“Sustainability” is a controversial term for its implied willingness to support an unworkable system. The analysis of its contradictions leads us to a horizon of “downshifting” that, far from specific technological innovations, demands global cultural solutions. This urgency, in addition to the crisis of modernism and its legitimation of artistic autonomy and futility, has encouraged contextual art practices. Practices that often advocate a direct relationship with the “real” without the mediation of artistic formalities. Neglecting these elements of mediation and those areas of autonomy may, however, not only hamper the necessary reinterpretation and reassessment of the “real” achievement of the system but also to give fuel to functionalis...