Annotated Bibliography History Of Art History

HISTORY OF ART HISTORY
Annotated Bibliography
1
Yue Ren (#2378009)
Sampada Aranke
ARTHI 5007: The History of Art History
12th December 2017
Entry Table of Titles
1 Albuquerque, Fellipe., Eloy., Teixeira. “Contemporary Art and Construction
Gender Equality.” Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! An approach to underground
music scenes. Eds. Guerra Paula and Moreira Tania. Porto: Universidade de
Porto, 2015. 137-144.
2 Aloi, Giovanni. “Levels of Proximity.” Art and Animals. London: I. B. Tauris,
2011. 49-67.
3 Bal, Mieke and Norman Bryson. “Semiotics and Art History: A Discussion of
Context and Senders.” The Art Bulletin Vol. 73. No. 2 (June, 1991): 174-182.
4 Clifford, James. “On Collecting Art and Culture.” The Predicament of Culture:
Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press, 2002. 94-107.
5 Foster, Hal. “The Artist as Ethnographer?” Global Visions: Towards a New
Internationalism in the Visual Arts. Ed. Jean Fisher. London: Kala Press, 1994.
12-19.
6 Fusco, Coco. “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.” TDR (1988-)
Vol. 38. No.1 (Spring, 1994): 143-167.
7 González, Jennifer A. “James Luna: Artifacts and Fictions.” Subject to Display:
Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art. Cambridge, Mass: MIT,
2011. 22- 63.
8 Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Reading
Images. Ed. Julia Thomas. New York: Palgrave, 2000. 123-137.
9 Hung, Wu. “A Case of Being ‘Contemporary’: Conditions, Spheres and
Narratives of Contemporary Chinese Art.” Antinomies of Art and Culture:

2
Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity. Eds. Okwui Enwezor, Nancy
Condee and Terry Smith. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008. 290-306.
10 Nakajima, Izumi. “Yayoi Kusama between Abstraction and Pathology.”
Psychoanalysis and the Image. Ed. Griselda Pollock. Malden: Blackwell, 2006.
127-160.
11 Krauss, Rosalind. “Grids.” October Vol. 9. (Summer, 1979): 50-64.
12 Kwon, Miwon. “One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity.” October
Vol. 80. (Spring, 1997): 85-110.
13 Morley, Simon. “Introduction: The contemporary sublime.” The Sublime. Ed.
Simon Morley. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. 12-17.
14 Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Artnews,
January 1971.” Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader. Ed. Maura Reilly.
New York: Thames & Hudson, 2015: 42-68.
15 Rancière, Jacques, and Gregory Elliott. “The Emancipated Spectator.” The
Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso, 2011. 1-23.
16 Solomon-Godeau, A. “Inside/Out.” Public Information: Desire, Disaster,
Document. San Francisco, CA: SFMOMA; New York: Distributed Art
Publishers, 1994.
the-cinema-kid. (2017). Inside/Out. [online] Available at: http://the-cinema-
kid.tumblr.com/post/100524666666/insideout [Accessed 9 Dec. 2017].
17 Stimson, Blake. “The Promise of Conceptual Art.” Conceptual Art: A Critical
Anthology. Eds. Alberro, Alexander, and Blake Stimson. Cambridge, Mass:
MIT Press, 1999. xxxviii-lii.
18 Wagner, Anne M. “Bourgeois Prehistory, or the Ransom of Fantasies.” Oxford
Art Journal Vol. 22. No. 2 (1999): 5-23.
19 White, Hayden. “The Burden of History.” History and Theory Vol. 5. No. 2
(1966): 111-134.
20 Wölfflin, Heinrich. “Introduction: The Double Root of Style.” Principles of Art
History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. Trans. M.D.
Hottinger. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1950. 1-12.

3
Albuquerque, Fellipe., Eloy., Teixeira. “Contemporary Art and Construction
Gender Equality.” Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! An approach to underground
music scenes. Eds. Guerra Paula and Moreira Tania. Porto: Universidade de
Porto, 2015. 137-144.
Fellipe Eloy try to discuss the contributions of artists through art history for the
construction of gender equality (137). The author first indicated the development of
feminist movement in society as a mark of egalitarian and democratic transformation,
then probed into how constructions of gender equality had later influenced the artistic
creation and criticism, especially in postmodernism. Fellipe examined the emergence
of feminist art by connecting the economic and social class issue of women, which he
thought was displayed in the modernism painting. In the closing part, the author
explained how institutional and marketing power shaped the representation and
evaluation of art, when gender is considered.
Fellipe referred to the cultural history of 1960s as well as the multiple artistic
forms during that period, to discuss the construction of gender. The author was in line
with the theory of Ranciere, which declared art is political because of its demonstration
of stigmata of domination (138). Later he took Michael Foucault’s argument to
investigate the formulation of queer artists groups and their projects, where he indicated
that both gender issues and other social concerns, like racism and cultural
discrimination were included in their work (140).
This piece articulates some basic facts on gender concerns of art development. It’s
more like a whole picture with sub-sections that we can further explore, by adding more
literature and cases into each branch. For me, perhaps the crucial point in examining
the gender issue in art history and social science is to make clear the agency of speakers.
The data from art market can provide a reference to the evaluating criteria, but that’s
not sufficient. I value more the methodology that emphasizes the comparison of
historical narration towards a certain topic (like construction of gender), as well as in-

