The Holberg Lecture by Griselda Pollock: "Art, Thought and Difficulty"

Are prefixes—feminist, postcolonial, international, queer, social—for histories of art labelling or obligations responding to lived emergencies?

My art writing is, they say, difficult. Necessarily so. Museal or academic keepers of cultural value and memory deem feminist, postcolonial, international, queer, social political-theoretical interventions of the last fifty years alien, distorting intrusions into a History of Art that disowns its own class/race/gender exclusivity and indifference that have real effects. Reviewing examples from my Holberg—the pandemic—year in writing, I make the case for my title and prefixes as obligations.

Griselda Pollock is Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art and Director of CentreCATH (Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History) at the University of Leeds. She was awarded the 2020 Holberg Prize  for her groundbreaking contributions to feminist art history and cultural studies.