Cases of Citation - by Chloë Julius & Michael Green & Matthew Holman (Paperback)

About the Book

This collection investigates the methodological problem of how to see, or read, art that references literature through a series of object-focused chapters on post-1960 artworks. Variously eccentric, playful, reverential and procedural, the diverse range of works engage with literary history by testing the limits of artistic form.

Book Synopsis

Cases of citation presents a history of artists who incorporated literary references into their work from the 1960s onwards.

Through a series of object-focused chapters that each take up a singular 'case of citation', the collection considers how literary citation emerged as a viable and urgent strategy for artists during this period. It surveys nine artworks by a diverse group of artists - including David Wojnarowicz, Lis Rhodes, Romare Bearden and Silvia Kolbowski - whose citations draw on literary works with authors ranging from Gertrude Stein to Jean Genet.

The book also features an interview with pioneering feminist artist Elaine Reichek that discusses her career-long commitment to working with text. Together, the artworks and cited texts are approached from various critical angles, with each author questioning and complicating the ways in which we can 'read' textual citations in art.

From the Back Cover

Cases of citation tracks a history of artists who incorporated literature into their work. It investigates why literary citation emerged as a viable and urgent strategy in art made during and after the 1960s, and explores how we can account for such citational practices in contemporary scholarship.

Structured as a series of in-depth case studies, the chapters generate their own specific questions about the relationship between art and literature through the analysis of a single artwork. The volume covers a diverse group of artists from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including David Wojnarowicz, Marcel Broodthaers, Lis Rhodes, Romare Bearden and Silvia Kolbowski. Cited authors range from Oscar Wilde to Frank O'Hara, Mary Shelley to Jean Genet. Together, the artworks and texts are approached from various critical angles, with each author questioning and complicating the ways in which we can 'read' textual citations in art.

The book concludes with a richly illustrated conversation between the editors and the pioneering feminist artist Elaine Reichek, whose lifelong engagement with text serves as a foundational art historical touchstone for the collection as a whole.

About the Author

Chloë Julius is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Nottingham
Michael Green is an independent scholar and works in arts publishing
Matthew Holman is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Hertfordshire