Recently in analytic philosophy, interest in the issue of the epistemic value of art has been revived. Philosophers have sought to establish whether and in what ways art is a source of knowledge, understanding or a means of inquiry. In philosophy this is a longstanding question, addressed both in the Greek and German traditions, but it seems pertinent to ask the question again today in light of significant changes that have taken place in contemporary art practice. In my thesis, I investigate this question from two perspectives: in terms of analytic philosophy of art, and in terms of developments in contemporary art since the 1960s. In Part I, I offer a defence of a philosophical theory of artistic value, critically overview the extant philosophical literature on the question of epistemic value of art, and explain why the inherently experimental character of contemporary art makes it difficult simply to apply the available theories. I argue that a philosophical engagement with contemporary art requires a different, more inductive method. In Part II, I closely consider three recent developments in which the relationship between art and knowledge has been rendered more complex. The Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s privileged concerns with concepts, thought processes and truth over expression, materiality and fidelity to genre. The social turn of the 1990s cast the artist in a position that is almost indistinguishable from that of a teacher, social activist or even of a technology developer. And the artists working within the bio art movement of the 1990s and 2000s have assimilated the activity of the artist to that of the scientist, sometimes blurring the two roles. The goal of the thesis is twofold. On the one hand, I show how cases from recent art history put pressure on some key commitments in recent analytic philosophy. Revisions and challenges are suggested in particular for extant theories of artistic value, conceptions of artistic autonomy and heteronomy, and some popular accounts of the epistemic value of art. On the other hand, concepts from analytic philosophy are used to shed light on some of the more radical developments in recent art practice, and to rethink the ways in which art participates in the broader culture.

New Genre Public Art was originally defined by Suzanne Lacy in 1991 as an activist approach to the public; it was a type of public art that was often created outside the institutional structure which brought the artist into direct engagement with the audience, while addressing social and political issues. In 1993, the public art exhibition ’Culture in Action’, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, marked a conceptual shift from static to dynamic public art. The exhibition is considered a landmark event in the development of public art as it was among the first projects to frame communities as the structure and content of its art.During the past decade (2010–2020), urban development has become incorporated as an integral part of the work of the Public Art Agency Sweden, and the agency have established their own curatorial department in order to curate and produce their own public art exhibitions. As Public Art Agency Sweden is a State agency, their work is largely determined by official policies formulated by the Swedish government. This thesis analyzes the contemporary policies of urban public art by conducting an interdisciplinary critical discourse analysis that merges art history, curatorial– and urban studies, in order to trace the influence of discourse to how Public Art Agency Sweden has operated within this intersection during the last decade––ultimately to discuss what the Swedish policies on public art strive to achieve and the risks, ethics and responsibilities of the emerging field of urban, context-based curatorship.