4
depth case studies, since such records can always be efficient supplements for the
objective data or pre-existed art history writings.
Aloi, Giovanni. “Levels of Proximity.” Art and Animals. London: I. B. Tauris,
2011. 49-67.
Giovanni examined the identity politics of human being meat-eater and pet-lover
in his piece of “Levels of Proximity”. He first looked into an installation by graffiti
artist Banksy, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, to address that the similarities
(actually homogeneity) shared by pets and animals, and eventually, animals and human
(50). Then he probed the implied political awareness into meat consumption,
admiration for art works which represent animals, and human as the cooperator in
shaping the perception and behavior on animals. He claimed an urgent concern by
several case studies, which articulated as how animal can human be, and what’s the
boundary and measurement of the proximity between animal and human.
To investigate the symbolic values of meat, Giovanni referred to the argumentation
of Carol J. Adams on the history of meat-eating culture, where the concerns of gender,
race and class implications emerged (53). By reviewing Marc Quinn’s exhibition Flesh,
he also proposed the equivalence among all life (54). Giovanni then borrowed Deleuze
and Guattari’s theory on deterritorialization to examine the process of “becoming
animal”, which, according to him, is a process of transformation from cultural major to
cultural minor (55), and this process is later demonstrated by two cases of performance
art, executed by Zhang Huan and Oleg Kulik respectively.
I enjoy roaming within those interesting cases applied to this piece. This urges me
to think about terms as desire, unconsciousness, and repressed wildness in human body.
At the same time, I think about the exposure of vulnerability of both human and animals.
When people show their vulnerability or other uncontrolled sentiments/behaviors, they
are more easily to be in line with animal. The exploration of “being animal” actually
conveys people’s awareness of such proximity and ambiguity in self-identification,
although it seems abstract.

5
Bal, Mieke and Norman Bryson. “Semiotics and Art History: A Discussion of
Context and Senders.” The Art Bulletin Vol. 73. No. 2 (June, 1991): 174-182.
Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson put at the beginning of their work that, semiotic
theory is an unceasing process of sign making and interpreting, with something to
contribute to the study of art (174). The particularly examined the term “context”, and
put two questions in this piece, including how semiotics challenges the fundamental
practices of art history, and how it can further the analyses in this discipline (175).
Mieke and Bryson considered image as signs and valued the interdisciplinary virtues
of semiotics itself, which lead to their progressive claims on methodological
transformation in art history. They declared that context, to some degree, is unable to
define the essential meaning of semiotics, since context itself is also undergoing
interminable interpretation (177); thus, the additional factors discovered or reclaimed
in context won’t perfect that, but only adds to its burden. They also concerned the
“chronological reversal” in art-historical analysis (179), since art work itself generated
an on-site and in-time context when it is displayed ahead of audience. The same thing
happens when we examine the authority, where emplotments always shape our
recognition towards “author” as “sender” (181).
They referred to the critical rationalism and Frankfurt School to explain that art
history and modern semiotics has been confronted with the pressure of reaching
positive knowledge, with pointing out that although affected by the linguistic turn, the
authentication of oeuvres and social history are still pursued by art history, thus what
happened to art history was actually a semiotic turn (175). By citing Jonathan Culler’s
work claiming that “context is not given but produced”, they furtherly pointed out that
context itself requires interpretation (175). They later brought up literature theory to
introduce how the concepts from literature, such as metaphor, were related to visual art
analyses (176), including the contextual interpretation (according to Derrida and Lacan).
This piece reminds me to be cautious of the function scheme of “context”. People
used to seek the basic facts of an art work or social event, then they move to the

6
contextual analysis or in-depth associations of it, in aspects of history, culture, and
politics. However, suggestive implications cannot be avoided when we refer to any
theory or visual materials. This makes me think of curatorial principles of exhibition,
yet it’s paradoxical in constructing a “suitable context” for art works in white boxes or
specific locations. Perhaps what matters is still the association from critical perspective
besides superficial appearance, in ways of both aestheticism and philosophy.
Clifford, James. “On Collecting Art and Culture.” The Predicament of Culture:
Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press, 2002. 94-107.
In his piece “On Collecting Art and Culture”, Clifford investigated the art and
culture in aspects of collecting and displaying, especially artifacts that getting
disconnected from their original context and being relocated to Western institutions. He
pointed out that collecting has been a strategy for the deployment of a possessive self,
culture and authenticity (96), just as children’s collections of their toys. When personal
treasures were made public, the boundary between collection and fetishism was drawn
(97). Clifford then moved to propose what the judging criteria for a “complete
collection” should be like, where the national responsibility, authenticity and social
values were involved, making the legitimacy and significance of collection complicated.
By articulating the main categories of non-western objects being collected and
displayed, Clifford offered a diagram addressing the relationships between authentic
and inauthentic, as well as masterpiece and artifact (100), which he called “the Art-
Culture System”.
Clifford started his propositions from C.B. Macpherson’s concept of Western
“possessive individualism” (1962), and later introduced Handler’s analysis on authentic
domain of identity, which he asserted tied up with nationalist politics (96). Then he
cited Stewart’s On Longing and other works by Phillip Fisher, Daniel Defert, etc., to
review how objects in museums or collecting rooms were cut away from specific
contexts and became an “abstract whole” (97), by which the Western identity was

