issue

   An issue is often a point or matter of discussion, debate, or dispute. Some issues of great interest in the art world may be eternal, while others come and go from time to time. There are always issues concerning aesthetics and metaphysics. The word "issue" is often used as a general reference to problematic circumstances that draw upon the common disciplines of knowledge, such as sociology, economics, ethics, and literary criticism. In recent years, among the issues important to artists have been conceptual art, feminism, gender, multiculturalism, commodification, and postmodernism. Further examples of issues can be found in the contexts of articles about cultures, periods, movements, and styles. Also see art criticism, genre, interdisciplinary, isms and -ism, meaning, quality, semiotic, subject, theme, and theory.