This volume is dedicated to the interrelation between temporality and representation. It presumes that time cannot be conceived of as an abstract chronometric order, but that it is referring to materiality, being measured, represented, expressed, recognized, experienced and evaluated, and therefore is always closely related to cultural contexts of perception and evaluation.
The contributions from various disciplines are dedicated to the present and its plural conditions and meanings. They provide insights into the state of research with special emphasis on the global present as well as on art and aesthetics from the 18th century until today.
The anthology includes contributions by Mieke Bal, Stefan Binder, Maximilian Bergengruen, Iris Därmann, Gabriele Genge, Boris Roman Gibhardt, Boris Groys, Maria Muhle, Johannes F. Lehmann, Nkiru Nzegwu, Francesca Raimondi, Christine Ross, Ludger Schwarte, Angela Stercken, Samuel Strehle, Timm Trausch, Patrick Stoffel, and Christina Wessely.

Gabriele Genge is chairholder for Modern and Contemporary Art History and Art Theory at the Universität Duisburg-Essen. Her current research interests cover trans-cultural and postcolonial areas of the discipline with a specific focus on French Colonialism as well as African and African-American image theory, knowledge systems and epistemology. From 2017 to 2020 she supervised the DFG-research project »The Anachronic and the Present: Aesthetic Perception and Artistic Concepts of Temporality in the Black Atlantic«.
Ludger Schwarte is a professor of philosophy at the Kunstakademie Duesseldorf. After positions as assistant professor of image theory at the University of Basel and as a professor of aesthetics at the Zurich University of Arts, visiting scholarships led him to University Paris 8, GACVS (Washington), Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (Paris), University of Abidjan, Columbia University (New York), the EHESS (Paris) and to the IKKM (Weimar). His areas of research lie in aesthetics, political philosophy, philosophy of culture, ontology, and the history of science.
Angela Stercken (PhD), is senior researcher, curator and author. Her research fields lie in transcultural and postcolonial art history, the theory of image, time and space, in phenomena of transmediality and temporality in (maritime) spaces of transfer and migration, and modern and contemporary art in the transatlantic world. Lecture and granted research projects led her to the Universities of Düsseldorf, Munich and Duisburg-Essen, where she completed the research project »The Anachronic and the Present: Aesthetic Perception and Artistic Concepts of Temporality in the ›Black Atlantic‹«.