Abigail Susik (born 1977) is an American art historian, art critic, curator, and theorist of avant-garde and contemporary art. Susik's scholarly research purview includes surrealism, dada, photography, experimental film, animation, protest art, erotic art, new media art, and projection mapping. Susik primarily writes about transnational surrealism, countercultural resistance movements, and anti-work or abolitionist theories including the history and theory of strike and sabotage.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]She is a Joint Editor of the Bloomsbury Publishing Transnational Surrealism Book Series and a Board Member of Charles H. Kerr Publishing.[8] Susik is best known for her book Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work, published in 2021 by Manchester University Press, which has been reviewed by Michael Löwy, Joseph Nechvatal, Paul Buhle, and others. [9][10][11][12] [13][14]

Abigail Susik, 2024

Education

edit

After graduating with a B.A. in English, Art History, and Creative Writing from Barnard College in 1999, Susik studied in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Columbia University, receiving her M.A. in 2001, her M.Phil. in 2004, and her Ph.D. in 2009.[15] During her graduate degrees, she studied with Rosalind Krauss, Benjamin Buchloh, Anne Higonnet, Jonathan Crary, John Rajchman, and Andreas Huyssen.[16][17][18]

Career

edit

Susik is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Art History at Willamette University, as well as a faculty advisor for the Master of Arts Critical Studies Program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.[15] She is a founding Board Member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism and an Associate Editor of its publication, International Journal of Surrealism.[19][20] Between 2015 and 2019 she was a Member of the New Media Caucus Board of Directors and an Associate Editor of its publication, Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus.[21]

From 2009-2011 Susik was a postdoctoral teaching fellow in Art History at Millsaps College. In 2022-2023 Susik was a City of Vienna/IFK Senior Fellow at the IFK International Research Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna, and in 2023-2024 she is the Allen W. Clowes Fellow at the National Humanities Center.[22][21] She has been named a spring 2025 Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest.[15]

Susik curated an exhibition devoted to the modernist nude photography of Imogen Cunningham at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in 2016.[23] In Autumn 2024, her co-curated retrospective of the surrealist artist Alan Glass will open at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, traveling thereafter to Montreal.[24]

Research interests

edit

Susik's research focuses on modern and contemporary art and theory, the historiography of art history, Marxism, anarchism, Frankfurt School theory, Marxist feminism, social reproduction theory, labor theory of value, and the history of anti-capitalist protest movements.[25][26]Her research on post-World War II radicalism in the United States resulted in published interviews and profiles on Paul Buhle, John P. Clark, Silvia Federici, Ben Morea, and Penelope Rosemont.[27][28][29]She teaches a wide array of courses at Willamette University, including 18th through 21st century art history, a monographic course on Marcel Duchamp, methodologies of art history, Museology, History of photography, and a seminar on the critique and refusal of work.[15]

Author and critic

edit

Susik has published interviews, profile essays, and op-eds in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.[30][31][32] She is a regular contributor to radical publications such as Fifth Estate and Freedom.[33] She authored or co-authored studies on artists and writers including Louis Aragon,[34] Walter Benjamin,[35] André Breton,[36] Leonora Carrington,[37][38] Óscar Domínguez,[39] Marcel Duchamp,[40] Isidore Ducasse,[41] Max Ernst,[42] Alan Glass,[43]Eugène Grasset,[44] Alejandro Jodorowsky,[45]Konrad Klapheck,[46] Michel Leiris,[47] D. E. May,[48] Man Ray,[49] Hans Richter,[50] Franklin Rosemont,[51] Penelope Rosemont,[29] Françoise Sullivan,[52] Cy Twombly,[53] and Jules Verne.[54] Susik's book Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work was published in 2021 by Manchester University Press.[18] In Surrealist Sabotage, Susik analyzes the critique of wage labor and the exploration of sabotage theories in European and American surrealism between the 1920s and the 1970s.[55][56][57][58]

Selected bibliography

edit

Books

edit

As author

edit

As editor

edit
  • Absolutely Modern Mysteries: Surrealism and Film After 1945 (Manchester University Press, 2021).
  • Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance (with Elliott H. King) (Penn State University Press, 2022).
  • Resurgence! Jonathan Leake, Radical Surrealism, and the Resurgence Youth Movement 1964-67 (Eberhardt Press, 2023).

