Charting Space - The Cartographies of Conceptual Art

By the late 1960s cartographic formats and spatial information were a recurring feature in conceptualist artworks. Charting space offers a rich study of conceptualisms' mapping practices that includes more expanded forms of spatial representations. Departing from the perspective that artists were merely recording and communicating information, this book explores the philosophical and political imperatives within their artistic practices.

The volume brings together twelve in-depth case studies that address artists' deep engagement with space at a time when concepts of space were garnering new significance in art, theory and culture. It covers a diverse range of subjects, such as London's socio-spatial sphere in the 1970s, geopolitics and decoloniality in Brazil, the global networking strategies of the Psychophysiology Research Institute in Japan, the subjective body in relation to cosmological space from the Great Basin Desert in the United States and notions of identity and race in the urban itinerant practices of transnational artists.

The chapters shed light on an evident 'spatial turn' from the postwar period into the contemporary and the influence of larger historical, social and cultural contexts on it. The contributors illustrate how conceptualism's cartographies were critical sites to formulate artists' politics, graph heterogenous spaces and upset prevailing systems. It is a resourceful tool for scholars, students, curators and readers interested in postwar and contemporary art.

About the author

Elize Mazadiego is Assistant Professor of World Art History at the University of Bern

Summary

Taking its inspiration from the spatial turn in the humanities, this volume examines conceptual art’s diverse forms of mapping between the 1960s and the 1990s to critically engage with space and spatiality. -- .

Product details

• Authors: Elize Mazadiego
• Assisted by: Elize Mazadiego (Editor)
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.10.2023
• EAN: 9781526159953
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-5995-3
• No. of pages: 296
• Series: Rethinking Art's Histories
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Miscellaneous; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography, Theory of art, ART / Criticism & Theory, ART / History / Contemporary (1945-), History of Art, History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -, Later 20th century c 1950 to c 1999, Art & design styles: from c 1960, Human Geography, c 1945 to c 2000 (Post-war period)