A Place to Know

Aesthetic Meaning in Recent Visual Art

To engage with the aesthetic is to watch yourself watching—and what you see cannot be reached, for all that exists is the reflection of the vision performed by you. The aesthetic experience offers insights into the consciousness that are both ancient and linked to creative inventions in present-day art culture.In A Place to Know, Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlöf interprets twelve recent artworks, from Sol LeWitt to Katharina Grosse. She sets out the unique claims and qualities which are inherent in seeing and understanding contemporary art.The book presents four analytical categories of artwork, charting the character of the aesthetic experience and the traditions that determine how we think about visual art. She peels back the layers of consciousness to lay bare the forgotten seams of experience, interwoven with artistic expression. The ancient thus arcs into a deepened awareness of avant-garde art. Artists whose works are discussed in detail include - in thematical order - Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Rémy Zaugg, John Chamberlain, Sofia Hultén, Louise Bourgeois, Julie Roberts, Marcel van Eeden, Amy Simon, Katharina Grosse, Ai Weiwei och Danh Vo.