Anna Lovatt
Lecturer, Faculty of Arts
Contact
Expertise Summary
Broadly speaking, my interests are in American and European art since 1945, with an emphasis on art of the 1960s and its legacies. I have particular expertise in Minimal, post-Minimal and Conceptual art and the practice of drawing within these contexts. My research and teaching are informed by feminist theory, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism. In addition to catalogue essays and reviews, I have published articles in the scholarly journals Art History, October and Tate Papers, a further article is forthcoming in Word and Image. I am an editor of the Oxford Art Journal and a regular reviewer for Artforum magazine.
Qualifications
BA in the History of Art, University College London (1999) MA in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art (2001) PhD in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art (2005)
PhD Supervision
At present I am supervising three PhD students: Esra Plumer, who is researching the automatic writing and drawing of Unica Zürn; Melanie Francis, who is working on issues of surface and subjectivity in nineteenth-century criminal portraits; and Isobel Elstob, who is researching the deployment and representation of the scientific specimen in art since the 1960s. From February 2012 I will also be supervising Aleid Ford, who will be researching the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres. I welcome PhD applications on any aspect of American or European art from 1945 to the present.
Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture
As Director of the Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture (NIRVC) I am responsible for organising regular research seminars and further events under the NIRVC umbrella (see the Research section of our website). I would welcome proposals from academics, artists, critics and curators interested in contributing to the programme of events at Nottingham.
Research Summary
I am currently working on a book, provisionally entitled Drawing Degree Zero: The Line from Minimal to Conceptual Art. The book explores the radical reconfiguration of the drawing medium that took… read more
Recent Publications
LOVATT, ANNA, 2013. The Mechanics of Writing: Sol LeWitt, Stéphane Mallarmé and Roland Barthes Word and Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry. (In Press.)
LOVATT, ANNA, 2012. For an Adversarial LeWitt. In: BAUME, NICHOLAS, ed., Sol LeWitt Structures 1965-2006 Yale University Press. 64-81
LOVATT, ANNA, 2012. Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan (exhibition review) Artforum International. 268-269
LOVATT, A, 2011. Sightlines: On the Work of Anne Truitt. In: Anne Truitt London: Stephen Friedman Gallery. 4-13
Current Research
I am currently working on a book, provisionally entitled Drawing Degree Zero: The Line from Minimal to Conceptual Art. The book explores the radical reconfiguration of the drawing medium that took place during the late 1960s and early 70s, a pivotal moment in the recent history of art. While drawing has traditionally been considered a preparatory or subsidiary practice, I argue that it was central to the development of Conceptual art and the dissolution of sculptural form that occurred concurrently. This led to a resurgence of interest in drawing amongst practitioners, curators and collectors that continues today. By considering the strategies pioneered by Mel Bochner, Sol LeWitt, Dorothea Rockburne and Ruth Vollmer, amongst others, I highlight drawing's ability to foreground issues of process, location and participation that remain fundamental to contemporary artistic practice.
I am currently co-organising the symposium 'Writing the Sixties,' due to take place at the University of York in December 2011. In 2012 I will co-chair the session 'Towards an Inclusive Sixties' at the Association of Art Historians annual conference in Milton Keynes (both in collaboration with Dr Jo Applin, University of York).
Past Research
Following my PhD I was awarded a Henry Moore Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, which I held at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, from 2005-06. During the fellowship I co-organised the conference 'Prehistory of the Greater Sixties,' which took place in May 2006 and was funded by the Courtauld Institute Research Forum.
After taking up my post at Nottingham in 2007, I co-organised the conference 'Representing the Everyday in American Visual Culture' in 2008, funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The following year, I co-chaired the session 'Drawing in the Expanded Field' at the Association of Art Historians annual conference in Manchester; and in 2010 I co-chaired the session '(Mis)Remembering the Sixties' at the College Art Association annual conference in Chicago. In 2010 I received a travel grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art to fund research for my book, Drawing Degree Zero.
I have given numerous talks, conference papers and invited lectures based on my research at the AAH annual conference 2008 (London), CAA annual conference 2005 (Atlanta), CAA Conference 2011 (New York), Courtauld Institute of Art (London), Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh), Hayward Gallery (London), Henry Moore Institute (Leeds), Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Nottingham Contemporary, Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art (London), Tate Britain and Tate Modern (London), University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Lincoln, University of Nottingham and University of York.