Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies

 

 

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Lucy Bradnock

Associate Professor in Art History, Faculty of Arts

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Biography

I gained my PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex in 2010. Before joining the University of Nottingham in September 2012, I was Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the Getty Research Institute, where I also served as Managing Editor of the Getty Research Journal.

I am currently Editor of Art History, the journal of the Association for Art History.

Expertise Summary

My area of expertise lies primarily in histories of American art, criticism, and curating post-1945, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of visual art and experimental theatre; assemblage and beat culture; the role of California, the West, and the Midwest in art historical narratives; issues of regional cultural identity in the United States throughout the twentieth century; and counter-cultural or otherwise alternative sites of artistic production, dissemination and display.

My work has also addressed the American legacies of surrealism, in particular the writing of the French dissident surrealist Antonin Artaud, and the theoretical and art historical narratives of modernism and postmodernism.

Teaching Summary

My teaching focuses primarily on American art, criticism and curating post-1945, in particular the relationship between art, politics, and protest; museums, exhibition histories and curatorial… read more

Research Summary

My book, No More Masterpieces: Modern Art After Artaud is now available from Yale University Press. It presents an analysis of American art of the 1950s to the 1970s through the lens of the US… read more

Recent Publications

  • BRADNOCK, LUCY, 2022. ‘Tabletop Cartography'. In: LISA TURVEY, ed., Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper Volume Three: 1998-2018 Gagosian and Yale University Press. (In Press.)
  • BRADNOCK, LUCY, 2022. From Venice to Pomona: Mapping Los Angeles Art in the 1960s and 1970s. In: Light & Space Copenhagen Contemporary / Light Art Space Berlin. (In Press.)
  • BRADNOCK, LUCY, 2021. No More Masterpieces: Modern Art After Artaud, Yale University Press.
  • BRADNOCK, LUCY, 2021. "Autobiographical Fantasy and the Feminist Archive", Archives of American Art Journal. 60(1), 44-61

I welcome postgraduate research proposals that relate to any aspect of American art post-1945, especially those that engage with conceptual and/or performance practices, feminist art practices, alternative or countercultures, discourses of regionalism or provincialism and their relation to cultural identities and economies, and topics that relate to American art centres and cultural networks beyond New York.

Current PhD Supervision:

  • Nina Möller, Medieval Revival in Postmodern Spaces of Entertainment (UoN Scholarship)
  • Matthew Hamblin, Corporeal Soundings in 20th Century Art and Protest (M4C Scholarship)
  • Rebecca Alexander, No Art on a Dead Planet: Visual and Performance Strategies of Environmental Protest Groups in the Midlands (M4C Scholarship)
  • Ella Flavell, Living Roots: Art Brut Within and Without the Western Art World, 1930-1988 (co-supervision of a PGR based at the University of Warwick) (M4C Scholarship)

Completed PhD Supervision:

  • Dr Lucy Mounfield (2022), Vivian Maier: the Amateur Photographer (M4C Scholarship)
  • Dr Roberta Minnucci (2020), Mnemosyne in the Avant-garde: Appropriation and Cultural Citation in Arte Povera (1965-1974) (M3C Scholarship, second supervisor)
  • Dr Katherine Doniak (2018), Feed Your Head: Conceptual Art and Counterculture in America (M3C Scholarship)
  • Dr Evan Jones (2017), The Xerox Machine: its Use and Influence in Business, Subculture and the Arts (AHRC Doctoral Award)

My teaching focuses primarily on American art, criticism and curating post-1945, in particular the relationship between art, politics, and protest; museums, exhibition histories and curatorial practice; and alternative or countercultural sites of artistic production and display.

Examples of modules that I teach are: Art in America 1945-1975; Art, Politics and Protest in Twentieth-century America; Los Angeles Art and Architecture, 1940-1980; The Sixties: Culture and Counterculture; Performance Art; Institutional Critique; and Exhibition Histories and Practices.

My teaching is informed by the notion that art history is not only about acquiring knowledge but also about producing meanings. A goal of my pedagogical practice is to encourage student to interrogate dominant historical narratives and to be cognisant of their own subjective position in viewing and understanding works of art and visual culture. My teaching methods are aimed at encouraging students to feel a sense of ownership over the process of learning and at creating a democratic classroom where students can develop confidence in their own critical voice and their ability not only to understand but also to shape society.

I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). In 2021 I won a University Lord Dearing Award for Teaching Excellence.

Current Research

My book, No More Masterpieces: Modern Art After Artaud is now available from Yale University Press. It presents an analysis of American art of the 1950s to the 1970s through the lens of the US reception of the French writer Antonin Artaud. I have recently published essays in Tate Papers and the Journal of the Archives of American Art.

I am currently developing two new projects: one that examines the intersection of cultural regionalism, the politics of art's publics, and ecological imperatives tied to place, as these relate to American art and criticism from the 1950s to the present day; and one on semi-fictional autobiography and the mobilisation of life narrative in American art of the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition, I am leading a project to unearth archival materials related to the 1958 exhibition Abstract Impressionism, organised by artist Harold Cohen and curator Lawrence Alloway at the University of Nottingham Art Gallery.

Past Research

My research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), J. Paul Getty Trust, Terra Foundation for American Art, and Andrew Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

In the two years following my PhD, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, I worked on a project entitled Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945-1980, which included an exhibition and accompanying publication, which I co-edited and co-authored.

Between 2011 and 2015 I was co-Director of the international research initiative Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator, which comprised several symposia, workshops, and a programme of visiting researchers to the Getty Research Institute. The project culminated in an award-winning collection of scholarly essays.

Department of Cultural, Media and Visual Studies

University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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