New Books In Art

Tai Shani (Turner Prize winning artist, educator and author of Our Fatal Magic) and Amy Hale (anthropologist, folklorist, and writer) discuss the work of artist, occultist and writer Ithell Colquhoun to celebrate the publication of Amy’s book Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of The Fern Loved Gully. This book offers the first in-depth biographical study of the British surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, situating her art within the magical contexts that shaped her imaginative life and work. After decades of neglect, Colquhoun's unique vision and hermetic life have become an object of great renewed interest, both for artists and for historians of magic. Although her paintings are represented in such major collections as Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery, Colquhoun's rejection of both avant-garde and occult orthodoxies resulted in a life of relative obscurity. Her visual and written works have only recently received adequate recognition as a precursor to contemporary experiments in magical autobiogr

Lauren Fournier, writer, independent curator, artist, and author of Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism discusses her forthcoming book with writer, educator and philosopher McKenzie Wark (A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, Capital Is Dead, Reverse Cowgirl.) In the 2010s, the term “autotheory” began to trend in literary spheres, where it was used to describe books in which memoir and autobiography fused with theory and philosophy. In this book, Lauren Fournier extends the meaning of the term, applying it to other disciplines and practices. Fournier provides a long-awaited account of autotheory, situating it as a mode of contemporary, post-1960s artistic practice that is indebted to feminist writing, art, and activism. Investigating a series of works by writers and artists including Chris Kraus and Adrian Piper, she considers the politics, aesthetics, and ethics of autotheory. Fournier argues that the autotheoretical turn signals the tenuousness of illusory separations between art and

In her groundbreaking and timely book Think Tank Aesthetics: Midcentury Modernism, the Cold War, and the Neoliberal Present (MIT Press, 2020), distinguished art historian Pamela M. Lee poses fundamental questions about how the rise of the “think tank” in the mid-20th century has challenged, and indeed must challenge, our understandings of aesthetics, political economy, scholarly knowledge production, and war. A conceptually rich and prolifically sourced work, Think Tank Aesthetics shows how the approaches and methods of think tanks—including systems theory, operations research, and cybernetics—paved the way for a peculiar genre of midcentury modernism and set the terms for contemporary neoliberalism. Describing the distinctive aesthetics that emerged from such institutions as the RAND Corporation, and transporting the reader from Santa Monica, California, to Vienna, to Santiago de Chile, Pamela Lee maps the multiple and overlapping networks that connected nuclear strategists, mathematicians, economists, anthr

On the centenary of the fascist party's ascent to power in Italy, Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (Bloomsbury, 2022) examines the ways in which exhibitions organised after the fall of Mussolini's regime to the present day have shaped collective memory, historical narratives, and political discourse around the Italian ventennio. It charts how shows on fascism have evolved since the postwar period in Italy, explores representations of Italian fascism in exhibitions across the world, and highlights blindspots in art and cultural history, as well as in exhibition practices.  Curating Fascism treats fascism as both a historical moment and a major paradigm through which critics, curators, and the public at large have defined the present moment. It interweaves historical perspectives, critical theory, and direct accounts of exhibitions from the people who conceived them or responded to them most significantly in order to examine the main curatorial strategies, cultural re

In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Turin, Italy, as one of the original shrouds used to prepare Jesus Christ’s body for entombment. From that year into the next century, the Shroud of Turin emerged as Christianity’s preeminent religious artifact. In an unprecedented new look, Andrew R. Casper sheds new light on one of the world’s most famous and controversial religious objects. Since the early twentieth century, scores of scientists and forensic investigators have attributed the Shroud’s mysterious images to painterly, natural, or even supernatural forces. Casper, however, shows that this modern opposition of artifice and authenticity does not align with the cloth’s historical conception as an object of religious devotion. Examining the period of the Shroud’s most enthusiastic following, from the late 1500s through the 1600s, he reveals how it came to be considered an artful relic―a divine painting

