Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974

Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974 brings together key texts from the formative years of Artforum, documenting a period in which art criticism became an active force in shaping contemporary art.

The publication traces how writing did not merely respond to artistic developments but participated directly in defining new aesthetic, conceptual, and institutional frameworks.

The collected essays reflect the emergence of Minimalism, Conceptual Art, post-minimal practices, and expanded approaches to sculpture, painting, and performance. Criticism appears here as a site of debate, confrontation, and speculation, closely intertwined with artistic production. Rather than offering neutral commentary, the texts articulate positions that challenged established narratives and questioned the roles of authorship, medium, space, and spectatorship.

The book reads as a snapshot of a critical moment when discourse itself became experimental. It highlights Artforum as a platform where theory, criticism, and artistic practice intersected, revealing how language functioned as a tool for rethinking art and its conditions of visibility.