Vampire in the text : narratives of contemporary art

Abstract

The aim of this volume of thirty selected essays with an introduction was to demonstrate a model of interdisciplinary critical writing on contemporary art based in hermeneutics rather than in art history or aesthetics, offering some insights into the relationship between the practices of visual art and theory, and testing the model's application to the socio-political relationship between ‘marginalised' artists and the Western art institution. The essays, particularly those in the section ‘Art In Context', were among the first attempts to explore how art practice contributes to acquiring political and aesthetic agency by subordinated subjects emerging from traumatic colonial histories, and were supported by research into the histories of Ireland and indigenous America with emergent postcolonial discourse. The book was both a retrospective assessment of research to date and a clarification of the ground from which further research was subsequently developed; therefore it comprised previously unpublished essays alongside others that had appeared mostly in foreign publications. The book was commissioned by the Institute of International Visual Arts as part of their series on writers in the field of art and postcolonial studies; the Preface was written by the international Mexican curator and critic Cuauhtemoc Medina. The research led to invitations to contribute original essays to publications on individual artists, most recently Francis Alys, Phaidon, 2007 [ISBN 9780714843216], and Willie Doherty, A and R Mexico, 2006 [ISBN 109689056034]; on indigenous America, including Vision, Space, Desire, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, 2006 [ISBN 9781933565071] and The American West, Compton Verney, 2005 [ISBN 0954654579]; and conference papers on globalization, including Venice Biennale, 2005; Sharjah Biennial, 2005; Shanghai Biennial, 2004. Reviews appeared in Exitbook: Revista de libros de arte y cultura visual, Madrid, 2004; Third Text, 2004; Art Monthly, 2004; and Journal of Visual Culture, 2005. Portfolio available.

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