Art Has No History!: The Making and Unmasking of Modern Art: The Making and Unmaking of Modern Art

In this collection of essays, the art critic, John Roberts, draws together studies of key post-war and contemporary artists. Written by art historians and artist-writers, these essays take a critical look at the construction of recent modern art history in both its traditional and radical forms. The artists discussed include Francis Picabia, Ad Reinhardt, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Jasper Johns, Anselm Keifer, Mary Kelly, Cindy Sherman, Victor Burgin and Laurie Anderson. This book provides an overview of art since 1945 and a guide to the debates it has engendered. At the same time, it aims to reassert the value of critical art history as an antidote to the vagaries of fashion and self-promotion that mark much writing on art today.

John Roberts is Professor of Art and Aesthetics at the University of Wolverhampton. His books include The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday; The Philistine Controversy (with Dave Beech), Philosophizing the Everyday, and The Necessity of Errors. He is also a contributor to Radical Philosophy, Oxford Art Journal, Historical Materialism, Third Text, and Cabinet magazine. He lives in London.