Johanna Drucker
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Johanna Drucker (born May 30, 1952) is an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language:
letterform A letterform, letter-form or letter form, is a term used especially in typography, palaeography, calligraphy and epigraphy to mean a letter's shape. A letterform is a type of glyph, which is a specific, concrete way of writing an abstract ch ...
s,
typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
,
visual poetry Literary theorists have identified visual poetry as a development of concrete poetry but with the characteristics of intermedia in which non-representational language and visual elements predominate. Differentiation from concrete poetry As the li ...
,
art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, and lately,
digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...
aesthetics. She is currently the Martin and Bernard Breslauer Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
.


Biography

Johanna Ruth Drucker was born in 1952 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
to a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family, the daughter of Barbara (née Witmer) and Boris Drucker (1920–2009). Her father was a
cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...
whose works were published in diverse publications as ''
The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'' and ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. Drucker earned her B.F.A. from the
California College of Arts and Crafts California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
in 1973 and her Ph.D. from the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1986. She was previously the Robertson Professor of Media Studies at the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
, and has been on the faculties of Purchase College, SUNY,
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
,
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and the
University of Texas, Dallas The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD or UT Dallas) is a public research university in Richardson, Texas. It is one of the largest public universities in the Dallas area and the northernmost institution of the University of Texas system. It wa ...
. She has also been the Digital Humanities Fellow at the
Stanford Humanities Center Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
, Digital Cultures Fellow at
UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...
, and Mellon Faculty Fellow in Fine Arts at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. She is a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.


Artistic activity

Drucker is internationally renowned for her book art, which touches on a variety of themes, especially "the exploration of the conventions of narrative prose and the devices by which it orders, sequences, and manipulates events according to its own logic" as well as "the use of experimental typography to expand the possibilities of prose beyond the linear format of traditional presentation." Her work has been exhibited at universities, libraries, galleries, and museums throughout the world, including
Museum of Arts and Design The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...
,
Cooper-Hewitt Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
,
National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...
,
New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
,
Scripps College Scripps College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Claremont, California. It was founded as a member of the Claremont Colleges in 1 ...
,
Walter Phillips Gallery The Walter Phillips Gallery (WPG) is a contemporary art gallery in Banff, Alberta. It was established in 1976 as a part of The Banff Centre in Banff National Park. History and mission Walter J. Phillips was a printmaker and painter, from the ...
,
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
,
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
,
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
,
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
,
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
,
University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...
,
Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
,
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...
,
University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
,
Houston Public Library Houston Public Library is the public library system serving Houston, Texas, United States. History Houston Lyceum and the Carnegie Library The Houston Public Library system traces its founding to the creation of the second Houston Lyceum in 18 ...
,
San Francisco Center for the Book The San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB) is a non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Mary Austin and Kathleen Burch in San Francisco, California in the United States. The first center of its kind on the West Coast, SFCB was modeled after ...
, SUNY,
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
,
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
,
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
,
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
,
Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in the town of Henrietta, New York, Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degree ...
,
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
,
California College of Arts and Crafts California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
,
University of the Arts (Philadelphia) The University of the Arts (UArts) is a private art university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia. Dating back to the 1870s, it is one of the oldest schools of art o ...
, Istvan Kiraly Museum in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
, and
Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...
. A retrospective of Drucker's work, titled ''Druckworks: 40 Years of Books and Projects by Johanna Drucker'' has been exhibited throughout the United States.


Research

Drucker's research focuses on alphabet historiography, modeling interpretation for electronic scholarship, digital aesthetics, the history of visual information design, history of the book and print culture, history of information, and critical studies in visual knowledge representation. Her monograph, ''The Century of Artist's Book'' (1995), was the first monograph length publication on the topic of artist's books. Most recently, her scholarship has focused on information visualization, "which draws heavily on models from the empirical sciences, where approaches based on representation and transparency prevail." In contrast to this approach, Drucker stresses the rhetorical and performative nature of visualization, with emphasis on interpretation. She contends that digital tools should be used to "design graphic forms that inscribe subjectivity and affective judgment."


Books


1990s

In her first book, ''Theorizing Modernism: Visual Art and the Critical Tradition'' (1994), Drucker maps
visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
discourses through a rigorous examination of the rhetoric of 19th and 20th century critical writing and art practice. In the process, she theorizes the modernist tradition of visual art through a rhetoric of representation rather than from a formalist or historical approach, particularly regarding
space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...
, the ontology of the object, and the production of
subjectivity Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...
. In ''The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art'' (1994), Drucker contends that much art criticism of
Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...
,
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, and
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
has failed to appreciate the fundamental materiality of these movements in relation to both visual and poetic forms of representation. Drucker emphasized, for the first time, the extent to which typographic activity furthered debates about the very nature and function of the
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
. Continuing with her interest in letterform, Drucker's next book, ''The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters in History and Imagination'' (1995) analyzes the history of the alphabet, not just as a collection of arbitrary signs, but as the direct visual embodiment of meaning in relation to intellectual movements. For example, she shows how modern typefaces, first developed in the late 18th century, embody Enlightenment philosophy. Shifting her focus to artist books, ''Century of Artists' Books'' (1995) is the first full-length analysis of the development of artists' books as a 20th-century art form, exploring their structure, form, and conceptualization. Analyzing such artistic luminaries as
William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
, and
Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...
, Drucker considers the book as metaphor, poem, and narrative or non-narrative sequence by situating its historical, theoretical, sociological, and technical aspects within 20th century avant-garde art movements. ''Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics'' (1998) is a collection of selected critical essays by Drucker previously published in literary and scholarly journals. The book begins with a discussion of her work as a
book artist Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...
and an account of what led her to pursue her scholarly interests. She provides close readings of contemporary language artists and the use of language in cyberspace.


