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

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

) is an American art critic, exhibition curator, art historian, and Professor Emerita in art history,

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, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

Education

B.A.,

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the Public university, public university system of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes six campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell ...

, magna cum laude Ph.D., Graduate Center,

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) 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 ...

Career

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

, and is now a Professor Emeritus there in the Department of History of Art & Architecture. Solomon-Godeau is a 2001

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated d ...

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

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 Philosophy, philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's Gender role, social roles, experiences, intere ...

, photography, 19th-century French art and

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

, 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 art, video, installation art, installation, sculpture, site-specific art, site-specific and performance art, performance, a ...

and

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

. 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'', ''

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

'', ''

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 An afterimage, or after-image, is an image that continues to appear in the eyes after a period of exposure to the original image. An afterimage may be a normal phenomenon (physiological afterimage) or may be pathological (palinopsia). Illusory ...

'', ''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''.

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 * * 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 American women art historians Historians of photography American art historians American curators American women curators 1948 births Living people 21st-century American women