Afterall Journal Issue 2 Explores the Sublime in Contemporary Art

Afterall Journal Issue 2, published in June 2000, features a foreword by Charles Esche and Mark Lewis that frames the issue as a response to the dominance of socially engaged art practice. The issue focuses on five artists—Julie Becker, Peter Doig, Olafur Eliasson, Isa Genzken, and Walter De Maria—whose work emphasizes perception and the sublime, drawing on Barnett Newman's 1948 essay 'The Sublime Is Now.' The sublime is discussed via Jean-François Lyotard's notion of a non-romantic alternative, locating it in everyday phenomena. Essays by Jeffrey Kastner, Graham Gussin, Gertrud Sandqvist, Andreas Spiegl, Christiane Schneider, David Bussel, Peter Wollen, Markus Muller, Daniel Richter, and Johanne Sloane examine individual artists. Two longer essays include Alex Comfort's 1946 'Art and Social Responsibility,' republished posthumously after his death, and Shep Steiner's essay on meteorology as a trope in art. The issue aims to encourage cross-referencing among the artists' practices, which range from De Maria's Earth Room to Eliasson's double sunset.