Cases of Citation

Cases of citation presents a history of artists who incorporated literary references into their work from the 1960s onwards.

Through a series of object-focused chapters that each take up a singular ‘case of citation’, the collection considers how literary citation emerged as a viable and urgent strategy for artists during this period. It surveys nine artworks by a diverse group of artists – including David Wojnarowicz, Lis Rhodes, Romare Bearden and Silvia Kolbowski – whose citations draw on literary works with authors ranging from Gertrude Stein to Jean Genet.

The book also features an interview with pioneering feminist artist Elaine Reichek that discusses her career-long commitment to working with text. Together, the artworks and cited texts are approached from various critical angles, with each author questioning and complicating the ways in which we can ‘read’ textual citations in art.