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Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination

'Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination' was researched and written over the course of five years. It brings together a number of the author’s core research concerns: the relationship between contemporary art and global culture, the potential of art to negotiate multiple forms of difference, and the necessity to develop the critical languages of art-writing.

¶ The volume contributes a sustained argument for the significance of developing the concept of an embodied and situated cosmopolitanism in relation to transnational art and global culture. The ‘cosmopolitan imagination’ is thus not an idealised and abstract notion, but provides an ethical, material and creative space for engagement between and across cultural and political divisions in a global context.

¶ The volume led to a number of further invited lectures and publications by Meskimmon, and the concept of "affirmative criticality", which was the focus for the book’s concluding thoughts, became the central motif for an international curatorial project developed by Dr Alpesh Patel for Art Basel Miami 2012.