New Book

Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven

17th Mar 2019

Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven

David Craven; edited by Brian Winkenweder

• $36 / £31.99 • 9781608469949 • 588 Pages

Historical Materialism, new in paperback catalogue: https://we.tl/t-DNvshoI187

The key writings of one of the most important and unorthodox Marxists to study modern art.

Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven brings together more than thirty essays that chart the development of Craven’s voice as an unorthodox Marxist who applied historical materialism to the study of modern art. This book demonstrates the range and versatility of David Craven’s praxis as a ‘democratic socialist’ art historian who assessed the essential role the visual arts play in imagining more just and equitable societies. The essays collected here reveal Craven’s lifelong commitment to exposing interstices between western and non-western cultures by researching the reciprocating influences between First- and Third-World artists, critics and historians.

Customers in North America can order the book direct from Haymarket’s website at a 30% discount, with free postage: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1189-art-history-as-social-praxis

We encourage customers elsewhere to order through independent bookstores where possible, particularly the Alliance of Radical Booksellers in the UK: http://www.radicalbooksellers.co.uk/  

David Lee Craven, Ph.D. (1979), University of North Carolina, was Distinguished Professor at University of New Mexico and passed away in 2012. He was an art historian who displayed rare intellect and industry. In his lifetime Craven wrote more than fifteen monographs and exhibition catalogues on such diverse topics as Diego Rivera, Abstract Expressionism, Rudolf Baranik and art associated with Latin American revolutions. In addition to being a dedicated professor and inspirational lecturer, he published over 150 essays, articles and reviews in such academic journals as Art History,Kritische Berichte andThird Text and mass-circulation publications such asArts Magazine andTema Celeste; further, his writings have appeared in dozens of anthologies, encyclopaedias and newspapers.

Brian Winkenweder, Ph.D. (2004), Stony Brook University is Professor of Art History at Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon. He co-edited Dialectical Conversions: Donald Kuspit’s Art Criticism with David Craven (Liverpool University Press, 2011). He also published ‘David Craven’s Future Perfect’ at the online journalThird Text.

For publicity requests or any other queries, contact uk@haymarketbooks.org (Europe) or john@haymarketbooks.org (US, rest of world).