Art Writing: Beyond the Crisis?

At a time when the discipline of art history is seeking ever greater diversity in both subject matter and practitioners, this same diversity has not penetrated to the level of art writing. As Brad Haylock and Megan Patty (2021), James Elkins (2021) and others have noted, channels for criticism are diminishing, acceptable styles of formal art historical writing are narrowing, and movements such as literary studies’ ‘postcritique’ appear to have passed art history by. At the margins of mainstream art history, however, new approaches have been taking root since the 1980s, proliferating in the twenty-first century. These combine creative writing, criticism and scholarship – often seen as separate or even antagonistic disciplines – to push the boundaries of what art writing can look like (e.g. Greg Tate (1986), Gary Indiana (1985-1988), Jill Johnston (1994); Elkins (2023); Gloria Kury (2015); Janet Malcolm (2014); A.V. Marraccini (2023)). Underlying such experiments is a desire to reflect the increasing diversity of voices within the discipline, question old assumptions, engage new audiences, and reinspire old ones.

In this session, we aim to showcase a range of innovative approaches to art writing, asking how our discipline might seek out and embrace more unusual modes and formats. In the spirit of experimentation, this session will consist of up to six 10-minute presentations, followed by a 30-minute roundtable discussion and a 30-minute audience Q&A. We welcome professionals across different fields (scholarship, curating, criticism and artistic practice) to give a short presentation on an example of innovative art writing (someone else’s, or their own), and what the discipline can learn from its choices of format, style, subject matter and audience.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Dr Christina Faraday, University of Cambridge, cjf53@cam.ac.uk

Emily Carrington Freeman, University of Oxford, emily.carringtonfreeman@history.ox.ac.uk