Takedown Art and Power in the Digital Age

Farah Nayeri addresses the difficult questions plaguing the art world, from the bad habits of Old Masters, to the current grappling with identity politics.

For centuries, art censorship has been a top-down phenomenon--kings, popes, and one-party states decided what was considered obscene, blasphemous, or politically deviant in art.
 
Today, censorship can also happen from the bottom-up, thanks to calls to action from organizers and social media campaigns. Artists and artworks are routinely taken to task for their insensitivity. In this new world order, artists, critics, philanthropists, galleries and museums alike are recalibrating their efforts to increase the visibility of marginalized voices and respond to the people’s demands for better ethics in art.
 
But what should we, the people, do with this newfound power?
 
With exclusive interviews with Nan Goldin, Sam Durant, Faith Ringgold, and others, Nayeri tackles wide-ranging issues including sex, religion, gender, ethics, animal rights, and race.
 
By asking and answering questions such as: Who gets to make art and who owns it? How do we correct the inequities of the past? What does authenticity, exploitation, and appropriation mean in art?, Takedown provides the necessary tools to navigate the art world. 

Farah Nayeri is an arts and culture writer for the New York Times and host of the CultureBlast podcast. Originally from Iran, she lives and works in London. Nayeri began her journalism career in Paris as a reporter for Time magazine and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal. She later became a correspondent of Bloomberg in Paris, Rome and London, covering politics and economics, then culture. Nayeri is a public speaker and panel moderator, regularly chairing conferences for the New York Times and for institutions in Europe. She is a classically trained pianist and a devotee of flamenco dance.
 

Contents

Prologue

1. The Clash of Art and Politics
2. Just Not Good Enough
3. Morally Reprehensible Trash
4. Still No Seat at the Big Table
5. A Despicable Display of Vulgarity
6. All Money Is Dirty
7. Take Them All Down
8. A Load of Rubbish

Epilogue
Image Credits
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author