The Artist's Novel. The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts - Part I : A New Medium
2019
Book, 20.7 x 15.3 cm, 281 p., language : English, publisher : Mousse Publishing, Milano, ISBN : 978-88-6749-422-4.
Materials: ink, paper
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2030/417).
Literary synopsis
Why do artists write novels? What does the artist’s novel do to the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced? The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts finds its momentum in the current international art scene, where the debate about the hybridisation of visual arts and literature is becoming increasingly prominent. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their wider art projects. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favouring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions such as fiction, narrative, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to speak of a new medium in the visual arts; yet, very little is known about it. This two-volume publication is the first to explore in depth the subject of the artist’s novel.
Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice
Part 1: A New Medium aims to elucidate the pressing questions posed by the emergence of a new artistic medium with a theoretical approach to a number of key case studies (Benjamin Seror’s Mime Radio, Cally Spooner’s Collapsing in Parts, Mai-Thu Perret’s The Crystal Frontier, and Goldin+Senneby’s Headless), which critically examines the different ways contemporary artists have employed the artist’s novel. The intention is not to fix a definition of what the artist’s novel is, but rather to situate it within the broader field of the visual arts in the hopes of sparking a much-needed discussion about a practice that has long been ignored by the main critical strands in art discourse.
Authorship: Artist Author.
Publishing: Art Books Publishing House.
