Gavin Brown, Caroline Busta, Joshua Citarella, Ben Davis, Jason Farago, Tobias Spichtig and Lloyd Wise read their contributions to “What Is Contemporary Art For Today?" (Perić Collection, 2025)

This is a preview — for the full episode (released 08/13/2025), including a conversation with the book's editors, Matt Moravec, Eleonore Hugendubel, and Dean Kissick, subscribe: patreon.com/newmodels newmodels.substack.com

From January 2023 to January 2024, the Perić Collection funded a series of informal, highly attended talks about the state of Contemporary Art. Hosted by Dean Kissick and coordinated & commissioned by Eleonore Hugendubel and Matt Moravec, the monthly event, known as the Seaport Talks, took place in Downtown Manhattan. As a kind of coda to this series, Matt, Eleonore, and Dean created a correlating reader (likewise supported by Perić) featuring texts by 25 contributors who have spent some significant part of their life in the art world. Each writer was asked to briefly respond to the book’s titular question: “What is contemporary art for Today? And what should it be for, if anything?” For this special episode, we bring you a selection of the answers.

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