Future Now 2021:
125 Contemporary Artists from the Aesthetica Art Prize
The Aesthetica Art Prize is a place of discovery. Each year we bring you the most talented practitioners from across the world who are making new and innovative works. These pieces discuss the current state of play and dive into some of today’s most pressing topics. Art is the mechanism by which we can begin to make sense of a rapidly changing world. If there has ever been a time that we need art in our lives, it is now.
The world has been irrevocably transformed by the pandemic. We are living history. Life was complicated before Covid-19, but the pandemic has placed a new set of strains and challenges on society. Themes such as the climate crisis, colonial histories, racism, new technologies and the impact they have had on our lives are all looked at in great detail. In many ways, the works inside this book unearth the intricate layers of what it means to be alive today. The pieces draw on both personal and universal narratives and in many ways that unique blend of the macro and the micro makes this anthology immediate, compelling and highly relevant for the times in which we live.
Artists are the chroniclers of our times. We are able to further question, make sense of, and unite in this time of uncertainty through work that digests the nature of life in the 21st century. Human history has been rewritten, and we are living in that moment right now. Genres include painting, photography, sculpture, video and installation, and these immersive works are part of a wider line of enquiry into our complex world. The featured projects span the UK, USA, Germany, Canada, Australia, Taiwan and Brazil.