7
formed. By examining the concepts of “cabinet of curiosities” and referring to E. F.
Jomard’s ethnographic classifications, Clifford furtherly articulated how those exotic
objects reconfirmed the Europe’s triumphant present while demonstrating the
conditions of early human culture (103).
This piece is quite interesting to me by its concentration for individual fetishism.
I’m always addicted to the personal, informal collections from non-institutional
agencies, which in my eyes conveyed much more subtle emotions and intimate
narrations than the official ones. That makes me think about a potential interpretative
path on identity formation in regards of object collecting and discarding. I was also
fascinated by the classification of exotic objects that related to folklore, which reminded
me of many locally based museums that specially exhibits small-scaled shows, but with
intensive meanings to probe. The development and transformation on form, principles
and philosophies of collections provided me with more clues in museology studies,
which was extremely supportive and to the point.
Foster, Hal. “The Artist as Ethnographer?” Global Visions: Towards a New
Internationalism in the Visual Arts. Ed. Jean Fisher. London: Kala Press, 1994.
12-19.
Succeed to Walter Benjamin’s phrase that “The Author as Producer”, Hal Foster
came up with his idea and formulation on the extensive term of “The Artist as
Ethnographer”. Foster argued that artists today are confronted with an identity of
cultural/ethnical other, with the consistent assumptions from the semi-anthropology
paradigm where an “ideological patronage” emerged (13). He disputed the automatic
coding that taking otherness as outsiders, which scheme according to him has enabled
a cultural politics of marginality (13). When examining the standing of anthropology
(as well as ethnography), Foster explained how this discipline get privilege in
contemporary art study by following traits: science as alterity, culture-targeted,
appearance of contextual methodology (15). However, he doubted the effects of the so-

8
called site-specific project, pointing out that the community is not always bearer of
actual benefits.
Foster brought up two social movements, the dissident Surrealism and the
negritude, that connected the exploration of cultural otherness, yet criticized them of
being limited by their very primitive association (13). He later proposed that, in these
two cases, the project of “ethnographic self-fashioning” became a philosophical
narcissism (14). Therefore, Foster questioned the disciplinary confusion, where the
anthropology might be idealized in the context of contemporary art.
This piece is short yet very provocative to me, with many implied concerns that
fascinated me a lot. The rearrangement of boundaries between each discipline, in the
field of social science, culture study, history and art, is a real dilemma to today’s
research in humanities. I assume that, the shuffle and re-organization amongst these
disciplines could definitely create innovative connections, yet simultaneously generate
ambiguity and disorders, which might lead to drawbacks and skepticism on existing
achievements. In addition, the emerging ethical issues during the process of project
implement will also become a challenge to both institution and the responsible artist.
The most apparent example is the increasingly popular “site-specific project”, where
the wellness and participation of the host community are still in suspension.
Fusco, Coco. “The Other History of Intercultural Performance.” TDR (1988-)
Vol. 38. No.1 (Spring, 1994): 143-167.
“The Other History of Intercultural Performance” is much like notes which
combine record and criticism, regarding on the performance that Coco Fusco and his
collaborative performer, Guillermo Gomez-Pena. In the performance (carried out at
varied locations, including outdoor venues and art museums), Coco Fusco and
Guillermo placed themselves in a golden cage with the assistance of on-site staff,
pretended to be ape-human when interacting with loads of curiosity-driven audience.
Being executor as well as recorder, Fusco discussed the dynamic process of how people
reacted when confronted with the caged performer, and how their behavior and

9
comments are connected to the topics emerging from colonization, globalization, mass
culture and consumerism. The project itself, according to Fusco, was intended to
examine American cultural hybridity and give redefinitions of national origins (145),
as well as explore the relationships between “discovery” and “otherness” (148). In this
piece, a morality-implied debate on whether the constructed, fictional identities of the
artists could be a cheat on the public (143) was also brought to the front.
The inspiration of this project, to some extent, comes from the literary concept of
Franz Kafka, the characters of whom often fall into a situation between truth and fiction
(143) with some animal features conveyed and represented, which well paralleled
Fusco’s performance in a way. A more realistic and historically related reference is the
popularity of exhibiting indigenous people from primary continents in zoos, parks and
other human-established venues, to which Christopher Columbus became the initiator
after his voyage in 1493 (148). Fusco also reclaimed, on a basis of argumentations from
James Clifford and Jerome Rothenberg, that artists are somewhat like aborigines
underwent continuous misinterpretations (151), and so did every other individual.
This piece appears very interesting, even hilarious at the very beginning, since
amounts of first-hand performance records are shown and self-commented by the artist.
Yet some profound as well as controversial points are implied and articulated, which
provoked me to think about the moral implications beneath the surface of art works, no
matter how amusing it looks like. Just like anthropologists doing field work, when it
comes to primary existence, whether it’s culture, species, or rituals, the rights of self-
identification are always deprived, and that’s why one misunderstanding keeps being
covered by another. The performance to me, therefore, resembles more to a certain
protest or manifesto, attempting to raise people’s awareness to what have been ignored
and distorted. For me, another valuable aspect of this piece is thoughts on “artist’s brand
effects”, which seems to blur the boundary of high culture demonstration, academic
discussion, and mass culture consumerism.

