This article considers how contemporary artists have been engaged with processes of militarization and governmentalization since 11 September 2001. It signals three areas of critical thematic interest where contemporary art intersects with contemporary geopolitics - questions of the body, of technology and of 'things out of place' - and suggests that, while its practices and effects require careful critical attention, contemporary art is a field in which it is possible to reflect on how geopolitics might be enacted differently.