Clark Studies in the Visual Arts – serie

A global reconsideration and broadening of the definition of art conservation through the lenses of theory, ethics, culture, and historyThought-provoking and timely, this volume challenges inherited thinking on art conservation practice and purposefully reconsiders the definition of the field. Scholars from around the world discuss topics including the conservation of global painting practices, cold storage and digitization, conservation within institutions, and the decolonization of art conservation. The authors seek to broaden the scope of conservation practice and challenge the boundaries that set it apart from art history and art making. They thoughtfully consider the implications of conservation beyond museum walls. This volume in the esteemed Clark Studies in the Visual Arts maintains the series’s tradition of providing a nuanced reckoning with vital themes in the field.Distributed for the Clark Art Institute

An examination of how engagement with the nuances of Caribbean intellectual thought could reshape art history  Despite its rich cultural and intellectual heritage, the Caribbean region has often been excluded from art history—along with essential discussions ranging from plantation life and antislavery movements to decolonization and transculturation. Beyond Boundaries: Seeing Art History from the Caribbean explores why the field has been slow to embrace Caribbean intellectual history and advocates for an approach that acknowledges the multidisciplinary and multilingual nature of the region’s voices. By reevaluating existing interpretive methodologies, the authors show how a broader engagement with Caribbean perspectives can benefit art history, reshaping the discourse and creating a more inclusive and dynamic field.  Distributed for the Clark Art Institute

A collection of essays that think with, against, and beside the intellectual questions that have engaged Michael Ann Holly throughout her storied career  American scholar Michael Ann Holly (b. 1944) has devoted a decades-long career to the historiography and theory of art history. Some of the ideas with which she has grappled include the impossible material presence and experience of loss that drives the discipline of art history; the role of writing in art history and the never-ceasing tension language and objects; and melancholy, loss, and historical inquiry. For this exciting volume, more than a dozen of the top art historians working today were invited to think creatively about writing art history while engaging in intellectual conversation with Holly. The book’s essays offer new and unsettling questions rather than tacitly reproducing canonized knowledge.  Distributed for the Clark Art Institute

A study of how African objects shaped Western concepts of art, aesthetics, and value, and informed the foundations of art historyWhile the central role of African art, objects, and rituals in shaping twentieth-century art history has been widely recognized, the longer genealogy of this influence remains an ongoing area of inquiry. This collection of essays examines how European encounters with African objects from the sixteenth century onward reshaped concepts of art, aesthetics, economics, and value during the age of colonial expansion. Drawing on archival, literary, and material sources—from travel literature and judicial proceedings to sales catalogues and museum collections—these essays reveal how African objects, often described as “fetishes,” were central to the emergence of art history as a discipline. Distributed for the Clark Art Institute