Fiona Anderson

In the 1970s, Manhattan's west side waterfront was a forgotten zone of abandoned warehouses and piers. Though many saw only blight, the derelict neighborhood was alive with queer people forging new intimacies through cruising. Alongside the piers' sexual and social worlds, artists produced work attesting to the radical transformations taking place in New York. Artist and writer David Wojnarowicz was right in the heart of it, documenting his experiences in journal entries, poems, photographs, films, and large-scale, site-specific projects. In Cruising the Dead River, Fiona Anderson draws on Wojnarowicz's work to explore the key role the abandoned landscape played in this explosion of queer culture. Anderson examines how the riverfront's ruined buildings assumed a powerful erotic role and gave the area a distinct identity. By telling the story of the piers as gentrification swept New York and before the AIDS crisis, Anderson unearths the buried histories of violence, regeneration, and LGBTQ activism that developed in and around the cruising scene.

David Wojnarowicz and New York's Ruined Waterfront

Cruising the Dead River

Notions of the Collaborative in the Work of David Wojnarowicz

Alexander Nemerov

Richard Meyer

Claire Bishop

Michelle Millar Fisher

Amy Tobin

Andrianna Campbell

Jacopo Galimberti

Meredith A. Brown

Sharon Hayes

Marci Muhlestein Clark

Ileana L. Selejan

David Kennedy Cutler

Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Sofia Gotti

Marko Ilić

Andrea Geyer

Sara Catenacci

Oriana Fox

Frances Jacobus-Parker

"Collaboration has been a component of art making for centuries—from ancient Greek potters and painters to nineteenth-century photographers Hill and Adamson to the contemporary Raqs Media Collective—yet it remains a complex topic for art historians of all periods. Taking its cue from Sigmund Freud’s 1929 publication, Civilization and its Discontents, in which the psychoanalyst wrestled with tensions between the individual and society, Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents: Art, Architecture, and Photography since 1950 asks what it means to produce work together as individuals and why this might matter for the creation of art and scholarship in the twenty-first century. This volume stems from The Courtauld Research Forum’s 2013 flagship research initiative, led by Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Meredith A. Brown, which brought together a group of early career scholars based in London and New York who spent the year engaged in transatlantic conversations about collaboration and its influence on the histories of modern and contemporary art, architecture, and photography. The resulting collaboratively written essays and artists’ projects are timely contributions to the growing art historical debates around collaboration and collectivity and their relationship to modernism, feminism, Marxism, and contemporary practice. Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents explores not only what constitutes collaboration in recent art globally but also opens up possibilities created by collaborative historical and artistic research in a field that historically has privileged the traditional single-author text."-- Courtauld Books Online website.

Art, Architecture, and Photography Since 1950

Collaboration and Its (dis)contents

Tweed is a material that has a historical relationship with a very particular ideal of masculine identity; one coupled with connotations of tradition, and which denotes a certain class and social stature. The story of tweed is tied to a series of social and political shifts that have molded its development. This book considers the historical and social factors that helped to shape, change and define the characteristics of the group of fabrics that we call tweed since its emergence in the 1820s. Progressive changes in gender relations as well as the impact of globalization are explored as major factors in tweed's evolution into what is now a truly modern and flexible fashion material. This book is the first of its kind to recognize the resiliency of tweed and its importance in textiles and fashion today.

Tweed

The story of tweed is tied to a series of social, economic and cultural shifts that have molded its development. This book considers the historical factors that helped to shape the design characteristics and social meanings of the group of fabrics that we call tweed, from their emergence in the 1820s to the present day. Including significant new research on tweeds, from Harris Tweed to the type used by Chanel, this book follows the history of these fabrics from the raw fiber to the finished garment in men's and women's fashion. Exploring rural and urban contexts, this book reveals the important physical and conceptual relationships of tweed with landscape. Anderson shows that, contrary to their strong popular associations with tradition, tweeds emerged in the Romantic era as a response to the dramatic changes associated with industrialization and urbanization. Progressive changes in gender relations are also explored as a major factor in tweed's evolution, from associations with particular ideals of masculinity into what is now a truly adaptable fashion textile worn by both sexes. This is the first book of its kind to recognize the importance of tweed to fashion innovation today.

Fiona Anderson

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