Subject guides: Contemporary Art: Art Writing & Research

Writing About Art

How to Write about Contemporary Art by Gilda Williams
Now also online!
How to Write About Contemporary Art is the definitive guide to writing engagingly about the art of our time. The book first navigates readers through the key elements of style and content, from the aims and structure of a piece to its tone and language. Brimming with practical tips including academic essays; press releases and news articles; texts for auction and exhibition catalogues, gallery guides and wall labels; op-ed journalism and exhibition reviews; and writing for websites and blogs.
A Short Guide to Writing about Art by Sylvan Barnet
This best-selling text guides art students through the writing process. Students are shown how to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture, and are prepared with the tools they need to present their ideas through effective writing.
Artists Write to Work: a practical guide to writing about your art by Kate Kramer
Artists need to write, every day, to support their studio practice and careers. Conversational and instructive, this practical primer helps artists learn the best writing and research strategies for their letters, biographies, statements, proposals, applications, wall text, and more. Kate Kramer, lecturer in critical writing at the University of Pennsylvania, aligns writing strategies with art school curriculum (foundations, topics, capstones, professional development).
What It Means to Write about Art by Jarrett Earnest
The most comprehensive portrait of art criticism ever assembled, as told by the leading writers of our time. In the last fifty years, art criticism has flourished as never before.

Art as Research

Art As Research by Shaun McNiff (Editor)
The new practice of art-based research uses art making as a primary mode of enquiry rather than continuing to borrow research methodologies from other disciplines to study artistic processes.
Artistic Research: being there : explorations into the local by Luisa Greenfield (Editor)
How does artistic research engage with the concept of local? In what ways can art practice be an intervention into traditional notions of history and culture? How does it engage with local and global identities?
Artistic Research: strategies for embodiment by Christine Fentz (Editor)
Artistic research is still a relatively new field, and in this groundbreaking anthology scholars from performing arts, dance, voice work, fine art, drawing film, video, present the breath and variety of their research.
Artist Scholar by G. James Daichendt
Artist Scholar: Reflections on Writing and Research is part history, introduction, and discussion for artists and designers entering, graduating, and employed by the contemporary art academy in the United States.
The Art of Critical Making by Rosanne Somerson (Editor)
Describes the world's leading approach to art and design taught at Rhode Island School of Design At Rhode Island School of Design students are immersed in a culture where making questions, ideas, and objects, using and inventing materials, and activating experience all serve to define a form of critical thinking--albeit with one's hands--i.e. "critical making."
Art Practice as Research by Graeme Sullivan
In this book, artist and scholar Graeme Sullivan shows us a first rate mind at work. He convincingly straddles the often wide gaps between art and science, mind and body, research and practice, teaching and doing, traditional and postmodern views of education and of art, creative and critical thinking.
Creative Research: the theory and practice of research for the creative industries by Hilary Collins
New 2019 edition! Creative Research assesses how academic research methodologies must be adapted to suit the creative disciplines and industries and offers a guide to the process of undertaking a research project in this context.
Knowings and Knots: methodologies and ecologies in research-creation by Natalie Loveless
Knowings and Knots presents a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the methodology of research-creation and asks how those who make knowledge think about and value it. Not just a method but a site of ongoing experimentation around what counts as knowledge, research-creation is a meeting place of academia, artistic creation, and the wider public.
Material Inventions by Estelle Barrett; Barbara Bolt
Publication Date: 2014-09-24
The measurement of the significance and 'impact' of research is absolutely paramount in today's academic world. Material Inventions offers new and original ways of conceptualizing impact and innovation in creative arts research. This important book demonstrates how artistic research is capable of solving real-life problems and presenting transforming accounts of the world.
Material Thinking by Paul Carter
This intimate account of how ideas get turned into artwork--including dance performance, film, sound installation, sculpture, and painting--looks at how the material thinking that art embodies produces new understandings about individuals, their histories, and the cultures they inhabit.
Practice as Research by Estelle Barrett (Editor); Barbara Bolt (Editor)
Practice-led research is a burgeoning area across the creative arts, with studio informed doctorates frequently favoured over traditional approaches to research. "Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry" is specifically designed as a training tool and is structured on the model used by most research programmes.
Thinking through practice : art as research in the academy by Duxbury, Lesley.
Thinking Through Practice shows what the process of 'thinking' might mean through art and its practices. Each chapter moves us into closer proximity with what it means to think through making and all that is involved in sustained forms of creative practice - questioning, reviewing, reflecting, analysing, performing, speculating, relating, remembering, critiquing, constructing and ultimately further questioning.

