Art in the Age of Anxiety

The reader published for Sharjah Art Foundation's 2020 exhibition of the same name, an edited volume on how networked technology has changed perception, decision-making and mental life.

The exhibition was postponed from March by the pandemic and ran from 26 June to 26 September 2020. It showed more than 60 works by over 30 artists and collectives. The media ranged from sculpture and prints to virtual reality and robotics. The book is a reader more than a catalogue. Its essays cover post-COVID art-making, mental health online, image culture, cryptocurrency and online grieving. Contributors include Douglas Coupland, Cory Arcangel, Simon Denny, Heather Dewey-Hagborg and W. J. T. Mitchell, and Hoor Al Qasimi wrote the foreword. Mörel Books co-published it and MIT Press distributes it.

Omar Kholeif is a curator and writer. He became Director of Collections and Senior Curator at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2019, after posts at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Whitechapel Gallery. His earlier books include Goodbye, World! Looking at Art in the Digital Age (Sternberg Press, 2018) and the anthology You Are Here: Art After the Internet.