Political Economy as Subject and Form in Contemporary Art

Political economy is a theme both explicit and submerged in modernist and postmodernist art. Art production is founded in the gift. The author historicizes artistic representations of political economy, particularly postwar conceptual art and theory. African American artists explore the black image in terms redolent of the commoditization of their ancestors under slavery. Media art engages dominant modes of media industry production. Art based in conceptions of the gift embodies noncapitalist modes of social relations.