What is “quantitative aesthetics” and how does it change art?

One of the most exciting things about being an arts journalist is that art as a subject is ridiculously protean: what it looks like is always changing, how we engage with it is always changing, and the role it plays in society is always changing too.

This means that you have to constantly change your point of view to see it properly.

Looking for the right lens on art, if you’re really good and really lucky, sometimes you even get to name that lens, like Pop Art, for example. Artnet News national art critic Ben Davis writes an essay that sheds light on a recent change in art that has made great waves among connoisseurs. It’s a new trend he calls the quantitative aesthetic, and this week he joins Andrew Goldstein on the Art Angle podcast to discuss it.