Bettina Funcke, Pop or Populus: Art Between High and Low

The alienation between high culture and its public is a fundamental conflict of art in our times. Writer Bettina Funcke, the United States editor of the cutting-edge British art journal Parkett, develops a theory of contemporary art in response to our moment, when artists and critics must respond to art's unprecedented popularity. Selecting texts from important philosophers and art theorists of the last century, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Ranci re, Theodor W. Adorno, Clement
Greenberg, Benjamin Buchloh, and Boris Groys, Funcke uses the theoretical framework they provide to explore a dialectic of art propelled by tension between the enduring history of art and the domineering presence of mass culture. Funcke's work has also been published in Afterall, Artforum, Public and Texte zur Kunst.
Translated from the German by Warren Niesluchowski.