On Contemporary Art

On Contemporary Art is the 2010 speech delivered by novelist Cesar Aira at a Madrid colloquium exploring the gap between writing and visual arts. He discusses reproducibility, the limits of language, and art making. This is the first time the entirety of this speech has been translated into English.

Cesar Aira is a prolific Argentinean author with more than 120 books to his name.

Dry and difficult to read, this is not the layman’s approach to contemporary art. On Contemporary Art is the sort of book with which one must sit down in a quiet room, highlighter in hand, and explore word by word to uncover its meaning. Enlightening and surely a great contribution to the art world, this book has a very specific target audience. Unless you’re a museum professional or dedicated to fine arts, it’s probably not you.