10
González, Jennifer A. “James Luna: Artifacts and Fictions.” Subject to Display:
Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art. Cambridge, Mass: MIT,
2011. 22- 63.
Jennifer introduced creation of the performative and installation artist, James Luna,
with a close observation to his representative works. Luna is especially interested in
primitive Indian culture, thus the Indian elements are often applied in his installations,
to create a distinguish style crossing the boundary of indigenous tradition and
contemporary narration, and his practice was thus defined as a kind of nomadism and
hybridity (30). Jennifer pointed out that, contested notions of ownership and
authenticity were at the heart of Luna’s practice, which is conveyed by his appropriative
techniques (37). The exhibiting strategy of Luna’s work and the institutional ethical-
implications were also investigated, since the work itself articulated the conflicts and
integration between indigenous and popular culture, and debates on colonization as well
(41).
Rasheed Araeen’s critique on Homi Bahbha’s theory of hybridity was referred in
this piece to investigate the projects of James Luna. Also, Deleuze and Guattari’s
argumentation on deterritorialization and reterritorialization provided a critical context,
where Jennifer probed the spatial/elemental rearrangement in Luna’s work (37). When
mentioned the institutional settings for exhibition, machines of making authenticity, a
term from James Clifford’s work, was added new meanings by Luna’s performance in
the exhibition venue in regards of the combination of objectivity (the work) and
subjectivity (the artist as a part of the work) (41).
Many phrases with historical concerns from this piece are quite provocative.
Luna’s practice took himself as the material, although this tactic is not that earth-
breaking, it makes me rethink the “value” of an art work. In this case, I assume that the
critical/philosophical value overweighs the historical value, and turns the aesthetic one
to the last consideration. What really fascinated me is the discussion on exhibiting
environment, and the speculations of audience’s preference: they want to see what they
desire and refuse what they fear, and “American like romance more than they like truth”
(49). Does the identity of audience matter, and in what circumstance will the art work
achieve its most, if there should be an aim in artistic creation? That promoted my

11
thoughts that when presenting art works implying political and historically
controversial meanings, what’s the ethical responsibility of institutions should take.
Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Reading
Images. Ed. Julia Thomas. New York: Palgrave, 2000. 123-137.
Bell claimed at the opening paragraph that the “gaze” was always political,
according to her own living experience. She intended to figure out how the black
spectatorship was established and how can her own look change the reality, developing
the “oppositional gaze” (123). Through observations of racial film and interviews to
black women, Bell declared the apparent lack of black womanhood in both filmic
representation and perception (126). And sometimes, the conventional representation
of black women did violence in visual forms, which unavoidably irritates the
consciousness of racism. Bell specially indicated that black women can refuse to be the
image of gaze by their awareness of racism politics, so as to generate a critical space
where they can choose to identify themselves as neither victims nor spectators (130).
Bell referred to Frantz Fanon to re-conclude that the power is inside as well as
outside (124), so its structure is not purely given by the outside world but also
developed in collaboration with people’s inner perception. She also cited Manthia
Diawara’s Black British Cinema to claim how the agency of spectators are filled by a
certain narration in certain context (125). Thus, the “pleasure of resistance and saying
‘no’” (130), which proclaimed by Annette Kuhn in The power of The Image, was in
line with Bell’s proposition.
This piece is provocative in way of using film, a cultural product to develop
analysis on racial and gender concerns. First, whether about racial issues or not, the
film itself is a social-cultural constructed existence, therefore the mass culture can serve
as evidence on the transformation of our society. Second, when it comes to identity
recognition, the intention of film makers and spectators will be very interesting to
explore. It also makes me think of my own empathy while watching Asian movies, by
which I was always aware of the cultural metaphors and implied sentiments. The

12
discipline of cultural structure was so firm that we must be sensitive yet cautious when
confronted with such works and debates.
Hung, Wu. “A Case of Being ‘Contemporary’: Conditions, Spheres and
Narratives of Contemporary Chinese Art.” Antinomies of Art and Culture:
Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity. Eds. Okwui Enwezor, Nancy
Condee and Terry Smith. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008. 290-306.
Wu Hung in this piece examined “contemporary art” of China context, where he
aimed to articulate the particular temporality and spatiality implied by this term. He
proposed that contemporary Chinese art are changing its meaning, depending on the
multiple spaces it was constructed and interpreted (291). Taking 1989’s Tian’anmen
incident as a division, the sudden change of Chinese avant-garde artists’ attitudes and
artistic styles was declared by Wu as the evidence of that, the “modern art” and
“contemporary art” in China are two trends that disconnected in temporal and spatial
schemes, due to the rapid shift of political environment and its brutal effects on the
artists thereafter. According to Wu, art medium, subject, and exhibition are three main
areas that demonstrated the experimental transformation of Chinese contemporary art
after 1989, which challenged the pre-existing art system and made themselves
“contemporary”. In the newly growing system, the experimental art forms used by the
avant-garde artists in China eventually developed into an “international language”
(296), which endows the Chinese art both “contemporaneity” and “internationality”.
With Lv Peng’s two books (one co-authored with Yi Dan), A History of Modern
Chinese Art: 1979-1989, and A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1989-1999, Wu
Hung went on to introduce the concept of yundong, which means movement, and
developed his own term as “contemporary turn” in Chinese art (292), particularly
pointing to the political consciousness that demonstrated in this turning. Wu also
referred to the analytical scheme of social history to explain the psychological
transformation of individuals around 1990s, in which generation the artists are also
included; socioeconomic reforms, floating populations towards metropolitans, and the

