Summary

81

Being Thirty

Spring / Summer 2014

For this 30th anniversary issue, we have departed from our usual thematic section to give carte blanche to a number of authors to examine twenty-first-century works or practices that have particularly caught their eye. Rather than merely ranking the best works of the past decade, the essays reveal the plurality of voices and forms of writing on art today—just like the practices that they describe. This issue paints a diverse portrait of art and art criticism as practised in 2014—an adventure in images and words, a brief but exciting voyage into the world of a dozen curators.

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Image de la couverture du numéro Esse 116 Immersion

Current Issue

Immersion

Winter 2026

This issue is interested in all forms of immersion in contemporary art. How are artists critically engaging with immersive technologies? Conversely, what kinds of practices are challenging technology in their pursuit of immersion? How are these experiences breaking down the boundaries between spectator, body, and art? We put forward proposals that rely on listening and sustained attention rather than on amplification and sensory overload – works using devices that are sometimes relatively simple and non-invasive, sometimes a little more elaborate, but in which participation is, with a few nuances, neither passive nor devoid of critical thinking.

Cover: doux soft club
bleu de lieu, 2023-2024.
Photo: Cléo Sjölander, courtesy of the artists

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