W. J. Thomas Mitchell

Essays examine the way stories are told, understood, and used to represent and make sense of the world.

On Narrative

This anthology of wide-ranging essays by leading critics and artists addresses recent controversies in American public art. Prevailing issues focus on historical, symbolic, political, legal, and cultural concerns.

Art and the Public Sphere

"A remarkably rich and provocative set of essays on the virtually infinite kinds of meanings generated by images in both the verbal and visual arts. Ranging from Michelangelo to Velazquez and Delacroix, from the art of the emblem book to the history of photography and film, The Language of Images offers at once new ways of thinking about the inexhaustibly complex relation between verbal and iconic representation."—James A. W. Heffernan, Dartmouth College

The Language of Images

Alexander Nemerov

Celeste Olalquiaga

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

Ernst van Alphen

Mieke Bal

Serge Guilbaut

Joanne Morra

Alex Potts

Akira Mizuta Lippit

Marc Gotlieb

Clark Conference

Sina Najafi

Reva Wolf

With essays by Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Marc Gotlieb, Serge Guilbaut, Michael Ann Holly, Akira Mizuta Lippit, W. J. T. Mitchell, Joanne Morra, Sina Najafi, Alexander Nemerov, Celeste Olalquiaga, Alexander Potts, and Reva Wolf The discipline of art history is in a moment of self-consciousness, and art historians are increasingly more self-reflexive about their practices. In this volume, thirteen authors address both the philosophical and practical issues now facing those in the visual arts field by investigating the ever-pressing issue of research. Their essays explore the remarkable nature of art historians' personal, political, aesthetic, creative, and emotive curiosity and the process of doing research in the archive, library, studio, gallery, museum, and beyond. As such, the book considers the pleasures and dangers of researchers' obsessions and encounters with the incoherence, chaos, and wonder that lie at the heart of searching for the not-yet-known. The volume is based on the 2007 Clark Conference of the same name.

Obsession, Archive, Encounter

What is Research in the Visual Arts?

W. J. Thomas Mitchell

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