13
new stage of globalization that China then entered have jointly “transformed them into
lone individuals facing an alien world.” (295), and that’s why the artists almost gave a
denouncement to painting and turned to more radical artistic representations such as
installations and behavior. Wu on this basis criticized several international exhibitions
of not investigating the political sphere in China at that time, but immediately taking
the Cynical Realism and Political Pop as representative of an “underground” art under
the communist regime (300).
Wu Hung’s argumentation incited me extremely in thinking the relationship
between social transformation and art producing, or the paradox between art works’
social responsibility and aesthetic value. Clarifying contributing factors of the artistic-
style transformation, the interpretation on psychological turning of the avant-garde
artists impressed me a lot and pushed me to look more into the narrative of social-
political oscillation in 1980s and 1990s China. At the same time, it questioned me on
the self-positioning when confronted with such a radically changing world, even today,
as a participator, spectator, recorder and critic. We can no longer understand our
circumstance by only applying nation-based methodology but should always keep an
eye on the entangled forces of globalization, which permeated into every aspect which
we rely on to make decisions. Only with a whole picture of what we are undergoing
will the private narration make sense, and promote our thinking and practice.
Nakajima, Izumi. “Yayoi Kusama between Abstraction and Pathology.”
Psychoanalysis and the Image. Ed. Griselda Pollock. Malden: Blackwell, 2006.
127-160.
Nakajima firstly reviewed Yayoi Kusama’s “Net painting” in this work, dedicating
the term of “obsessional art” (128). According to her argumentation, Kusama’s work
can be read not only as an individual, feminine creation, but also a cultural phenomenon
which implies entangled sexual and racial meanings. Kusama’s mental illness was later
addressed and put in a debate among a lot of artwork reviews, where the critics
contested how her psychological “problem” contributed or disturbed the artistic

14
production, and whether the audience should view these work as a pure personal
expression or socially labelled existence (133). Also, Nakajima pointed out that
Kusama’s standing in Western art world is not a relegated “other” (134), which was
partly influenced by the universal prevalence of abstraction painting after the Second
World War (136), and partly her great reference value in discussion of gendered art
language (147).
Nakajima took three other critics’opinions as reference in developing the formalist
interpretation of Kusama’s Net painting. She briefly articulated Greenberg’s
“American-Type painting”, Judd’s comments on Kusama, and Sydney Tillim’s
comparison on Kusama and Jackson Pollock (130), which all focus on the composition,
color and artistic language of her work; whereas, Alexandra Monroe’s words pulled our
attention back a little to the “artist’s emotional and psychological biography” (131).
The Oedipal model and theory on childhood traumatic experience were also imported
in Nakajima’s articulation, for a better understanding of the gender order and paternal
influence conveyed by Kusama’s art (142).
This piece furtherly opened my recognition regarding the relationship between
unconsciousness and expression. I usually valued sentiments, agency, and subtle
feelings in artistic representations, as well as their communicating strategies with
audience. The discussion on “gendered” art language is also fascinating to me, where I
found the material, composition and creating techniques can all be comprehended in an
emotional way. Additionally, this piece was concentrated on the aesthetic and
theoretical aspects of Kusama’s art, whereas the commercial value of her work is worth
a discussion as well. Before Kusama’s first arrival to New York, she was seeking her
art vitality in the outside world, while today the capital shows a tendency to follow up
cultural plumes; it’s another turn of exchange between power, capital and culture.
Krauss, Rosalind. “Grids.” October Vol. 9. (Summer, 1979): 50-64.
Rosalind Krauss examined the formal, mental and philosophical implications of
“grids” in this work. She pointed out two ways that grids declared the modernity of

15
modern art: in spatial and temporal aspects, respectively (50). In consideration of form
and organization, Krauss claimed that grids state the autonomy of art, demonstrating its
anti-natural essence (50). In her articulation, the modernity of grids is shown by its non-
narrative features (repetition, infinity, and suggestion to unconsciousness), which
indicates its position against superficial meaning, sequential order, and traditional
aesthetic value.
Krauss reviewed the development of perspective skills in fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries to find the early examples of grids (52), and pointed out that the perspective
is eventually related to the science of reality, which is against the nature of grids. She
then moved to nineteen century painting, examining the relationship of optics study and
the concepts of grids, where the later was declared to be the matrix of knowledge (57).
Finally, Krauss borrowed two terms from psychological analysis, to describe the grids
as both “centrifugal” and “centripetal”, implying the infinite expansion towards inner
and outer space, which are separated and connected simultaneously by grids itself (60).
The appealing point to me in this piece is, how the in-depth meaning and relative
artistic, historical and philosophical are organized and clarified. And this makes me cast
more attention to the unconsciousness as well. In concerns of methodology, I’m
provoked by Krauss’s proposal of “etiological awareness” when explore a certain
phenomenon; what matters is not whether development is guaranteed or not. Good art
is not always about change (64), and that would remind me of always attempting to
grasp the essence of an art work, a piece of article, and my own research problems.
Kwon, Miwon. “One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity.” October
Vol. 80. (Spring, 1997): 85-110.
Kwon examined the concept “site specificity” from perspective of contextual
analysis, explaining its double implications in spatial and temporal dimensions. She
indicated that the site-specific project is based on experience (86), which established
an inseparable relationship between the work and its site, and required the audience’s
presence as well. Site specificity also serves as a model of knowledge production and

16
reproduction, which is historically and culturally shaped; Kwon addressed the dynamic
features of site-specific projects, indicating that in certain contexts, the work is rather a
verb/process than a noun/object, which is unrepeatable and fleeting (91). With more
social meaning and institutional forces added, site specificity has gradually transformed
into a “system of practices that open to social, economic, and political pressures (88)”,
where the relationship among artists, institutions and communities should be redefined
(100), and the cultural marginalization/cultural choice should be reexamined (109).
Robert Berry and Richard Serra shared the opinion with Kwon (86); Kwon showed
their argumentation on the relationship between the work and its environment, which
reaffirmed the tight association in between. Also, referring to the artists of Minimalism
and Conceptual art, Kwon brought forth the cultural framework of the physical place,
as well as paid attention to the role of art institute in such projects (88, 93). And by
citing James Meyer’s work, Kwon examined the concept of “functional site”, then she
schematized three paradigms of site specificity: phenomenological, social/institutional,
and discursive (95).
This piece makes me immediately think of Hal Foster’s discussion on the “artists
as ethnographers”. In the dynamic process of social and cultural shifting, both the site
(community) and the work (projects and artists as well) are put in a vibrating system
where their positions, identities and interests are changing in line with each other. Also,
the role of art institutions in the context of site specificity can be tricky, which might
lead to a neo-employment-relations under the power of capital and schematized
patronage. It also arose my concentration on the artists’ original intentions in art
creating, since a collaborative sphere is unavoidable when a site-specific project is
executed. Is the outcome of site specificity a jointly contributed “work”, or is that still
an artistic expression out of the artist’s concern? Or even worse, will it descend to a
wordless and useless manifesto? I’d rather assume maybe there is not a single work that
must be displayed on a unique, specific site; we should be cautious and rethink the
motivations behind the current upsurge of site-specific projects, which might imply a
new form of anti-intellectualism.

