Margot Lovejoy (21 October 1930 – 1 August 2019)Margot Lovejoy Obit
in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

was a

digital artist 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 ...

and historian of art and technology. She was Professor Emerita of Visual Arts at the State University of New York at Purchase. She was the author of ''Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age.'' Lovejoy was recipient of a 1987, Guggenheim Fellows Entry Guggenheim Fellowship and a 1994 Arts International Grant in India.

''Digital Currents''

In her best known historic work, ''Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age'', Lovejoy followed on the research of

Frank Popper Frank Popper (17 April 1918 – 12 July 2020) was a Czech-born French-British historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He was decorated with the medal of the L ...

Jack Burnham Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the mai ...

and

Gene Youngblood Gene Youngblood (May 30, 1942 – April 6, 2021) was an American theorist of media arts and politics, and a respected scholar in the history and theory of alternative cinemas. His best-known book, ''Expanded Cinema'', was the first to consider vi ...

by documenting the historical record of the relationship between technology and art as culminating in

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 name ...

. Lovejoy recounted the early histories of electronic media for art making (video,

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many tradit ...

, the Internet) by providing a context for the works of major artists in each media, describing their projects, and discussing the issues and theoretical implications of each to create a foundation for understanding this developing field of

. In ''Digital Currents'' she explored the growing impact of digital technologies on aesthetic experience and examined the major changes taking place in the role of the artist as social communicator. She demonstrated that just as the rise of photographic techniques in the mid-19th century shattered traditional views about representation, so too have contemporary electronic tools catalyzed new perspectives on art, affecting the way artists see, think, and work, and the ways in which their productions are distributed and communicated.

Websites

Her website ''Parthenia'' was archived by the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

as part adaweb.com and her website ''TURNS'' was featured in the 2002

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

Biennial.

Publications

*''Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age'' *''Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media'' *''Labyrinth'' (1991) *''The Book of Plagues'' (1995) *''Paradoxic mutations'' *''Manifestations''

Awards

*1987: Guggenheim Fellowship *1994: Arts International Grant, India

Solo exhibitions

*Alternative Museum, New York * P.S.#1 Contemporary Art Center, New York * Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, New York *

Queens Museum of Art The Queens Museum, formerly the Queens Museum of Art, is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the borough (New York City), borough of Queens in New York City, United States. The museum was founded in 1 ...

, New York *Neuberger Museum of Art, New York *Stamford Museum, New York *Islip Museum, New York

Collections

Lovejoy's work is held in the following collections: *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

*Getty Institute *Neuberger Museum

References

Christiane Paul Christiane Paul (; born 8 March 1974 in Berlin-Pankow) is a German film, television and stage actress. Paul first worked as a model for magazines such as '' Bravo''. She was 17 when she obtained her first leading role in the film '. Prior to h ...

, ''Digital Art'', Thames & Hudson, London, p. 219 {{DEFAULTSORT:Lovejoy, Margot American art critics American art historians 1930 births 2019 deaths Postmodernists Cultural historians State University of New York at Purchase faculty American digital artists Women digital artists Postmodern artists Artists from New York (state) New media artists American installation artists Mass media theorists American women historians Women art historians 21st-century American women artists