Art as a sign of the social: the political economy of contemporary art and the 1990s Utopian 90s

The nineties were a passage for contemporary art as we have come to know it in today’s globalised art circuit. Following the end of the Cold War, it was a decade not only marked by ruptures in historical and ideological orientation, but also characterised by continuing processes of privatisation initiated in the eighties. Concurrent with such comprehensive transvaluations of cultural concepts and practices, “the social” became an important signifier in artistic production. Speaking as someone involved in the Scandinavian art scene at the time, Lars Bang Larsen’s talk will discuss the sign of the social as it flickered in art between practice, essence and simulacrum.