IVAN GASKELL
Welcome to my personal website. I am a cultural historian
working at the intersection of history, art history, anthropology, museology,
and philosophy. I incorporate philosophy of art and artifacts into historical
writing and exhibition practice.
New: In January
I took up a new position as professor of cultural history and of museum
studies, and curator and head of the Focus Project, at the Bard Graduate Center, New York City.
I realize that my combination of interests confuses
people—it confuses me—but interdisciplinarity,
rather than narrow academic specialization, is our fate. It’s also in my temperament
to define and ask the question behind the question (and the question behind
that question). It annoys so many
people.
Recent Thoughts: July 9, 2011
and December 21, 2011. (For the
complete list, click the heading.)
In a career at London University’s Warburg Institute,
Cambridge University, Harvard University, and—since January
2012—the Bard Graduate Center, I have written, edited, and contributed to
a bunch of books and academic journals, and published contemporary art
criticism. My subject matter is diverse because I am concerned with the
principles of writing history from art and artifacts. My work on early modern
Dutch and Flemish art—notably Johannes Vermeer— attracts
some readers, while that on museum practice engages others. Yet others dip into
my philosophy contributions, notably Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and the Arts, the book series
I edited with Salim Kemal.
I have curated numerous long-term museum
installations and art exhibitions, mostly at Harvard, but am now looking after
a new initiative at the Bard Graduate Center—the Focus
Project—comprising faculty-led endeavors combining teaching, research,
publishing, and exhibiting in the Center’s new Focus Gallery.
While acknowledging the inescapability of my European and
American identity, I promote cultural decentering (no more centers and
peripheries). I advocate attention to the visual creativity of a wide range of societies.
Recently, I have written and lectured on topics from Polynesia, Congo, and
Native American nations in the USA.
I am starting to make podcasts of lectures available: try
listening by following the link to my podcast page. Here’s a
link to a video of a lecture I gave at the Getty in June, 2009, “Art
and Beyond: Some Contemporary Challenges for Art and Anthropology Museums.”
It’s
far longer than anyone could reasonably bear.
Prospective students who are interested in working with me
should also visit my Bard Graduate
Center webpage.
