KUNSTLICHT CALL FOR PAPERS

Artists and Writers: Interdisciplinary Exchanges

In the past, developments in the visual arts and literature frequently ran
parallel to each other. Although painters and poets have always worked
together (in the Renaissance, for instance, the painter Dosso Dossi and
the poet Ludovico Ariosto produced collaborative plays), the exchange
between visual artists and writers reached unequalled heights in the
20th century avant-gardes. The exchanges between Pablo Picasso and
Guillaume Apollinaire hastened the development of Modernism, and even
after his death the poet remained a great influence on Picasso (P. Read
2010). While in the 1950s Clement Greenberg called for the elimination
of literary elements in the visual arts, American painters and poets
worked frequently and closely together, the results of their exchanges
leading to important shifts in the nature of postwar American literature
 and visual art (H. Smith 2000). However, it is precisely the works and
practices that resulted from these encounters that have remained
marginalized in the study of art and literature. What would happen if we
were to centralize them? What discoveries would we make about the
artists, their networks, and their heritage?

One explanation

for the results of these exchanges remaining in the periphery of scholars' fields of vision, is the fact that they fall neither completely within the study of art, nor within the study of literature. However, the increasing presence of multimedia expressions in society calls for the
opening up and questioning of existing disciplinary boundaries, and for
the forming of new alliances. Which new or developing theories can help
us better understand interdisciplinary projects from the past, the present, and the future (W.J.T. Mitchell 1994; J. Heffernan 2006; G.R. Kress and T. van Leeuwen 2006; B. Reed 2010)?

Kunstlicht invites

academic reflections on works and practices that resulted from
encounters between visual artists and writers, and academic reflections
that lay bare artists' and institutions' networks of exchange. We also
look forward to essays that focus on theoretical examinations and
examinations of theory. Both analyses of historical cases as well as
reflections on the present will be considered. Furthermore, we encourage
 authors to propose research beyond these guidelines.