References

edit
  1. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "Introduction", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 1–21, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00007, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  2. ^ Buhle, Paul (2022-03-11). "Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work | Abigail Susik | Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2022 (#105)". Rain Taxi. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  3. ^ Jones, Brittany (August 2023). "Resurgence! Jonathan Leake, Radical Surrealism, and the Resurgence Youth Movement, 1964–1967, Burlington Contemporary - Reviews". contemporary.burlington.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  4. ^ Isaacson, Johanna (2023-09-30). "World Revolution of Youth! On Abigail Susik's "Resurgence!"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  5. ^ "2023 Book Prize Shortlist: Edition, Anthology, or Essay Collection". msa.press.jhu.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  6. ^ Wieder, Emily (2023-04-06). "Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance". Dada/Surrealism. 24 (1). doi:10.17077/0084-9537.31908. ISSN 0084-9537.
  7. ^ Bittencourt, Ela (2022-07-05). "Surrealist Cinema's Drive Towards Freedom". Frieze. No. 228. ISSN 0962-0672. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  8. ^ Bloomsbury.Domain.Store.Site. "Transnational Surrealism: Bloomsbury Publishing (US)". www.bloomsbury.com. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  9. ^ Nechvatal, Joseph (2022-03-08). "Abigail Susik's Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  10. ^ Hopkins, David (October 2023). "Surrealism: between politics and the picture book". The Burlington Magazine. 165 (1447): 1117–1123.
  11. ^ Frere-Jones, Sasha (2022-02-23). "Convulsions". NLR/Sidecar.
  12. ^ Desnivic, Michael (Spring 2022). "Work and the Dreamers Against It: Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work by Abigail Susik, Issue 411, Spring, 2022 - Fifth Estate Magazine". Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  13. ^ Löwy, Michael (November 2022). "Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work by Abigail Susik". Modernism/Modernity. 29 (4): 889–891. doi:10.1353/mod.2022.0045. ISSN 1080-6601.
  14. ^ Sparks, Kaegan (2022-08-18). "IDLE HANDS: Surrealism versus the work ethic". Artforum. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  15. ^ a b c d "Abigail Susik | Art History Faculty & Staff | Willamette". willamette.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  16. ^ "Abigail Susik | Art History Faculty & Staff | Willamette". willamette.edu. 4 May 2022. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  17. ^ ""Rosalind Krauss"". Columbia University in the City of New York. 2022-05-04. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  18. ^ a b Susik, Abigail. "Manchester University Press - Surrealist sabotage and the war on work". Manchester University Press. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  19. ^ "International Journal of Surrealism". University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  20. ^ "Officers, Advisory Board, and Committee Members". 2017-12-15. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  21. ^ a b "Abigail Susik, 2023–24 | National Humanities Center". Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  22. ^ "Fellow - Abigail Susik - IFK". www.ifk.ac.at. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  23. ^ ""For Myself" | Nudes by Imogen Cunningham | HFMA Exhibition". willamette.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  24. ^ Susik, Abigail; Noheden, Kristoffer. "Burlington Contemporary - Journal". contemporary.burlington.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  25. ^ "Manchester University Press - Surrealist sabotage and the war on work". Manchester University Press. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  26. ^ Susik, Abigail. ""Points of Convergence: Chicago 1960s," Surrealism Beyond Borders, eds. Stephanie D'Alessandro and Matthew Gale (Tate Modern; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021), 112–15". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  27. ^ Susik, Abigail; Buhle, Paul (2023-08-22). "'So Much Surrealism that Things Will Never Be the Same': A Conversation with Paul Buhle". Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. 14 (1): 91–105. ISSN 2326-0459.
  28. ^ Susik, Abigail (2023-06-23). "Building a Movement Against the War on Reproduction: Connecting with Silvia Federici". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  29. ^ a b Susik, Abigail (2021-12-08). "'Always for Pleasure': Chicago Surrealism and Fashion, An Interview with Penelope Rosemont". Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. 12 (1): 78–92. ISSN 2326-0459.
  30. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-11). "Opinion | Could the Great Resignation Help Workers? Take a Look at History". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  31. ^ "Abigail Susik". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  32. ^ Susik, Abigail (2022-01-19). "Perspective | Can the pandemic labor shortage help us envision a world without work?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  33. ^ "Susik, Fifth Estate". Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  34. ^ Susik, Abigail (2011-11-20), Bru, Sascha; Nuijs, Laurence; Hjartarson, Benedikt; Nicholls, Peter (eds.), "Between the Old and the New: The Surrealist Outmoded as a Radical Third Term", Regarding the Popular, DE GRUYTER, pp. 321–337, doi:10.1515/9783110274691.321, ISBN 978-3-11-027456-1, retrieved 2024-04-12
