Theory of the Rearguard: How to Survive Contemporary Art and Almost Everything Else

Cuban art critic and curator Iván de la Nuez returns with an ironic epitaph for contemporary art.

Art criticism that examines contemporary art in the 21st century in relationship to politics, iconography, and literature.

“Iván de la Nuez transforms art criticism into an art form.” —Letras Libres

Theory of the Rearguard examines how contemporary art is in tension with survival, rather than in relation to life. In the twentieth century, Peter Bürger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde was a cult book focused on the two main tasks that art demanded at the time: to break its representation and to destroy the barrier that separated it from life.

Forty years later, The Theory of the Rearguard is an ironic manifesto about contemporary art and its failures, even though Iván de la Nuez does not waste his time mourning it or disguising it. He argues that our times are not characterized by the distance between art and life, but by a tension between art and survival, which is the continuation of life by any means necessary.

In the twenty-first century, Iván de la Nuez examines art in relationship to politics, iconography, and literature. This austere and sharp book—in which Duchamp stumbles upon Lupe, the revolution upon the museum, Paul Virilio upon Joan Fontcuberta or Fukuyama upon Michael Jackson—wonders if contemporary art will ever end. Because if it were mortal—“just as mortal as everything it invokes or examines under its magnifying glass”—de la Nuez argues would be worth writing an epitaph for it as he has done in this sparkling book of art criticism.

IVÁN DE LA NUEZ is a Cuban essayist, critic, and art curator. His books include Posmo (Consonni, 2023); Cubanthropy (Seven Stories, 2023), which was his English-language debut; and Iconofagias. Un diccionario del siglo XXI (Debate, 2024). De la Nuez has curated many exhibitions in Barcelona and has served as the head of the Cultural Activities Department of the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona and as the director of exhibitions at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge. For his excellence in contemporary art curation and commentary, he has been awarded the Espais d’Art Prize (2006), the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona Honorable Mention (2007), and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities (1995).

ELLEN JONES is a literary translator from Spanish into English, a writer, and an editor. Her recent translations include This Mouth is Mine by Yásnaya Elena A. Gil (Charco Press, 2024), The Remains by Margo Glantz (Charco Press, 2023), The Forgery by Ave Barrera (Charco Press, 2022, co-translated with Robin Myers), and Nancy by Bruno Lloret (Two Lines Press, 2021). Her monograph, Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas, is published by Columbia University Press (2022).