Between Discipline and a Hard Place: The Value of Contemporary Art

Written from the perspective of a practising artist, this book proposes that, against a groundswell of historians, museums and commentators claiming to speak on behalf of art, it is artists alone who may define what art really is.

Jelinek contends that while there are objects called 'art' in museums from deep into human history and from around the globe - from Hans Sloane's collection, which became the foundation of the British Museum, to Alfred Barr's inclusion of 'primitive art' within the...