This volume is a collection of dynamic and engaged writings by art historian John C. Welchman on a range of contemporary European artists. Anchored in concerns that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s, Welchman poses thoughtful and provocative questions about how these artists receive and negotiate the social and aesthetic histories through which they live and work.

In his influential 1986 text, now translated into English for the first time, Swiss artist Rémy Zaugg (1943–2005) laid out fundamental ideas on the art museum. For him, the museum is an everyday tool that enables the encounter between viewer and work—raising the question of the kind of architecture appropriate for such a space.

This collection of essays does not aim to illustrate a prefabricated theory of art, but rather follows the impulses given by artworks themselves. Philosopher and art critic Boris Groys writes about significant artists and artworks of the last century that have pushed his thinking and writing in a new direction.

In recent years, debates surrounding the concept of art have focused in particular on installation art, as its diverse manifestations have proven to be incompatible with the modern idea of aesthetic autonomy. Here, Juliane Rebentisch asserts that installation art does not, as is often assumed, dispute aesthetic autonomy per se, and rather should be understood as calling for a fundamental revision of this very concept.

The first in the series of e-flux journal readers to be written by a single author, Going Public brings together a collection of influential essays by Boris Groys.