"Andrew Benjamin offers in this book a sustained and unique interpretation of painting and the question of the art object. Both topics raise questions that are central to the understanding of art in the twentieth century. The relationship of painting to time, the continuing influence of Duchamp on the art object, the increasing use of installation as an art form, and the instability of the categories of painting and sculpture emerging from the project of minimalism are discussed in an analysis of artists that includes Jenny Holzer, Langlands & Bell, Christian Boltanski, Robert Ryman, Jackson Pollock, and Anselm Kiefer." --publisher's statement.