The twentieth-century artist Bruno Schulz was born an Austrian, lived as a Pole, and died a Jew. First a citizen of the Habsburg monarchy, he would, without moving, become the subject of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, the Second Polish Republic, the USSR, and, finally, the Third Reich. Yet to use his own metaphor, Schulz remained throughout a citizen of the Republic of Dreams. He was a master of twentieth-century imaginative fiction who mapped the anxious perplexities of his time; Isaac Bashevis Singer called him “one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived.” Schulz was also a talented illustrator and graphic artist whose masochistic drawings would catch the eye of a sadistic Nazi officer. Schulz’s art became the currency in which he bought life. In Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History (Norton, 2023), Benjamin Balint chases the inventive murals Schulz painted on the walls of an SS villa―the last traces of his vanished world―into multiple dimensions of the artist’s life

C. Riley Snorton and Hentyle Yapp read from Saturation, a book that offers an analysis of racial representation and controversy in the art world. Controversies involving race and the art world are often discussed in terms of diversity and representation—as if having the right representative from a group or a larger plurality of embodied difference would absolve art institutions from historic forms of exclusion. This book offers another approach, taking into account not only questions of racial representation but also issues of structural change and the redistribution of resources. In essays, conversations, discussions, and artist portfolios, contributors confront in new ways questions at the intersection of art, race, and representation. The book uses saturation as an organizing concept, in part to suggest that current paradigms cannot encompass the complex realities of race. Saturation provides avenues to situate race as it relates to perception, science, aesthetics, the corporeal, and the sonic. In color th

So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused—superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects (Reaktion Books, 2021) gathers together an exceptional range of artists, curators, architects, critics, and academics, including Hal Foster, Barry Bergdoll, Deyan Sudjic, Tacita Dean, Emily Orr, Richard Wentworth, and many more. In eighty-five essays, contributors nominate “extinct” objects and address them in a series of short, vivid, sometimes personal accounts, speaking not only of obsolete technologies, but of other ways of thinking, making, and interacting with the world. Extinct is filled with curious, half-remembered objects, each one evoking a future that never came to pass. It is also a visual treat, full of interest and delight. Barbara Penner is professor of architectural humanities at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Adrian Forty is professor emeritus of architectural

John Jennings—Hugo Award winner, New York Times bestselling author, curator, scholar, and Artist—is keenly aware that in adapting novels for the graphic format, his decisions turn what has only been imagined into facts drawn on the page. In this conversation with critic, translator, and teacher of a creative course on the art of making comics, Jean-Christophe Cloutier, Jennings explores how he makes those decisions that range from the design of endpapers to selecting a character’s skin tone with the ultimate aim of championing Black culture and Black comics. Given that Jennings has just entered the Marvel Universe with the debut of Silver Surfer: Ghost Light, the timing is right to reflect on the pressures and pleasures of adapting beloved stories for a contemporary audience. Jennings is both teacher and student of comics’ powerful lessons, and lucky for listeners, his course comes with an illustrated syllabus, aka illabus. In the podcast’s first ever episode about graphic novels, Jennings and Cloutier talk c

Dr. John McCannon's new biography of Russian artist, mystic, and all-around fascinating character Nicholas Roerich follows its subject from his artistic beginnings in the 1880's to the end of his life in India, in the 1940's. While not generally a household name in the English-speaking world, Roerich's influence punches over its weight. Roerich worked on the Rite of Spring, with Stravinsky, attempted to create a pan-Buddhist state in Asia, and may have influenced the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. All this and more, makes Roerich a wonderful character for a biography, and Nicholas Roerich: The Artist Who Would Be King (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023) brings out that character, in all its engaging and sometimes maddening complexity. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Rus

In Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse (MIT Press, 2022), Craig Leonard argues for the contemporary relevance of the aesthetic theory of Herbert Marcuse, an original member of the Frankfurt School and icon of the New Left, while also acknowledging his philosophical limits. This account reinvigorates Marcuse for contemporary readers, putting his aesthetic theory into dialogue with anti-capitalist activism. Craig Leonard speaks to Pierre d’Alancaisez about anti-art, habit, the practice of defamiliarisation, a subversion of common sense. Leonard brings forward Marcuse’s claim that the aesthetic dimension is political because of its refusal to operate according to the repressive common sense that establishes and maintains relationships dictated by advanced capitalism. Craig Leonard‘s research and teaching interests include artist publications, sound art, performance and sculpture. His recent exhibitions include Central Art Garage (Ottawa), Darling Green (New York) and Double Happiness (Toronto). He is associ

In this episode of High Theory, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan talks with us about computer graphics. Emerging from tools for sailing and warmaking, like sea charts and radar, modern computer graphics are technologies of mapping and managing risk. They seem intent on absorbing the human sensorium into the machine. In the episode Bernard refers to computer graphics as “techniques of addressing,” a term he attributes to Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal. He also uses the term “operational images” which comes from the work of Harun Farocki, and talks about SAGE, the US Government’s Cold War era Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Air Defense System. Bernard references Paul Edward’s book A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2013). He also mentions the German scholar Christoph Borbach who has written on auditory computer interfaces, and American disability studies scholar Mara Mills, who has written on the Deaf history of computing. He was kind enough to give us an extensiv

In this podcast we discuss visibility, haunting and fascism with art historian and theorist Elizabeth Otto. Otto's book Haunted Bauhaus explores the marginalized histories of occult spirituality, gender fluidity and queer identity within the Bauhaus; offering fresh insight into one of the most canonized periods of European art history. The Bauhaus (1919–1933) is widely regarded as the twentieth century's most influential art, architecture, and design school, celebrated as the archetypal movement of rational modernism and famous for bringing functional and elegant design to the masses. In Haunted Bauhaus, art historian Elizabeth Otto liberates Bauhaus history, uncovering a movement that is vastly more diverse and paradoxical than previously assumed. Otto traces the surprising trajectories of the school's engagement with occult spirituality, gender fluidity, queer identities, and radical politics. The Bauhaus, she shows us, is haunted by these untold stories. The Bauhaus is most often associated with a handful

Ferenc Hörcher's book Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) covers the field of and points to the intersections between politics, art and philosophy. Its hero, the late Sir Roger Scruton had a longstanding interest in all fields, acquiring professional knowledge in both the practice and theory of politics, art and philosophy. The claim of the book is, therefore, that contrary to a superficial prejudice, it is possible to address the philosophical issues of art and politics in the same oeuvre, as the example of this Cambridge-educated analytical philosopher proves. Accordingly, the book has a bold thesis on the general, theoretical level, mapping the connections between politics, art and philosophy. However, it also has a pioneering commitment on the level of the particular, offering the first full-length study into the philosophical legacy of Roger Scruton, probably the most important British conservative philosopher of the late 20th and the first decades of th

In A Time of One's Own: Histories of Feminism in Contemporary Art (Duke UP, 2022) Catherine Grant examines how contemporary feminist artists are turning to broad histories of feminism ranging from political organizing and artworks from the 1970s to queer art and activism in the 1990s. Exploring artworks from 2002 to 2017 by artists including Sharon Hayes, Mary Kelly, Allyson Mitchell, Deirdre Logue, Lubaina Himid, Pauline Boudry, and Renate Lorenz, Grant maps a revival of feminism that takes up the creative and political implications of forging feminist communities across time and space. Grant characterizes these artists’ engagement with feminism as a fannish, autodidactic, and collective form of learning from history. This fandom of feminism allows artists to build relationships with previous feminist ideas, artworks, and communities that reject a generational model and embrace aspects of feminism that might be seen as embarrassing, queer, or anachronistic. Accounting for the growing interest in feminist art