17
Morley, Simon. “Introduction: The Contemporary Sublime.” The Sublime. Ed.
Simon Morley. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. 12-17.
Morley in “Introduction: The Contemporary Sublime” introduced the experience
of sublime, its brief history, and philosophical explanation beyond aesthetics.
According to Morley, the experience of “awe” or “wow” can attributed to sublime,
since such feeling implies a potential of exceeding humanity. In this perspective, artists
who probe the theme of sublime and create accordingly are somewhat aimed to produce
a nobler form of art (13), either in results of astonishment, horror, or traumatic
evocation. The relationship between sublime and contemporary culture was also
investigated in this piece, where the latter is often related to the transformative
experience (16).
Morley looked into contemporary artists like Anish Kapoor, Doris Salcedo, and
Mike Kelley, whose work can be appropriately interpreted within the framework of
sublime. Art theory from Longinus, Burke, Kant and Schiller are also referred and
briefly articulated. Most of theories indicated the concept of the “higher being” and
“outer limits” that is floating above human life, which is consistent with the discussion
on otherness (16).
This piece carding the development of the concept “sublime” through a set of art
theory and artist cases. It opened another dimension for me to think about otherness,
which is not actually related to the mundane individuals, but a general sense of
emotional experience. This piece also promoted my thoughts on representation of
traumatic memories in the context of contemporary art. Most of the multi-media art
today are good at producing the “wow” effects, but whether it can be defined as sublime
remains a problem. Besides, I’m interested in the transformation between the
astonishment and horror, which seems to be very shifty, yet leaves a lot to examine and
articulate.

18
Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Artnews,
January 1971.” Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader. Ed. Maura Reilly.
New York: Thames & Hudson, 2015: 42-68.
“Why have there been no great women artists?” is not a powerless complain; in
this piece, Linda Nochlin proposed a fairly translucent question and delivered her
enlightening concerns, if not answers, by a close observation and meticulous criticism
on institutions. Linda argued that there is nothing much to blame with the inborn talent,
which had always been attributed to women’s humbleness on artistic creation; on the
contrary, the imbalanced social structure, to which art training and academia system
belonged was the key factor that prevent women from being great, artistically, and in
many other fields. Noticeably, when coming back to how the original question was
organized, Linda insightfully pointed out that, the articulation of any question can itself
be suggestive (46), which blocked our critical thinking to the inner truth of phenomena
and made us take unfair circumstance for granted.
By giving examples in classical art history, Linda compared the different social
plights between genders in art world: how many of them are descendant of those
acknowledged masters (Nikolaus Pevsner, 61), and how much social and intellectual
resources can they take before literally stepping into the art institution. By referring to
Piaget’s research on intelligence development of young children, she further reclaimed
that “genius is a dynamic activity rather than a static essence.” (50) Thus, criticizing
the anecdotes about “child prodigy” or “poor genius” of concealing social structural
power, Linda emphasized the pivotal function of institutional environment for
individual development, and clarified the multiple difficulties for women to participate
in artistic work under such a men-privileged society.
This piece is very powerful, so well-articulated, and extremely clear on the
research puzzle. It shifted the perspectives that people examine social injustices and
some viewpoints are still valid today, even it’s finished by 1971. It reminds me that, a
researcher should always be aware of the dynamic process of social conditions, rather
than merely sticking to the study subjects, which has a tendency of losing its
significance when put in the real social circumstances. In addition, the ability to collect,
categorize and associate basic cases in art history is extremely important in academic

19
work since rigorous supportive materials can make the argumentation more persuasive,
just as this piece appears. In academic writing, it’s maybe a good way to arrange
argumentative logic by asking segmental questions as well.
Rancière, Jacques, and Gregory Elliott. “The Emancipated Spectator.” The
Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso, 2011. 1-23.
Jacques and Gregory discussed theatrical spectacle in this piece, by which they
examined the relationship between art and politics (2). They forwarded a paradox of
spectator, where the bad reasons of being a spectator, which means to be separated from
both the capacity to know and the power to act (2), were generated. Thus, according to
their arguments, a new theatre where the spectators become active participants shall be
built (4, 5). Here, a set of mutually reflective equivalences and oppositions were
brought up and discussed, such as audience and actor, theatre and community, knowing
and unknown. Jacques and Gregory took the process of delivering, acceptance and
reassurance on education as an example to articulate how knowledge of ignorance
functioned in academia, which was also applied to the experience of “knowing and
participating” in the context of theatrical performance (12). Finally, they concluded that
the aim and significance of emancipation is the equality of intelligence (17), which
enabled everyone to use, share and promote the knowledge and critical thoughts.
The theory of Guy Debord was formulated in this piece to reaffirm the standing of
the authors’ proposal; for Debord, the more one contemplates, the less he lives (6). So
the emancipation begins when the opposition between viewing and acting is challenged,
by analogy in school as the students start to explore what was not taught by the tutor
(14). The authors also discussed the critiques on religion of Feuerbach via the Marxist
alienation theory (15), to further articulate the theatre has a potential to establish a sense
of community.
I was extremely fascinated by their passion to reform the traditional scheme in
theatrical performance. That’s literally what’s happening in the contemporary dramas
and other performative experiments. The position of audience is considerably changed

