Peter Osborne's 'Crisis as Form' Examines Contemporary Art's Temporal Ontology

In his latest publication, 'Crisis as Form,' philosopher Peter Osborne delves into the intricate connection between contemporary art and time, building on ideas from his previous works, 'Anywhere or Not at All' (2013) and 'The Postconceptual Condition' (2018). He posits that contemporary art represents a 'disjunctive conjuncture' of various temporalities. To illustrate this, Osborne references a photograph of Juan Enrique Bedoya's piece, which alludes to Ed Ruscha's 1962 artwork 'oof,' featuring nine layers of meaning. He argues that contemporary art exists in a perpetual crisis, challenging established notions of the term. The book surveys almost a century of artistic contributions from figures like Matias Faldbakken and Marcel Duchamp. Published by Verso at £19.99, it introduces 'historical ontology,' though it lacks in-depth theoretical exploration.