NM Reads | excerpts from “What Is Contemporary Art For Today? (Ben Davis, Caroline Busta, Gavin Brown, Jason Farago, Joshua Citarella, Lloyd Wise, Tobias Spichtig) + editors Eleonore Hugendubel, Dean Kissick, Matt Moravec (2025)

From January 2023 to January 2024, the Perić Collection funded a series of informal, highly attended talks about the state of Contemporary Art. Hosted by Dean Kissick and coordinated & commissioned by Eleonore Hugendubel and Matt Moravec, the event, known as the Seaport Talks, took place monthly in Downtown Manhattan. As a kind of coda to this series, Matt, Eleonore, and Dean created a correlating reader (likewise supported by Perić) featuring texts by 25 contributors who have spent some significant part of their life in the art world. Each writer was asked to briefly respond to the book’s titular question: “What is contemporary art for Today? And what should it be for, if anything?”For this special episode, we bring you a selection of the answers including words by Ben Davis, Gavin Brown, Jason Farago, Tobias Spichtig, Joshua Citarella, Lloyd Wise, and Carly. Preceding the readings, we are joined by Dean, Matt, and Eleonore who reflect on the project at large.For more: What Is Contemporary Art For Today? (McNally Jackson)