New Books on Art Research

Method Meets Art: arts-based research practice by Patricia Leavy
Ideal for courses in multiple disciplines, the third edition of this award-winning text has been revised and updated with new topics, examples, and guiding questions to introduce each chapter's sections. Patricia Leavy presents a practical guide to the full range of arts-based research (ABR) genres--narrative inquiry, fiction-based research, poetry, music, dance, theatre, film, and visual art.
Artistic research : charting a field in expansion by Assis, Paulo de,
A multidisciplinary overview of different discourses and practices, exploring cutting-edge questions from the burgeoning field of artistic research. Intended as a primer on artistic research, it presents diverse perspectives, strategies, methodologies, and concrete examples of research projects situated at the crossroads of art and academia.
Art, Research, Philosophy by Clive Cazeaux
Art, Research, Philosophyexplores the emergent field of artistic research: art produced as a contribution to knowledge. As a new subject, it raises several questions: What is art-as-research? Don't the requirements of research amount to an imposition on the artistic process that dilutes the power of art? How can something subjective become objective? What is the relationship between art and writing?
Sonic Acts Academy: unpacking the processes of artistic knowledge by Mirna Belina
Sonic Acts Academy is a new platform for investigation, speculation, and reflection, focusing on experimental educational practices and the critical examination of knowledge in the field of art.
How to Make Art at the End of the World: a manifesto for research-creation by Natalie Loveless
In recent years, the rise of research-creation--a scholarly activity that considers art practices as research methods in their own right--has emerged from the organic convergences of the arts and interdisciplinary humanities.
Art crits: 20 questions: a pocket guide by Sarah Rowles
The crit is a model of learning whereby artists present their work to a group in order to gain feedback on how that work is being 'read' and ways that they might develop it further. They are a part of almost every art course at further and higher level education throughout the UK. Through interviews with fine art staff and industry professionals, Art Crits: 20 Questions takes a closer look at the model.

Artists talking about their work

MCA Collection Artists Interviews
Meet MCA Collection artists in these interviews that span from early 2000s to today.
MCA: Stories & Ideas
Discover curatorial essays, insightful interviews, videos and more.
Art Guide Australia: Interviews
Art Guide Australia curates what is happening in contemporary art in Australia and publishes articles daily online.
MoMA Talks: Conversations
Curators, scholars, and artists discuss modern and contemporary art.
Artists' talks on Kanopy
Selection of films of interviews with artists, including films from Video Data Bank
The Artist is in: TED Talks
Artists and designers share their work, their process and their vision in these deeply personal — and often hilarious — talks.

Artists talking about their work - publications

Artists Interviews
From Library Search
Leonardo (Oxford, England : Online)
Each issue features an Artists' Article section. Use any of the online links to access and search for specific artists.
Leonardo (Print edition)
Journal of Contemporary Art: Interviews
The journal was originally founded in 1988 by two artists, Philip Pocock and John Zinsser. In 1995, the journal ceased to be a printed publication and became an online archive.
Artist Talk Magazine UK
The main focus of the magazine is to showcase Artists and to give them a chance to share the work they produce. Originating in the UK, the magazine features Artists from all across the globe.
Art and Australia [electronic resource]
Launch the online journal, click on the link to the archive, then search "all issues" using the term Interview.
Art monthly Australia [electronic resource]
Use the Informit link to launch this online journal, limit search to 'this publication", then search using the keyword interview
Art Monthly Australasia [electronic resource]
Use the link to launch this online journal, then click the link "Search within this publication", then search using the subject term Artist Interview to find artists talking about their work.
Art monthly UK [electronic resource]
If searching in ProQuest, use the keywords (interviews AND artists) to search within this publication. If using an EBSCO link, then search using the subject term Artist Interview to find artists talking about their work.
Frieze [electronic resource]
Use the link to launch this online journal, then click the link "Search within this publication", then search using the subject term Artist Interview to find artists talking about their work.