Introduction

Fox, James and Simoniti, Vid ORCID: 0000-0001-5832-9587 (2023) Introduction In: Art and knowledge after 1900. Manchester University Press, pp. 1-17. ISBN 9781526164285

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Summary

The essays gathered here explore the relationship between visual artists and various disciplines of knowledge from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. They show how scientific and spiritual theories informed the evolution of abstraction; how psychoanalysis influenced the meanings and methods of Surrealism; and how, in the second half of the century, artists made increasingly frequent and sophisticated incursions into academic practices, including history, philosophy, economics, cybernetics, sociology, ecology, biotechnology, and archival research. These dialogues foreshadowed, and helped form, the now ubiquitous figure of the contemporary interdisciplinary artist. In investigating the myriad, and often curious, points at which art and other fields of knowledge met and conversed, the book offers a re-reading of some of the key moments in the art of the last century (e.g. abstraction, Futurism, Surrealism, conceptual art, documentary photography), while containing pioneering research into less-explored movements (e.g. cybernetic art, bio art, Afrofuturism, ecological art). Throughout, the volume poses a series of larger questions. Is art a source of knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge? And, ultimately, can it contribute to our understanding of the world in ways that other thinkers should take seriously? Art’s incursion into other intellectual disciplines emerges as a principal characteristic of art since 1900, and a defining feature of both modernism and postmodernism. A rigorous and coherent new history of modern art, Art and knowledge since 1900 offers indispensable insights into a hitherto unnoticed trajectory from the early avant-gardes to the interdisciplinary art of today. One of the defining features of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century artistic avant-gardes is the incursion into, and interaction with, diverse fields of knowledge. Early pioneers of abstraction such as Kandinsky and Mondrian responded to new modes of spirituality, while Constructivists and Surrealists drew inspiration from evolving scientific discourses, including the theory of relativity and psychoanalysis. By the middle of the twentieth century, conceptual artists were regularly incorporating philosophy, economics, sociology, and cybernetics into their work; and at the century’s end, artists increasingly saw themselves as ‘researchers’. In recent years, artists have worked in biotechnological laboratories, collaborated with environmentalists and ecologists, and formed various ‘evidence-based’ art collectives, such as Forensic Architecture. The thirteen chapters gathered in this book investigate the many points at which art intersected with these varied fields of knowledge. Setting the scene, this Introduction offers several entry points into the narrative. First, we survey different philosophical tendencies for understanding the term ‘knowledge’, and how art has related to these. Second, we offer a broad overview of the institutional reasons for art’s intersection with academic disciplines of knowledge, including the expansion of academic writing for popular markets, ‘deskilling’ in arts education, and the rise of interdisciplinarity. Finally, we narrate the rise of artist-researchers on the biennale scene since the 1990s, which has uniquely positioned the role of exhibition-based art as an investigatory enterprise.

Item Type:	Chapter
Uncontrolled Keywords:	36 Creative Arts and Writing, 3601 Art History, Theory and Criticism, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields, Generic health relevance
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences > School of the Arts
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2025 08:13
Last Modified:	23 May 2026 08:45
DOI:	10.7765/9781526164285.00007
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3191159
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