Lifework: On the Autobiographical Impulse in Contemporary Art, Writing, and Theory
By (Author) Moran Sheleg
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
6th November 2024
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Interdisciplinary studies
Autobiography: arts and entertainment
709.04
Hardback
334
Width 170mm, Height 240mm, Spine 27mm
904g
Following the critical scepticism surrounding the notion of the self as a singular entity during the 1960s, many artists and writers sought to test the apparent problem posed by autobiography as both a traditional genre and as a way of working. Considering the consequent emergence of autotheory, Lifework traces this shift in artistic and literary production during the late twentieth century and beyond, examining a set of diverse practices that mine the line between what it is to make art and what it is to live life. The books chapters connect a variety of artistic strategies that cut across medium, geography and time, uncovering how the historical marginalisation of first-person experience has taken on larger social, cultural and political implications in the contemporary moment and how the work of living might still relate to the work of art.
Moran Sheleg is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of East Anglia