What Is Research in the Visual Arts?: Obsession, Archive, Encounter (Clark Studies in the Visual Arts) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300134134 ISBN 13: 9780300134131

Publisher: Clark Art Institute, 2009

Synopsis

With essays by Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Marc Gotlieb, Serge Guilbaut, Michael Ann Holly, Akira Mizuta Lippit, W. J. T. Mitchell, Joanne Morra, Sina Najafi, Alexander Nemerov, Celeste Olalquiaga, Alexander Potts, and Reva Wolf    

 

The discipline of art history is in a moment of self-consciousness, and art historians are increasingly more self-reflexive about their practices. In this volume, thirteen authors address both the philosophical and practical issues now facing those in the visual arts field by investigating the ever-pressing issue of research.

 

Their essays explore the remarkable nature of art historians’ personal, political, aesthetic, creative, and emotive curiosity and the process of doing research in the archive, library, studio, gallery, museum, and beyond. As such, the book considers the pleasures and dangers of researchers’ obsessions and encounters with the incoherence, chaos, and wonder that lie at the heart of searching for the not-yet-known. The volume is based on the 2007 Clark Conference of the same name.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Ann Holly is director of the Research and Academic Program at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Marquard Smith is Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, London, and editor-in-chief of the journal of visual culture.

Review

"With its exceptional research and writing, this volume will prove valuable to scholars and practitioners in the various facets of arts research."―Reference & Research Book News (Reference & Research Book News 2009-05-01)

Edition details

• Publisher: Clark Art Institute
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0300134134
• ISBN 13: 9780300134131
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 246
• Editor: Holly Michael Ann, Smith Marquard