In this volume 19 scholars from different generations, different national contexts and with different relationships to Marxism reflect on the status of 18 "keywords" with special pertinence to Marxist art-historical inquiry today. Starting point of the researches was the knowledge that while certain keywords have been crucial to recent developments in Marxist art history and cultural theory more broadly, others seem to have slipped out of view. The scholars are not so much interested in the "historical semantics" of words – although that plays some role in the essays – as in the present state of Marxist art history.