20
in today’s performative art, where they almost automatically take themselves as
collaborators to certain projects. In addition, I especially admire the writing strategy
applied in this piece. Not only the analogy of pedagogy is efficiently applied in forming
the readers’ accurate perception towards the functioning scheme of theatre, it also by
literal helped me to furtherly understand my own study and research experience.
Solomon-Godeau, A. “Inside/Out.” Public Information: Desire, Disaster,
Document. San Francisco, CA: SFMOMA; New York: Distributed Art
Publishers, 1994.
the-cinema-kid. (2017). Inside/Out. [online] Available at: http://the-cinema-
kid.tumblr.com/post/100524666666/insideout [Accessed 9 Dec. 2017].
Abigail examined the photography work of Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Larry Clark
and some other avant-garde or so-called queer photographers in terms of the
interactivity between subjectivity and objectivity. She then discussed the relationship
of photographers and their picturing subjects, in perspective of the positioning of
spectatorship. On this level, the function and ethical regards of photography were drawn,
and the difference of works from inside photographer and that of outside photographer
should be clarified, according to Abigail. In the closing part, she also doubted the
validity of this binarism itself, since the truth we assumed to see is always functioning
in a representative system, and to this degree, the externality is not to blame at all.
According to Susan Sontag, the processes of objectification was quite complicit
with the photographic representation in Arbus’ work, either in forms of empathy or
identification. Sontag, along with Walter Benjamin, to some degree shared the opinion
that photography is invalid to probe the inner truth of its subject, since “less than ever
does a simple reproduction of reality express something about reality.” (Benjamin,
citing Brecht) Abigail refuted this idea by posting Goldin’s and other queer
photographers’ work, which articulated by her, is actually from an insider position.
This work makes me think of the ethical implications of photography. It seems the
reality is more complicated than what was proclaimed in this article. If the photography

21
works can all be divided into inside-produced or outside-produced, how do we evaluate
the professional photography with professional model? Does the selfie imply ethical
concerns, and how do we identify the subjectivity and objectivity in a selfie? In terms
of self and otherness representation or interpretation, the different context of
photography making can provide a rigorous database for further exploration. I was
really fascinated by the agency of voyeurism, either in the process of taking pictures or
reexamining them; for me, it’s so much to do with the capacity of emotional self-
suspension, which is rather important in the process of approaching reality _ if not the
truth.
Stimson, Blake. “The Promise of Conceptual Art.” Conceptual Art: A Critical
Anthology. Eds. Alberro, Alexander, and Blake Stimson. Cambridge, Mass: MIT
Press, 1999. xxxviii-lii.
In “The Promise of Conceptual Art”, Blake first declared that we must understand
what conceptualism is before we seek its meaning and significance (xxxviii). From his
point of view, conceptualism is a particularly social, cultural and theoretical term as the
result of extremely complicated international situation in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
During that period, social role and historical position of any art movement have been
addressed more harshly and frequently than ever before, and many spontaneous cultural
organizations were actively participating in the anti-authoritarian social movements
(xxxix). The appeal of conceptualism can be generally summed up as critique and
transformations of the existing institutions of art (xlii): the liberation from the authority,
by which the domain of scholarly critics and historians have been holding the privilege
in judging the aesthetic value for years (xli). Later in mid-1970s, conceptualism stepped
to its new stage of social criticism.
Lucy Lippard and John Chandler clarified the significance of the 1968 movement,
and put forward the endangered situation that the artists of that time were facing as well;
they thought the current development of conceptualism was insufficient to achieve its
radical aim. Seth Siegelaub furtherly conveyed the resentment towards the conceptual

22
movement because of its limits within fine art domain (xliii), and Robert Smithson even
addressed that conceptual art was even worse than the fine art, since it was just
“valuable” on its own (xliii). As though criticized, the movement of conceptualism still
raised people’s awareness of reevaluation towards the social dynamic and current
institutions.
This piece is kind of abstract yet very clear in articulating every party’s position
and argumentation. It pushed my concentration into social-historical dimension in
examining an artistic trend, just like examining a special year like 1968. It also incited
me in exploring more precise works, social movements and projects of that time,
especially the hippies culture and the development of poetry. I always hold concerns of
defining the boundary between art and social investigation, and the proposal of
conceptualism that “from studio to study” should be a great reference. By turning to a
more philosophical and social-critical facet of art, I also wonder the transformation of
self-identity for artists as well as researchers in social science.
Wagner, Anne M. “Bourgeois Prehistory, or the Ransom of Fantasies.” Oxford
Art Journal Vol. 22. No. 2 (1999): 5-23.
Anne M. addressed one problem in her piece “Bourgeois Prehistory, or the
Ransom of Fantasies”: what position can narration about an artist (biographies,
autobiographies, poetries, annotated drawings, notes) occupy, regarding audience’s
interpretation of his work? Anne reviewed the family relationships and parental issues
of Bourgeois, which is pivotal in her art creation and her writings. By this retrospection
with new thoughts on the artist’s self-narration, Anne tried to find clues on how the
style of Bourgeois work has formed, especially in terms of modern sculpture, which
made Bourgeois launch to such a big fame (8). Aseries of sculptures by Bourgeois were
then scrutinized, including Harmless Woman (Louise Bourgeois, 1969), Clutching
(1962), Homage to Bernini (1967), etc.; Anne went through their forms, materials and
potential feminine significance, and put forward that the history behind these works is
actually a prehistory of the artist (12).

