Lifework

This collection explores what Roland Barthes termed the ‘autobiographical turn’ in art, literature and critical theory since the mid-1960s. Through a variety of perspectives, it examines the relationship between work and life, notions of the ‘self’ and what autobiography might mean today. -- .

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Following the critical scepticism surrounding the notion of the ‘self’ as a singular entity during the 1960s, many artists and writers sought to test the apparent problem posed by autobiography as both a traditional genre and as a way of working. Considering the consequent emergence of autotheory, Lifework traces this shift in artistic and literary production during the late twentieth century and beyond, examining a set of diverse practices that mine the line between what it is to make art and what it is to live life. The book’s chapters connect a variety of artistic strategies that cut across medium, geography and time, uncovering how the historical marginalisation of first-person experience has taken on larger social, cultural and political implications in the contemporary moment and how the work of living might still relate to the work of art. -- .