Breaking the Silence: Methods of Writing Art History

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