Takedown: Art and Power in the Digital Age

Farah Nayeri addresses the difficult questions plaguing the art world, from the bad habits of Old Masters, to the current grappling with identity politics.

For centuries, art censorship has been a top-down phenomenon--kings, popes, and one-party states decided what was considered obscene, blasphemous, or politically deviant in art.

Today, censorship can also happen from the bottom-up, thanks to calls to action from organizers and social media campaigns. Artists and artworks are routinely taken to task for their insensitivity. In this new world order, artists, critics, philanthropists, galleries and museums alike are recalibrating their efforts to increase the visibility of marginalized voices and respond to the people's demands for better ethics in art.

But what should we, the people, do with this newfound power?

With exclusive interviews with Nan Goldin, Sam Durant, Faith Ringgold, and others, Nayeri tackles wide-ranging issues including sex, religion, gender, ethics, animal rights, and race.

By asking and answering questions such as: Who gets to make art and who owns it? How do we correct the inequities of the past? What does authenticity, exploitation, and appropriation mean in art?, Takedown provides the necessary tools to navigate the art world.

Author: Farah Nayeri
Publisher: Astra House
Published: 01/25/2022
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781662600555


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 08/01/2021 pg. 17
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2021

About the Author
Farah Nayeri is an arts and culture writer for the New York Times and host of the podcast Cultureblast. Originally from Iran, she began her journalism career as a reporter for Time magazine in Paris, where she then joined Bloomberg. She went on to become Bloomberg's Rome bureau chief and its European economics correspondent, before being assigned to Baghdad in 2003 to cover the US-led invasion of Iraq. Farah has also written for The Economist and the Wall Street Journal. She is a regular moderator at New York Times conferences, and has spoken at Sciences Po in Paris and the Royal Academy of Arts. She is a classical pianist and a member of the UK Critics' Circle.