Neben der Infragestellung der traditionellen Konzepte von Klassizismus und Romantik integriert dieses bedeutende Werk von 1930, wie der Titel vermuten lässt, eine Vielzahl von Texten, die das Fantastische und die verfluchten Themen (Sadismus, Satanismus, Erotismus) betreffen, die am Ende des Jahrhunderts von Baudelaire, Lautréamont und, um zwei Beispiele zu nennen, Swinburne und d'Annunzio gepriesen werden.
"A Companion to Contemporary Art in a Global Framework (CAGF) is designed to provide a cultural, political, social, and aesthetic history of post-1980 visual arts in a global framework. The book is intended for students and specialists, but also for any reader interested in what art is and what it does in and beyond the Euro-American (shorthand for European and North American-so called Western) context. By "global framework," the book points to the necessity of moving beyond the Euro-American canons of art and artists while recognizing the structurally European bases for what we call art and its institutions. That is, the book does not claim global coverage, but rather offers a wide range of perspectives by curators, artists, art historians, performance studies scholars, and others on art since 1980 both within and beyond the Western context"--