2000s

In collaboration with Brad Freeman, Drucker produced ''Nova Reperta'' (2000), inspired by illustrations by the sixteenth-century Flemish artist Johannes
Stradanus Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van der Straet or Giovanni StradanoMore name variations: Johannes Stradanus, Giovanni della Strada, Johannes della Strada, Giovanni Stradano, Johannes Stradano, Giovanni Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van St ...
. Work on ''Nova Reperta'' was originally begun by Drucker and Freeman in 1993, who planned to include the work in the exhibition ''Science and the Artist's Book''
Science and the Artist's Book
'
organized by the
Smithsonian Institution Libraries Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution ...
. She collaborated again with Freeman on ''Emerging Sentience'' (2001), a work that reflects Drucker's interest in the literature of artificial intelligence and the development of digital media. In ''Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity'' (2005), Drucker calls for a revamp of the academic critical vocabulary to something more befitting new forms and practices in
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 ...
, especially as it engages with material culture. Considered at the cutting edge of art criticism, ''Sweet Dreams'' details the clear departure of artists from modernist avant-garde movements and shows the ways in which art criticism can shift its terms and sensibilities. ''Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide'' (2008) is an edited volume that traces the social and cultural role of visual communication from prehistory to the present, from logos to posters, from the political to the commercial, from early writing to digital design. The book details the ways in which designers have historically shaped graphic forms and effects. Taking up evolving issues of methodology in the burgeoning field of
digital humanities Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...
, ''SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Speculative Computing'' (2009) emphasizes the visual over the written system, the generative over the descriptive, and aesthetic subjectivity over analytic objectivism by building on the collective intellectual ferment of digital humanities as it developed at the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
, one of the universities where the field of digital humanities first developed.


2010s

In ''Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production'' (2014), Drucker fuses digital humanities, media studies, and graphic design history to provide a descriptive critical language for the analysis of graphical knowledge and outline the principles by which visual formats organize meaningful content, particularly the
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
.


2020s

* ''Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist'' (about
Ilia Zdanevich Ilia Mikhailovich Zdanevich ( ka, ილია ზდანევიჩი, russian: link=no, Илья́ Миха́йлович Здане́вич) (April 21, 1894 – December 25, 1975), known as Iliazd ( ka, ილიაზდ), was a Polish an ...
), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. * ''Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present'', University of Chicago Press, 2022, 380 pp.


Selected scholarly work

* ''Theorizing Modernism: Visual Art and the Critical Tradition'', Columbia University Press, 1994. () * ''The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art'', The University of Chicago Press, 1994. () * ''The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters in History and Imagination'', Thames and Hudson, 1995. () * ''The Century of Artists' Books'', Granary Books, 1995. () * ''Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics'', Granary Books, 1998. () * ''Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity'', University Of Chicago Press, 2005. () * ''Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide'', with
Emily McVarish Emily McVarish (born 1965) is an American writer, designer, book artist and professor at California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco and her work primarily takes the form of books. Clifton Meador says "she uses the form of ...
, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008 () * ''SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Speculative Computing'', University of Chicago Press, 2009. () * ''Digital_Humanities'', with Anne Burdick,
Peter Lunenfeld Peter Lunenfeld (born 1962, in New York City) is a critic and theorist of digital media, digital humanities, and urban humanities. He is a professor and the Vice Chair of the Design Media Arts department at UCLA, director of the Institute for Te ...
, Todd Presner, and
Jeffrey Schnapp Jeffrey Schnapp is an American university professor who works as a cultural historian, designer, and technologist. Until joining the Harvard University in 2011, he was the director of the Stanford Humanities Lab from its foundation in 1999 throug ...
, MIT Press, 2012. () * ''What Is?: Nine Epistemological Essays'', Cuneiform Press, 2013. () * ''Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production'', Harvard University Press, 2014. () * ''Visualization and Interpretation: Humanistic Approaches to Display'', MIT Press, 2020. () * ''Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. ()


See also

*
Language poets The Language poets (or ''L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E'' poets, after the magazine of that name) are an avant-garde group or tendency in United States poetry that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The poets included: Bernadette Mayer, Leslie Scalapi ...
*
List of concrete and visual poets Below is a partial list of concrete poets and visual poets with article written, where appropriate, from around the world. India Binayak Dutta Belgium * Guy Bleus Brazil * Eduardo Kac * Augusto de Campos * Haroldo de Campos * Décio Pignata ...


Notes


External links

* Johanna Drucker Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Faculty web page


on art meets technology:the history and effects of the alphabet

on
Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and Aesthetics, art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. Life and work ...
and Critical Pleasure'' * Johanna Drucker, 'Temporal Photography',
Philosophy of Photography
volume 1, number 1, Intellect Publishers, Spring 2010, pp. 22–28.)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drucker, Johanna Book artists Communication design American art critics American art historians Living people American art curators American women curators Cultural historians Jewish American historians American contemporary artists Jewish American academics UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies faculty 1952 births Women book artists American women artists Jewish American artists American women historians Women art historians Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences People in digital humanities Historians from California 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women Electronic literature critics