Various contemporary theorists have argued that we live in an age that has seen the end of art, art history, and aesthetics. The death of the "grand narrative" of Western civilization based on foundationalist theories of knowledge and univer salizing concepts of aesthetic value means that the study of art needs a new "frame." If neither "art," understood as cultural artifacts of general aesthetic appeal, nor "history," as a teleological account of human development, can be assumed to guarantee the "history of art," then how do we justify distinguishing it from other forms of cultural studies?

Far from denying the tradition of "art," this talk will argue that its study can usefully be juxtaposed with that of many other forms of cultural imagery. This serves to open art history to the types of theories and methods used in the study of other kinds of imagery. Such a perspective does insist, however, that "art’s" frame must now be local and particular, rather than global and universal. It is only in the context of a constructed frame that the study of "art" can derive the benefits of interdisciplinarity without losing the unique qualities that distinguish it from the study of other kinds of images.

Keith Moxey is professor of art history at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is the author of Pieter Aersten, Joachim Beuckelaer, and the Rise of Secular Painting in the Context of the Reformation (New York: Garland Publishers, 1977), Peasants, Warriors, and Wives: Popular Imagery in the Reformation (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989), and The Practice of Theory: Poststructuralism, Cultural Politics, and Art History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). He is the coeditor of Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), Visual Culture: Images and Interpretations (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994), and The Subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Among his grants are two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute grants (director; 1987, 1989). In 1998 he was codirector of the Getty Summer Institute on Visual and Cultural Studies, which he will codirect again this summer.

Moxey’s passionate intellectual position is apparent in the excerpt (at right) from the preface to his book The Practice of Theory. His remarks, written five years ago, are still pertinent and valid today.

Read an interview with Keith Moxey.

Just as any cultural practice, say, the writing of history, cannot be undertaken without reference to theory, so theory cannot be formulated outside of historical circumstances. Rather than invoke the traditional metaphors of surface and depth, according to which theory is said to lie at a deeper, more foundational level than practice, I would argue that both types of cultural activity lie in the same intellectual plane.

Such ideas are hardly new. In fact they have become something of a commonplace in other fields of the humanities and have already had enormous effects on art history. I believe, however, that their full implications for art historical practice have not yet been fully articulated. Far from constituting an assault on previous conventions of art history writing, for which the assembling and interpretation of empirical evidence remains a crucial concern, this book is intended to promote a theoretical awareness that will enable such traditions to locate themselves within the broader intellectual landscape offered by the humanities as a whole. Far from suggesting that what has come to be known as "traditional" art history is untheorized, I believe that it is important to denaturalize its theoretical assumptions so that they can be evaluated in the context of the intellectual concerns of our own time. This book is meant to challenge the claim that there is no place in art history for theory and that our discipline’s success depends upon its capacity to assume that the theories on which it bases its results cannot be called into question.