Joana Masó – författare

Jacques Derrida remains a leading voice of philosophy, his works still resonating today—and for more than three decades, one of the main sites of Derridean deconstruction has been the arts. Collecting nineteen texts spanning from 1979 to 2004, Thinking out of Sight brings to light Derrida’s most inventive ideas about the making of visual artworks.The book is divided into three sections. The first demonstrates Derrida’s preoccupation with visibility, image, and space. The second contains interviews and collaborations with artists on topics ranging from the politics of color to the components of painting. Finally, the book delves into Derrida’s writings on photography, video, cinema, and theater, ending with a text published just before his death about his complex relationship to his own image. With many texts appearing for the first time in English, Thinking out of Sight helps us better understand the critique of representation and visibility throughout Derrida’s work, and, most importantly, to assess the significance of his insights about art and its commentary.

The first book by Hélène Cixous on painting and the contemporary arts.This collection gathers most of Hélène Cixous' short texts devoted to contemporary artists, such as the painter Nancy Spero, the photographer Andres Serrano, the visual artists Roni Horn and Ernest Pignon-Ernest, the fashion designer Sonia Rykiel and the choreographer Karine Saporta, among others. The artworks belong to different genres and media: photography, painting, installations, film, choreography and fashion design. Nevertheless, Hélène Cixous' texts all deal with some of her privileged themes: exile, war, violence (against women) and exclusion, as well as love, memory, beauty and tenderness.Neither art criticism nor critical essays, Hélène Cixous responds to these artworks as a poet, reading them as if they were poems. Written between 1985 and 2010, most of these essays are unpublished in English, or published only in rare catalogues or art books. Key Features*Combines poetic, theoretical and critical writing and Cixous' unique methodology*Addresses an important collection of contemporary artists, including Americans Nancy Spero and Roni Horn, the London artist Maria Chevska, the Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson, the filmmaker Ruth Bekermann, the French choreographer Karine Saporta and the French fashion designer Sonia Rykiel.*Treats a range of media and genre: photography, painting, installations, film, choreography, fashion design