The 25 Best Works of the 21st Century

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Frieze roundtable naming 25 defining contemporary artworks since 2000, with essays and commentary on each selection.

The 25 Best Works of the 21st Century

This year, frieze asked 200 artists, curators, critics and museum directors to name the most outstanding works of art from the past quarter century. From their nominations, we compiled a list of 25 works that have shaped contemporary art since the year 2000. Every day this week, we will update this page with new works, counting down to number one. 25. THOMAS HIRSCHHORN, GRAMSCI MONUMENT, 2013

Thomas Hirschhorn, Gramsci Monument, 2013, Forest Houses, Bronx, New York. Courtesy: Dia Art Foundation; photograph: Romain Lopez

Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument was a vibrant, makeshift pavilion constructed on the grounds of the Forest Houses public housing development in the Bronx. Crafted from humble materials, the structure was emblazoned with slogans from Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, written in 1929–35 during his imprisonment by the Italian Fascist government. Built and animated by local residents, the Gramsci Monument hosted concerts, workshops and lectures on critical theory, inviting those often excluded from such discourse into spaces of thought and expression. While Hirschhorn orchestrated the project, the community led its realization; embodying a democratic form of cultural production, it avoided the pitfalls of other projects rooted in relational aesthetics by unfolding outside the museum. Evoking Gramsci’s emancipatory vision signalled a reaction to the ‘End of History’ cultural moment that Mark Fisher had identified in Capitalist Realism (2009), in the wake of the aftershocks of the War on Terror and Occupy. The work became a living reminder that political transformation demands cultural awakening – and that art can be its staging ground. — Wilson Tarbox 24. HITO STEYERL, HOW NOT TO BE SEEN: A FUCKING DIDACTIC EDUCATIONAL .MOV FILE, 2013

Hito Steyerl, How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013, video still. Courtesy: © Hito Steyerl; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Esther Schipper, Berlin/Paris/Seoul

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