Writing Art

Writings by artists convey a specific type of knowledge or way of thinking about artistic practice that the writings of academic and professional observers do not. It is not just a matter of artists’ texts filling discursive gaps between critical writing and artistic production; it is also a question of texts by artists creating intellectual, political, and cultural possibilities that would not otherwise exist. The books in this series remind us that art’s manifestations and meanings are rendered more complex when artists’ voices are heard, and when artists engage in direct debate and dialogue with each other, the public, and scholars. This series carries the spirit of several earlier book series that shaped aesthetic theory and art writing practice in the twentieth century into the twenty-first century: the Documents of Modern Art series edited by Robert Motherwell (1944-61), the Jargon Society Press founded by Jonathan Williams at Black Mountain College in 1951, Dick Higgins’ Something Else Press (1964-75), and the Nova Scotia Series edited first by Kaspar Koenig and later by Benjamin Buchloh in Halifax in the 1970s. The Writing Art series of MIT Press was initiated by Roger Conover in 1991.

Series editor: Roger Conover