The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference

Description

Anchored in artistic practice, this vibrant collection of essays and writings spans a period from 1992-2017 and the work of leading artists such as Adel Abdessemed, Richard Avedon, Sonia Boyce, Frank Bowling, Omer Fast, Mona Hatoum, Susan Hiller, Alfredo Jaar, Glenn Ligon and Shen Yuan. A key figure in British and international art, Gilane Tawadros draws difference to the surface, recuperating it as a potentially radical frame through which to understand contemporary art and the everyday world. Playing with forms of writing, from critical analyses to fictional narratives, the book functions as a practice-based meditation on how to write about contemporary art.

Gilane Tawadros is a writer and curator. She was the founding Director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) in London which, over a decade, achieved an international reputation as a ground-breaking cultural agency at the leading edge of artistic and cultural debates nationally and internationally. She has written extensively on contemporary art and curated a number of important exhibitions in the UK and internationally. In 2012, she was the first art historian to be appointed to the prestigious Blanche, Edith and Irving Laurie Chair in Women's Studies, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She is Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation.

Amongst pioneering rethink of the art history-culture status quo, Gilane's writings illuminate the struggle to forge conceptual tackle for today's diverse art world and cultural difference - critical voicing that emerges less from theorising than from "thinking through art practices". * Sarat Maharaj, Professor of Visual Arts and Knowledge Systems, Malmoe Art Academy, Lund University, Sweden * Based on the author's profound knowledge of the global contemporary art scene ... this book provides a new art historical narrative, one that is more global, more inclusive and nuanced ... A must read for students of contemporary art and visual culture, race, and the postcolonial body. * Salah M Hassan, Goldwin Smith Professor, Cornell University, USA * Richly illustrated, Gilane Tawadros' beautifully observed book is a timely and prescient account of how representation remains a pivotal question for artists and society at large. Peppered with many delightful intercultural and intertextual references, The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon is a must read in our de-colonising times. * Sonia Boyce, artist and Professor of Black Art and Design, University of the Arts London, UK * The Sphinx Contemplating Napoleon: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Difference strikes a balance between seeing contemporary art on its own terms and understanding art within the terms set forth for it. When the latter is at odds with the former, Gilane Tawadros makes her greatest observations in a set of clear and evocative essays on a range of artists. All are superbly written, carefully argued down to the details and compelling to the end. Though the stated focus of "post-independence Egypt and post-war Britain" is maintained throughout, larger concerns of the value that art draws internationally is lucidly presented. This book continues Tawadros' decades long project of internationalism in art. * Courtney J. Martin, Yale Center for British Art, USA *