Art to Come

Smith, who sees linearity as an 'old-fashioned' way of thinking about time, kicks up the silt of art history to present us with a historiography of contemporaneity. . . . To that end, he takes us through 'contemporary' buzzwords and ways of thinking about issues like globalisation, the Anthropocene, decolonisation, indigenisation, revived fundamentalisms and ecoactivism, to ask how we might harmonise our differences in a way that 'ensures our mutual survival' on this planet. -- Fi Churchman * Art Review * In bringing this collection of essays together, Smith gives readers the opportunity to chart his progress as he repeatedly surveys the contemporary terrain. These field reports from a highly engaged observer provide compelling reading for anyone concerned with art practices of the past three decades. -- Martha Buskirk * Critical Inquiry * At once retrospective and anticipatory, Smith's description of his intent with Art to Come suggests that the book is as much for himself and 'those to come' as it is for art historians and other observers of contemporary art working today (24). For Smith, contemporary art history is historiography. By writing contemporary art history as personal historiography, Smith models for his readers-present and future-an ethics as much as a methodology for the study of the visual culture today. -- Elizabeth Mansfield * Journal of Art Historiography *