In this episode, our host Sim Gill discusses the book Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste (2021) by Jonathan Gray. You’ll hear about: A brief history of the book and its connection to global studies of media and communication; The role of media and cultural studies in amplifying the voices of dislikers, and how can scholars in these fields better understand and appreciate the register of dislike; The method of refractive audience analysis as a way to understand how adaptations of media texts affect people's perceptions of the original texts; How paratexts can shape audience perceptions and understanding of a media product; How the gendered norms may hinder women from expressing dislike, and how this relates to larger cultural systems of dislike, including political contexts; Some recent developments that have added to or changed the initial arguments/findings in the book. About the book Dislike-Minded draws from over two-hundred qualitative interviews to probe what the media’s

Material objects—things made, used, and treasured—tell the story of a people and place. So it is for the Indigenous Sámi living in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, whose story unfolds across borders and centuries, in museums and private collections. As described in From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture (University of Minnesota, 2023) by Barbara Sjoholm, the objects created by the Sámi for daily and ceremonial use were purchased and taken by Scandinavians and foreign travelers in Lapland from the seventeenth century to the present, and the collections described in From Lapland to Sápmi map a complex history that is gradually shifting to a renaissance of Sámi culture and craft, along with the return of many historical objects to Sápmi, the Sámi homeland. The Sámi objects first collected in Lapland by non-Indigenous people were drums and other sacred artifacts, but later came to include handmade knives, decorated spoons, clothing, and other domestic items owned by Sámi reinde

Christopher Celenza is one of the foremost contemporary scholars of the Renaissance. His ambitious new book The Italian Renaissance and the Origin of the Humanities: An Intellectual History, 1400-1800 (Cambridge UP, 2021) focuses on the body of knowledge which we now call the humanities, charting its roots in the Italian Renaissance and exploring its development up to the Enlightenment. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the author shows how thinkers like Lorenzo Valla and Angelo Poliziano developed innovative ways to read texts closely, paying attention to historical context, developing methods to determine a text's authenticity, and taking the humanities seriously as a means of bettering human life. Alongside such novel reading practices, technology – the invention of printing with moveable type – fundamentally changed perceptions of truth. Celenza also reveals how luminaries like Descartes, Diderot, and D'Alembert – as well as many lesser-known scholars – challenged traditional ways of thinking. Celenza's

The Heart of the Forest: Why Woods Matter (British Library, 2022) looks at threats to forest life across the globe. Dr. John Miller draws on literature, film and art to explore why woods matter to us, building on the ecological case for saving trees to raise the compelling question of their cultural value. The Heart of the Forest explores four enduring ways in which we connect to the woods – through Refuge, Sacredness, Horror and Hope – making fascinating links between emotion and genre. For Henry David Thoreau, the woods are places beyond civilisation; for Ursula LeGuin and C S Lewis, they are loaded with otherworldly potential; and for those fleeing captivity, they can provide a welcome sanctuary. Woods can strike fear, they can inspire wonder, they can be lovely, dark and deep. With full-colour illustration throughout, this book branches out into the British Library to find both the haunting and the hopeful in an unparalleled collection of books, manuscripts and photography. It tells a global story of how

Explores expressionlessness, inscrutability, and emotional withholding in Black cultural production.  Arguing that inexpression is a gesture that acquires distinctive meanings in concert with blackness, Deadpan: The Aesthetics of Black Inexpression (NYU Press, 2023) tracks instances and meanings of deadpan—a vaudeville term meaning “dead face”—across literature, theater, visual and performance art, and the performance of self in everyday life. Tina Post reveals that the performance of purposeful withholding is a critical tool in the work of black culture makers, intervening in the persistent framing of African American aesthetics as colorful, loud, humorous, and excessive. Beginning with the expressionless faces of mid-twentieth-century documentary photography and proceeding to early twenty-first-century drama, this project examines performances of blackness’s deadpan aesthetic within and beyond black embodiments, including Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Neighbors, as well as Buste