23
The innovative and tricky parts of Bourgeois work lay in the nuances and agency
that move back and forth amid literature, concepts, material, body and landscapes. Anne
shared with Lucy R. Lippard’s opinion that, Bourgeois has a really literal imagination
(17). Anne also applied Freud’s view to help with understanding how the childhood
memory and traumatic experience work for artist’s creative production (7).
From my perspective, Anne put lots of emotions in writing this piece, what
sometimes I really admire. I was also kindled by the smart and penetrating quotations
that opening each section in this work, which together with the selected sentences from
Bourgeois’ writing, promoted my thoughts further on the relationship between artwork
and literature, artist and writer. Through her interpretation and a profounder
comprehension of Bourgeois’ work, I keep questioning myself “where is the boundary
of interpretation” when we confronted with an art work that evidently carrying more
meaning than its first appearance. Exploration of gendered body, transmission between
private memory and public presentation, recreation based on traumatic experience
make me think of potentials of multiple materials. The whole piece also reminds me of
Doris Salcedo’s work, which I may figure out later of their shared traits in subjects and
meanings.
White, Hayden. “The Burden of History.” History and Theory Vol. 5. No. 2
(1966): 111-134.
Hayden White drew clear the dilemma that confronted by history as a discipline
in academic context. History is such an ambiguous discipline that it is criticized by both
social scientists and literary artists, for either it lacks meticulous analytical methods or
human consciousness (111). Historians sometimes argue that history is a combination
of art and science, leading this discipline towards a coordinator between pure
rationalism and emotionalism. Hayden refuted that such self-positioning was
problematic, since the history was both conservative and had become too specialized
to catch up with the latest development of art and science (112), where the mediating
agents between art and science shall later disappear since each of them has developed

24
into a more mature form. Hayden specially discussed the writing in historical study, by
comparison with the writing of literature (117), where he pointed out that the history is
always being troubled by the entanglement of past events and future promises (120),
and only by emancipating human’s intelligence from the sense of history can men treat
the present problem creatively (123).
By taking a list of novelists’ name and their literal writing traditions, Hayden
indicated that historians were always represented as the bearer of repressed sensibility
(115). And later, by introducing brown’s Life Against Death, Hayden offered that
Brown brought up with the historiographical equivalent of anti-novel (128), where
Brown reduced all data of consciousness to the same ontological level, opening the new
usage of historical materials. Also by referring to Gombrich’s Art and Illusion, Hayden
articulated that in history writing, the historian should also notice that there is no such
thing as single correct (130).
This piece keeps telling me an important principle that we as researcher, writer
and art historian, shall not always force ourselves to be equipped with “sufficient
historical knowledge”. The saying that “people will not fully understand the presence
without understanding the history” should be reversed, which is to say, only by knowing
what we are confronted with in the contemporary context can we probe the history
better and more efficient. The basic facts matter, so do the aim we utilize those facts
and the according narrative strategies. It also makes me think of whether
interdisciplinary study is really possible, since in academic context, the structural basis
of each discipline could violate that of another. However, it’s always beneficial to look
into the similarities and distinctions between them, for sake of methodological
reference and advancement.
Wölfflin, Heinrich. “Introduction: The Double Root of Style.” Principles of Art
History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art. Trans. M.D.
Hottinger. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1950. 1-12.
Heinrich started the whole book Principles of Art History by looking into the term
“style” and its emerging implications. In this introduction part, he proposed that the

25
evaluation of style was related to many attributors other than personal temperature, such
as the style of school, the country, and the race (6). He also claimed later that, even the
individuals fell in a larger group as a nation, we still need to investigate in various
epochs of that nation before we actually name a national style (9), thus the discussion
of style can at least be developed from three dimensions, which are individual, national,
and periodical (10). When we talk about style, we are always looking for both kinships
and distinctions. Art history, therefore, is not to scrutinize the nuances in different
intimations of nature, but to look into specific cases and understand their visual schema
(13).
Heinrich supported his argumentation by sufficient examples, most of which come
from the fifteenth to seventeenth art in Europe. He made comparisons between
Botticelli and Lorenzo Di Credi to demonstrate how artists depicted human figures
differently, and explained that art historian should reveal strata of vision history since
two artists from distinct background could show a rather similar artistic style, like
Bernini and Terborch (11). By notifying works of Raphael and Quattrocento, he again
claims the “international connections” between styles (12).
This section brings up some basic concerns of art history as a discipline and me as
an art student/researcher. Several principles proposed by Heinrich are still helpful when
we look at the contemporary art and its distinctions and similarities, especially by
regards of comparative studies, both in spatial and chronical aspects. At the same time
it helped to rethink over the long-lasting debates between objectivity and subjectivity
in art history studies. These two terms depend on each other to function, so much as
today we talk about realistic and fictional, constructive and deconstructive. And the
original ideas in this piece is just interesting enough to be discussed again, with the
updated and updating materials from the contemporary art world. Perhaps the concerns
here are no longer the issue of “style” in generalized group, but how to clarify the very
essence of what the artists are trying to express.

Annotated Bibliography History Of Art History

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Annotated Bibliography History Of Art History

Similar to Annotated Bibliography History Of Art History (8)

More from Kelly Lipiec

More from Kelly Lipiec (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Annotated Bibliography History Of Art History