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Weathering a perfect storm of images
Hito Steyerl's book is a worthy but flawed attempt to mediate the negative visual overload of contemporary culture, says NICK WRIGHT

Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War
Hito Steyerl
(Verso £9.99)

IT’S not always the case that art professionals — artists themselves, critics and connoisseurs, historians and theorists — ground their thought and language in the distinctions, connections and contradictions revealed in a materialist scrutiny of the images that they create, consider or curate.

While the idea that the products of cultural work can be studied and understood independently of the circumstances in which they are produced persists, the very speed and complexity of the contemporary and highly mediated world allows little time for the quiet contemplation of classical beauty.

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