ART HISTORY AND EMERGENCY: CRISES IN THE VISUAL ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Edited by David Breslin and Darby English

With essays by Caroline Arscott, Manuel J. Borja-Villel, Thomas Crow, Patrick D. Flores, Theaster Gates, Kajri Jain, Anatoli Mikhailov, Marry Miller, Molly Nesbit, Our Literal Speed, and Howard Singerman

$24.95 Softcover

Art History and Emergency assesses art history's role and responsibilities in response to what has been described as the “humanities crisis”—the perceived decline in the practical applications of the humanities in contemporary culture. This timely collection of critical essays and creative pieces addresses several thought-provoking questions on the subject. For instance, as this so-called crisis is but the latest of many, what part has “crisis” played in the humanities’ history? How are artists, art historians, and professionals in related disciplines responding to current pressures to prove their worth? How does one defend the practical value of knowing how to think deeply about objects and images without losing the intellectual intensity that characterizes the best work in the discipline? Does art history as we know it have a future?

David Breslin is John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator, Menil Drawing Institute, The Menil Collection. Darby English is Carl Darling Buck Professor in the Department of Art History, the University of Chicago, and consulting curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, the Museum of Modern Art.

150 pages, 7 x 9 1/2 inches

40 black-and-white illustrations

2016

Published by the Clark Art Institute and distributed by Yale University Press

ISBN 978-0-300-21875-6 (softcover)