Art After Metaphysics

Book excerpt: Contemporary art is a very different kind of art from anything that has ever been practiced in the past. It is an art that takes place after the age of metaphysics, when all the imaginary significations that once used to anchor art in traditional meaning systems have disintegrated. Today's artist, consequently, is left with a rubble heap of broken meaning systems, discarded signifiers and semiotic vacancies that must be sifted through in a quest for new meanings appropriate to an age that has been reshaped by globalization. Through discussions of the works of artists such as Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Christian Boltanski and many others, John David Ebert attempts to fathom the nature of what it means to be an artist in a post-metaphysical age in which all certainties of meaning have collapsed.