  35. ^ Susik, Abigail (2010). The Vertigo of the Modern: Surrealism and Outmoded. Columbia University.
  36. ^ Noheden, Kristoffer; Susik, Abigail (2021-07-06). Surrealism and film after 1945: Absolutely modern mysteries. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-4997-8.
  37. ^ Harris, Caroline I. (2019-03-22). "Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-garde". Woman's Art Journal. 40 (1): 56–58.
  38. ^ Susik, Abigail. "Snobbism, Juvenilia and 'The Children's Corner': Carrington's Contributions to S.NOB in 1962," Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-Garde, eds. Jonathan P. Eburne and Catriona McAra (Manchester University Press, 2016), 106–24". Manchester University Press. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  39. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "3 Óscar Domínguez: Autonomy and autoeroticism", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 110–181, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00010, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  40. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "1 Genealogy of the surrealist work refusal", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 22–49, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00008, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  41. ^ Susik, Abigail (2023-06-14), "Wage Labour as Contagion", Contagion, Hygiene, and the European Avant-Garde (1 ed.), New York: Routledge, pp. 165–181, doi:10.4324/9781003309000-11, ISBN 978-1-003-30900-0, retrieved 2024-04-12
  42. ^ Susik, Abigail (2011-06-01). ""The Man of these Infinite Possibilities": Max Ernst's Cinematic Collages". Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture. 1: 61–87. doi:10.5195/contemp.2011.27. ISSN 2153-5914.
  43. ^ Susik, Abigail; Noheden, Kristoffer. "Burlington Contemporary - Journal". contemporary.burlington.org.uk. doi:10.31452/bcj4.glass.susik-noheden. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  44. ^ Susik, Abigail (2014), Härmänmaa, Marja; Nissen, Christopher (eds.), "Consuming and Consumed: Woman as Habituée in Eugène Grasset's Morphinomaniac", Decadence, Degeneration, and the End, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 103–123, doi:10.1057/9781137470867_7, ISBN 978-1-349-50080-2, retrieved 2024-04-12
  45. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), Noheden, Kristoffer; Susik, Abigail (eds.), "10 The alchemy of surrealist presence in Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain", Surrealism and film after 1945, Manchester University Press, pp. 186–206, doi:10.7765/9781526150011.00018, ISBN 978-1-5261-5001-1, retrieved 2024-04-12
  46. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "Epilogue: Override dysfunctions and the 'Klapheck computer'", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 238–246, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00012, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  47. ^ Susik, Abigail (2023-02-16), Watz, Anna (ed.), "Automatism, Autobiography, and Thanatography in the Surrealist Novel", A History of the Surrealist Novel (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–71, doi:10.1017/9781009082648.005, ISBN 978-1-009-08264-8, retrieved 2024-04-12
  48. ^ Susik, Abigail. "D.E. May and the Gift of Unknowable Intimacy – Drain Magazine". Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  49. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "2 Surrealist automatism as symbolic sabotage", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 50–109, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00009, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  50. ^ Susik, Abigail. ""Animistic Time in Hans Richter's Vormittagsspuk (1927–1928)," in Time and Temporality in Literary Modernism (1900–1950) (Peeters, 2016), 243–58". www.peeters-leuven.be. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  51. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-12-31), "4 Direct action surrealism in Chicago", Surrealist sabotage and the war on work, Manchester University Press, pp. 182–237, doi:10.7765/9781526155023.00011, ISBN 978-1-5261-5502-3, retrieved 2024-04-12
  52. ^ Susik, Abigail. ""'We Strove to go Further': Françoise Sullivan, Les Automatistes, and Responses to Surrealism in World War II-era Montreal" International Journal of Surrealism 1:1, "The 'Problem of Woman' in Surrealism," fall 2023". manifold.umn.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  53. ^ Susik, Abigail. "Cy Twombly: Writing after Writing," Rebus: A Journal of Theory and Art History, no. 3 (Winter 2009): 1–28". Scribd. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  54. ^ Susik, Abigail (2015-06-01), Parkinson, Gavin (ed.), "Surrealism and Jules Verne: Depth of Subtext in a Collage by Max Ernst", Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics, Liverpool University Press, pp. 16–39, doi:10.5949/liverpool/9781781381434.003.0002, ISBN 978-1-78138-143-4, retrieved 2024-04-12
  55. ^ Susik, Abigail (2021-10-12). Surrealist sabotage and the war on work. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-5500-9.
  56. ^ d'Alancaisez, Pierre (Mar 31, 2022). "Abigail Susik, "Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work" (Manchester UP, 2021)". New Books Network. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  57. ^ Shukaitis, Stevphen. "Minor Compositions". fireflyfrequencies.org. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  58. ^ "Stories from the Space Between: Surrealist Sabotage on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2024-04-15.