Professor Joanne Crawford
- Position: Head of School, Professor in History and Theory of Art
- Areas of expertise: Mid twentieth century painting and sculpture, American and European; Aesthetic theory.
- Email: J.S.Crawford@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 1824
- Location: G.10 School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
Profile
French and American abstract art of the 1950s (specifically Rothko, Michaux and Wols), exploring how notions of death, as philosophical concept embedded within structures of aesthetics, informed production and subsequent 'readings' of abstract art. My research primarily centres on mid 20th century French and American abstract painting, drawing and sculpture (including art by Rothko, Michaux and Wols).
My work examines how notions of death, as philosophical concept embedded within the complex structures of the aesthetic, informed the production and 'readings' of such art by art historians and philosophers alike. Thus by engaging with philosophical writers such as Sartre, Hegel, Bataille, Kierkergaard, Nietzsche and Blanchot I explore the relationship between philosophical thinking on death, notions of subjectivity and duration and the production and (social) interpretations of the artist and his work.
Before becoming Head of School I was the module leader for 2 of the level 1 main modules for History of Art and Fine Art students; which trains students how to read a whole range of visual images, from painting through to photography and film and for level 2 for History of Art and Cultural Studies students; subjects range from Aristotle through to Hegel, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and their theories on truth, censorship, artistic education, beauty etc.
My optional modules were The Avant Gardes (subjects range from Futurism, Cubist collage, Russian Constructivism, Dada through to Surrealism as an alternative to the Modernist notion of the avant-garde); The New York School (which looked at the relationship between Cold War rhetoric and the rise of Abstract Expressionism and the neo avant-garde in the USA in the 1940s and 50s). At level 3 I offered a module which engaged with the huge social, cultural and philosophical shifts of the 1940s and 50s in Europe by investigating the art of artists such as Wols, Dubuffet, Michaux, Wols, CoBrA and the Situationist International.
For taught postgraduate courses, I ran a module that covered aesthetics and politics engaging with relationships between the philosophy on/of art and the social/political and also gave seminars on the MA History of Art core module (on Hegels philosophy of history).
Responsibilities
- Head of School
Qualifications
- BA (Hons) Philosophy and History of Art
- MA Social History of Art
- PhD History of Art
Student education
Presently:
Head of School
Professor in History and Theory of Art
Research groups and institutes
- PRIA