This illustrated, edited collection of essays brings together for the first time some of the pioneering art historian Linda Nochlin's most important writings on modernism and modernity from across her six-decade career. Before the publication of her seminal tract on feminism in art, 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?', Nochlin had already firmly established herself as a major practitioner of a politically sophisticated and class-conscious social art history, with her writings on modernism being transformative to the discipline.

Nochlin embraced Charles Baudelaire's conviction that modernity meant to be of one's time - and that the role of an art historian was to understand the art of the past not only in its own historical context, but according to the urgencies of the contemporary world. From academic debates about the nude in the 18th century to the work of Robert Gober in the 21st, whatever she turned her analytic eye to was very much conceived as the art of the now - the art we need to look at to navigate the complexities and contradictions of the present.

这本图文并茂的论文集首次汇集了先锋艺术史学家琳达·诺克林（Linda Nochlin）六十年职业生涯中关于现代主义和现代性的一些重要著作。在她发表关于艺术中的女权主义的开创性著作《为什么没有伟大的女艺术家》之前，诺克林已经牢固地确立了自己在一部政治复杂、阶级意识强烈的社会艺术史上主要实践者的地位，她关于现代主义的著作对该学科具有变革意义。

诺克林接受了查尔斯·波德莱尔（Charles Baudelaire）的信念，即现代性意味着属于自己的时代，而艺术史学家的角色就是不仅在其自身的历史背景下理解过去的艺术，而且要根据当代世界的紧迫性来理解。从18世纪关于裸体的学术辩论到21世纪的罗伯特·戈贝尔（Robert Gober）的作品，无论她把她的分析眼光转向什么，都被认为是现在的艺术，我们需要看的艺术，以驾驭现在的复杂性和矛盾性。