Abigail Solomon-Godeau (born January 6, 1948, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, New York, U.S.A.) is an American art critic, exhibition curator and art historian.

Education

B.A. magna cum laude,

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

Ph.D. Graduate Center,

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

Life and work

Abigail Solomon-Godeau is an art critic and art historian who taught at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

, and is now a Professor Emeritus there in the Department of History of Art & Architecture. Solomon-Godeau has produced over 100 works in 236 publications in 4 languages. Her writing focuses on

feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist ...

, photography, 19th-century French art and

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

, and she offers a reassessment or revision of the ideas presented by the artistic "canon" and of some of her predecessors in the history of art, such as

Martha Rosler Martha Rosler (born 1943) is an American artist. She is a conceptual artist who works in photography and photo text, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler's work is centered on everyday ...

and

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

. In a 2004 essay she describes herself as among those who "intellectually came of age as postmodernists, poststructuralists, feminists, Marxists, antihumanists, or, for that matter, atheists." and later clarifies; :I do not consider my work to be particularly theoretical, although my writings on photography, like those on art history or contemporary art, are informed by the theorists, past and present, who have shaped my thinking overall. Perhaps my essays are best characterized as a form of practical criticism insofar as they engage with specific bodies of work, historical contexts, social relations, and institutional structures, rather than with the more philosophical questions manifested in the new field of the philosophy of photography. Her essays have appeared in journals including ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

'', ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

'', ''

The Art Journal ''The Art Journal'' was the most important British 19th-century magazine on art. It was founded in 1839 by Hodgson & Graves, print publishers, 6 Pall Mall, with the title ''Art Union Monthly Journal'' (or ''The Art Union''), the first issue of 7 ...

'', ''

Afterimage AfterImage is a Filipino rock band formed in 1986, best known for their songs "Habang May Buhay", "Next in Line", and "Mangarap Ka". They disbanded in 1997 and became active again in 2008 after they reunited and released their fourth studio album ...

'', ''Camera Obscura'', ''October'', ''Screen'', and many have been collected in anthologies in various languages. She is currently working on a book ''Genre, Gender and the Nude in French Art''.

Exhibition curator

Among the exhibitions Solomon-Godeau has curated are; *''The Way We Live Now'', 1982 *''Sexual Difference: Both Sides of the Camera'', 1992 *''Mistaken Identities'' (with Constance Lewallen), 1994 *''The Image of Desire; Femininity, Modernity, and the Birth of Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century France'' (with Beatrice Farwell), 1998.

Publications

Books

*''Photography at the Dock. Essays on Photographic History, Institution, and Practices'', University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1991. . *''Male Trouble. A Crisis in Representation'', Thames & Hudson, London 1999. . * (with Gabriele Schor as Ed.): ''Birgit Jürgenssen.'' Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2009, . *''Cannon fodder. Photography, speech, feminism , the textual,'' Paris 2016, . *''Photography after Photography. Gender, Genre, History'', Duke University Press, Durham, London 2017. .

Articles

* The phantom photographer, ''Art in America'', Nov 2011 * (with David Levi Strauss, Yasmine El Rashidi, Allan Sekula, Susie Linfield) The Anxiety Of Images, ''Aperture'', Sep 2011 * Mixed Use, Manhattan, ''Aperture'', Mar 2011. * Photographier la catastrophe hotograph the catastrophe ''Terrain,'' Mar 2010 * Thinking in images, ''Art In America,'' 2008, Vol. 96, No. 1. * Torture à Abou Ghraib : les médias et leur dehors, ''Multitudes'', Jan 2007 * Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789) in the collections of Musees d'Art et d'Histoire, ''Art in America,'' Nov 2006 * Jean-Etienne Liotard: Facing the enlightenment, ''Art in America''; Nov 2006, Vol. 94 Issue 10, p148. * Reflections - Susan Sontag 1933-2004, ''Artforum International'', Mar 2005 * Modern style: dressing down (issues raised by Museum of Modern Art's "Fashioning Fiction”), ''Artforum International'', v.42, no.9, 2004 May, p. 192(5) (ISSN: 1086-7058) * ‘“Confessions of a Snow Queen" and Other Strategies of Self- Representation’. ''Figurationen'', 3(1), pp. 123–140. 2002. * Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation, ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', Nov 2001 * The Exceptional Woman: Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art, ''Woman's Art Journal'', Nov 2000 * The Other Side of Vertu: Alternative Masculinities in the Crucible of Revolution, ''Art Journal'', Oct 1998 * Signs of Age: Representing the Older Body, ''Art in America'', Jul 1998 * Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation, ''Art History'' Vol. 16 No.2 June 1993 * Photography At The Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices, ''The Art Bulletin'', Dec 1992 * Living with Contradictions: Critical Practices in the Age of Supply-Side Aesthetics, ''Social Text'', Jan 1989 * The Legs of the Countess, ''October'', Dec 1987 * Reconstructing Documentary: Connie Hatch's Representational Resistance, ''Camera Obscura:Feminism Culture and Media Studies'', Mar 1985 * A Photographer in Jerusalem, 1855: Auguste Salzmann and His Times, ''October'', Vol. 18, (Autumn, 1981), pp. 90–107. The MIT Press * Photophilia: A Conversation about the Photography Scene, ''October'', Sep 1982

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon-Godeau, Abigail Women art historians Historians of photography American art historians American curators American women curators 1948 births Living people American women historians 21st-century American women