MAROTO, David
The Artist’s Novel – Part 1 – A New Medium

The first of a two-volume publication [second volume here] dedicated to the artist's novel, this theoretical essay aims to elucidate the pressing questions posed by the emergence of this new artistic medium with a number of key case studies and interviews.

Why do artists write novels? What impact does the artist's novel have on the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced? In recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their broader art practice. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favoring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions such as fiction, narrative, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to see the novel as a new medium in the visual arts; yet very little is known about it. This two-volume publication is the first to explore in depth the subject of the artist's novel.

A New Medium is a theoretical examination that looks critically at the different ways contemporary artists employ the artist's novel, focusing mainly on four key case studies: Benjamin Seror's Mime Radio, Cally Spooner's Collapsing in Parts, Mai-Thu Perret's The Crystal Frontier, and Goldin+Senneby's Headless. It seeks to situate the artist's novel within the broader context of the visual arts in the hopes of sparking a much-needed discussion about a practice that has long been ignored by critical strands in art discourse. It includes valuable resources, such as the only existing bibliography of artists' novels. [publisher’s note]

Interviews with Benjamin Seror, Cally Spooner, Mai-Thu Perret, Goldin+Senneby, Francis McKee, Vivian Ziherl, Natasha Soobramanien, Clive Phillpot, Alex Cecchetti, Łukasz Gorczyca, Jan Jasiński.

Published by Mousse Publishing, 2020
Essays / Literature / Book Culture